As part of its statutory role in monitoring risks to campus free speech, the Office for Students (OfS) has been asking English universities to account for Chinese state-linked scholarships and Confucius Institute contracts amid persistent concerns over ideological loyalty tests and embassy oversight of academics and students.
Vice-chancellors have reportedly been contacted by Professor Arif Ahmed, the regulator’s Director for Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom, and invited to clarify the terms of certain overseas funding arrangements and related contracts with overseas partners – including whether they contain conditions that could reasonably be regarded as inhibiting lawful academic activity or expression on campus. Institutions hosting Confucius Institutes (CIs) have also been asked to set out the contractual terms governing their Chinese partnerships.
While some vice-chancellors are described in Times Higher Education (THE) as “fiercely critical of the approach” and “unsettled”, on the grounds that “the OfS is overstepping its role”, the Higher Education and Research Act 2017 – as amended by the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 (HEFSA) – gives the regulator a remit here, including a duty to monitor overseas funding for risks to lawful free speech and academic freedom. The same legislation makes the Free Speech Director responsible for overseeing the OfS’s “free speech functions”, including that monitoring duty.
The OfS’s most recent regulatory guidance says universities should not admit students or visiting academics under funding arrangements that constrain lawful expression or the independence of academic work. By way of illustration, it cites a hypothetical government-funded visiting scholarship requiring recipients to “accept the basic principles of the ruling party” in their home country and to “accept direction” from that government via diplomatic staff. Arrangements of this kind, the regulator warns, are “very likely” to create pressure to suppress or monitor speech, including through surveillance, intimidation or coercion.
A second example concerns foreign-funded institutes embedded in English universities. The guidance describes an institute jointly funded by a university and an overseas entity, with some staff appointed through a process managed overseas. Where that process “imposes an ideological test” as a condition of appointment and ongoing employment, the OfS says the arrangements are “likely” to penalise applicants for the exercise of lawful free speech or academic freedom.
In both scenarios, the guidance indicates that providers may be expected to amend the arrangements – for example by removing the relevant conditions or tests – and that, where necessary, terminating the agreement may be a reasonably practicable step under HEFSA’s new free-speech regime.
One arrangement that has attracted particular concern is the China Scholarship Council (CSC), which operates within China’s Ministry of Education and is the Chinese state’s principal vehicle for funding overseas study. According to UK-China Transparency, the scheme supports at least 650 Chinese PhD and postdoctoral researchers in the UK each year. In recent years, CSC programmes have come under increasing scrutiny internationally over their politicisation and concerns about research security, campus interference, and the risk of industrial espionage, prompting several prominent universities in Sweden, Germany and the United States to suspend or terminate cooperation.
The CSC’s own published selection rules make explicit political demands. Applicants must “support the leadership of the Communist Party of China and Socialism with Chinese Characteristics; love the motherland; be a person of good moral character; abide by the law; maintain a sense of responsibility to serve the country, serve society, and serve the people; and have a correct world view, a correct outlook on life, and correct values”.
Applicant’s home institutions are also required to conduct a “rigorous review of the applicant’s political ideology” and provide a written evaluation of the applicant’s “performance” in these areas. Since 2020, recipients have also been required to “voluntarily accept the guidance and management” of Chinese embassies or consulates abroad – language which carries strong connotations of direction rather than mere pastoral support.
A second, more institutional channel of influence is the CI network. There are about 30 such institutes across the UK, with more than 160,000 registered students. Each operates as a three-way partnership between the host institution, a Chinese partner university, and a PRC government body (formerly Hanban, now the Centre for Language Education and Cooperation).
While CIs present themselves as vehicles for Mandarin language teaching and cultural exchange, they have repeatedly been criticised for functioning as an extension of Beijing’s cultural diplomacy, with programming that steers well clear of subjects the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regards as politically sensitive.
A 2019 report by the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee recorded testimony from Professor Christopher Hughes of the LSE, who said he had witnessed CI officials confiscating conference papers that mentioned Taiwan. In 2023, Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee went further, concluding that CIs are “utilised by the Chinese Government” to discourage universities from engaging in debates the CCP considers “unsuitable topics”, including not just Taiwan and Tibet, but allegations of Uyghur and Turkic Muslim forced labour in Xinjiang.
Because the Chinese partner institution – and ultimately the Chinese state – plays a role in appointing teaching staff and the Chinese co-director, questions have also been raised about who, in practice, such personnel answer to. UK-China Transparency has cited a document from Wuhan University, recruiting for the “Chinese co-director” role at the CI at Glasgow, stating that applicants must “maintain close communication with the Chinese Embassy or Consulates” in the host country. Separate recruitment material published by Nankai University, recruiting for the CI at Aberdeen, says it prioritises candidates’ “ideological-political qualities”, “strictly control[s] the selection of candidates in political terms”, and recommends only those “loyal to the ancestor-land [China]” who possess sufficient “political firmness”. The same notice states that candidates must be CCP members, and that the university’s CCP Committee should lead the recruitment process.
However, speaking to THE, education lawyer Smita Jamdar said it was “unrealistic” for the OfS to expect institutions to accept only students who were actively choosing not to enter into scholarships that could restrict their freedom of speech. She also expressed scepticism about calls for universities to close CIs, noting that doing so mid-contract could carry legal implications.
“It may not be easy for you immediately to introduce new requirements and new expectations, but you’d be expected to try [when your contract] comes up for renewal,” she said.
By contrast, other university leaders suggested that universities should be doing more to prevent foreign interference, and that the regulator is right to scrutinise the issue. Anthony Finkelstein, vice-chancellor of City St George’s, University of London and former chief scientific adviser for national security to the British government, said that while it is vital to continue teaching about Chinese culture in the UK, doing so “under the sponsorship of the Chinese government is highly problematic and, in my judgement, ill-advised”.
“It is increasingly clear not only does this impose both explicit and implicit restrictions on what can be done, it creates dependencies, financial and otherwise, [and] may also impose more serious restrictions, including restrictions on the academic freedom of staff.”
Finkelstein added that it is “right and proper” for the OfS to look into intervention by foreign states, and said he believed some universities had “turned a blind eye” to the issue.
This article forms part of the Committee for Academic Freedom’s monitoring of developments in UK higher education. To receive monthly updates and analysis on cases affecting academic freedom, click the link and subscribe to our newsletter.