Engagement between Chinese research institutions and those in the outside world has become a hot topic in recent years. One Harvard chemistry professor was arrested by the FBI in 2000 over claims he took money from Chinese partners illegally, and was subsequently jailed. The British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, in a speech marking the end of the so-called Golden Era between Britain and China, stated that he could order the closure of all Confucius Institutes in Britain, funded in part by an agency of the Chinese government, the Han Ban, although this was a pledge he was to walk back on earlier this year. A fierce debate about the China Centre at Jesus College, Cambridge, typified much of the current spirit of controversy, with detractors saying it parroted Chinese government lines, and supporters saying it represented the sincere beliefs of its members. Whatever the merits of the argument itself, the centre was subsequently reformed and restructured.
For all the furious heat of this debate, as with all things relating to China outside the country, getting a sense of perspective and balance has proved hard. There are aspects of Chinese power that prey on the minds of people in Europe and America. The idea of a `hidden hand’ somehow creeping out from the Communist Party in Beijing through its United Front party and meddling with our organisations, and minds, has a dramatic appeal. As I wrote in my book, China Incorporated, in many ways China has had big success with a psychological war, even if it in reality never intended to launch such a campaign. A recent controversy in the Houses of Parliament in Britain over claims that it was being infiltrated with Chinese spies and agents typified this. As author and long-term student of China, Isabel Hilton, pointed out, the danger with the current atmosphere is that any knowledge of China, or any contact for that matter, particularly by higher education entities in Britain, is seen as dodgy. One day, people are being told that there is an urgent necessity to improve their knowledge and understanding of this hugely important partner, the next that to do so is dangerous and risky.
The great anomaly of this discussion is any honest recognition of how massive Chinese support of the British, and to some extent the American and Australian, higher education sector is. A recent report by former Minister for Higher Education, Jo Johnson, set out some of the data. There are almost 200,000 Chinese students in Britain, whose expensive fees are a crucial source of funding for cash-hungry universities. Unpalatable as many might find it, the great representative bodies of Western enlightenment thinking and values have become reliant on money from citizens from the world’s last major one-party communist state. Nor is there an easy alternative on the horizon any time soon, with budgets squeezed, and the option of students from other countries coming to fill the gap fanciful and unlikely.
To add to this is the reality of how impossible it will be to meet current global challenges, and in particular managing and perhaps even solving global warming, without collaboration with China, the answers to which are to be predominantly found in globalised research institutions. The choice is not therefore about whether to work with China or not, but how, and to what extent.
Additionally, China’s aspirations to be a technology superpower are real, and backed up by massive budgets, much of which has gone to universities which can, and often do, use this to collaborate with international partners in the HE sector. The 14th Five Year Programme, China’s broad masterplan for how it intends to develop its economy, passed in 2021 allocates over 3% of GDP to Research and Development in the coming years, with 7% increases each year. This came to a staggering USD450 billion in 2022 alone, placing the country second only to the US. China’s aim is largely to wean itself off reliance on external technology. In some areas, like AI and life sciences, it has made huge strides. In semi-conductors, the prospects look less rosy, at least for the highest technology. Even so, China’s will is clear to see. The challenge for those outside is how much they want to be a part of this.
Never before has a well-refined and thought-out strategic response to this situation been more crucial. Between the two options of not working together, and working together on everything, lies a spectrum of almost countless other possibilities. Into the mix has to go dextrous risk management, good awareness of the opportunities and challenges, and a strong calculation of self-interest. What do foreign partners want from China, and how are they best placed to get it without exposing themselves to political, commercial, and intellectual property risk? One thing is for sure. Never before has deep, intimate nuanced knowledge of China and Chinese partners been so maligned and exposed to suspicion and distrust in the West – and yet never before has it been so necessary. The current atmosphere is unsustainable, and its continuation presents a far greater risk to Western interests than anything posed by China itself. A confident, discriminating, and strategic posture by governments, universities and organisations dealing with this issue is the only defensible one to take.
Yet even within this context of suspicion and monitoring, it is good to see that the vast majority of universities and researchers are adopting this approach, despite the shrill distraction of those that have assumed more extreme and unrealistic positions. There are clearly areas like environmental sciences, and technologies that allow the world to reduce its carbon emissions imprint, along with other areas of medicine and life sciences, where the imperative morally and practically is to work with partners, from China or anywhere else, to face these common challenges. Carving up knowledge so that it carries a nation-related tag is a strange idea. Universities, wherever they are, should seek to work with others unless there is compelling reason not to do so. That should be the default, rather than demanding compelling reasons to justify co-operation in the first place – a position regarding work with China we are drifting towards.
Kerry Brown is the author of China Incorporated: The Politics of a World Where China is Number One (Bloomsbury, 2023) and Professor of Chinese Studies and Director of the Lau China Institute at King's College, London. Prior to that he was Professor of Chinese Politics at the University of Sydney, and Head of the Asia Programme at Chatham House, London. With 30 years experience of life in China, he has worked in education, business and government, including a term as First Secretary at the British Embassy in Beijing. He is author of over 20 books on contemporary China, including The World According to Xi: Everything You Need to Know About the New China (2018).
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