Joint ventures between Scottish and Chinese universities have proved lucrative — but controversial, prompting concerns about the involvement of the authoritarian state.
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The air was crisp and the skies clear when the first students of a Scottish university in China stepped out of their classes to praise the Chinese Communist Party and the People’s Liberation Army.
It was October 2022 and the first-year students at Dundee International Institute (DIICSU) in Changsha, the capital of the province of Hunan, were being drilled, literally, in urban grey combat fatigues.
A press release, published in Chinese laced with the stock phrases of Maoist propaganda, stressed the “sweet fragrance of osmanthus flowers”, fine weather and the fact that the young men were learning the military discipline of following orders.
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Last month the China Strategic Risks Institute think tank documented ideological indoctrination during classes and extracurricular activities at joint educational institutions (JEIs) established by British universities and Chinese partners.
The lucrative ventures provide British degrees and courses on campuses in China and a potential pipeline for Chinese students to study in Britain. The JEIs do not hide their party and military work but most of this is carried out behind a curtain of Chinese language.
The Sunday Times reviewed the press releases issued by DIICSU only in Chinese and found that they featured several examples of the institute’s students and staff demonstrating allegiance to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
The military drills were reported in a bulletin published on October 10, 2022, under a photograph of Dundee’s signature Victoria and Albert Museum on the city’s waterfront.
After describing the weather and smell of osmanthus, an emblematic Chinese flower, the press release told how party figures and school leaders addressed students on the theme of “listening to the Party and following the Party”.
It read: “The atmosphere was lively, filled with youthful energy and a strong sense of national confidence. All the freshmen of Dundee International Institute were seated directly in front of the podium, sitting upright with disciplined posture, full of spirit and enthusiasm.”
Later, students were put through military training. “The students learned the firm stance of the People’s Army to ‘listen to the Party and follow the Party’ through subjects like drill and tactics,” the press release said. “They also embraced the spirit of the People’s Army, which is always determined to succeed, and developed the excellent discipline of the People’s Army, which strictly follows orders.”
Changsha is very proud of its links with the father figure of the CCP, Mao Zedong, who studied to be a teacher in the city in the early 20th century. There is a giant 32m statue of the revolutionary’s head 20 minutes from DIICSU.
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A week after the drills another press release, from the parent South Central University, described how students, including those from DIICSU helped to form a giant human hammer and sickle, a symbol of communist revolution, at the university’s stadium for the CCP’s 20th congress.
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One teacher, a Chinese language press release reported, called for students to unite around the CCP and its leader, President Xi, and “hold high the great banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics”. A succession of other senior figures made similar remarks.
Glasgow College Hainan is one of two JEIs set up by the Scottish university with a Chinese engineering school, the University of Electronic Science and Technology. Pictures published with the press release show students at the college standing to attention while watching the congress on a livestream.
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The China Strategic Risks Institute identified issues at other British-Chinese JEIs including an outpost of Edinburgh University at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, about 620 miles east of Changsha. The think tank found adverts for a student affairs assistant role whose work would include “ideological and political education and value guidance for students”. The position was open only to party members.
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The think tank’s researcher Tau Yang found that Chinese staff at the Aberdeen Institute of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence in Foshan, Guangdong, were ordered to attend a workshop on the need to “strictly abide by the CCP regulations on disciplinary punishment”. This institute is a joint venture between Aberdeen and South China Normal universities.
Yang believed Scottish and other British universities, hit by declining paying students from China, were pivoting to offering joint courses in the country.
“Moving campuses to China and elsewhere in Asia is seen as a way to ease these pressures,” he said. “It also allows universities to operate from a distance from domestic scrutiny, particularly in relation to sensitive relationships with Chinese universities and the concerns about Beijing’s authoritarian influence, which used to restrict the scope of collaboration within the UK.”
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Do leaders at universities [in the UK] know what is going on at their Chinese joint ventures? Do principals and vice-principals have the expertise needed to navigate complex relationships in authoritarian states whose languages they do not speak?
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Yang did not think there was an excuse for university leaders’ ignorance of what happened in their Chinese JEIs, even if they lacked relevant language and other cross-cultural skills and was concerned potential problems would not be dealt with.
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“There is, however, a consistent reluctance to engage with concerns. The lack of incentives on both sides means any sustained examination of these contentious practices would be pushed aside and a ‘business as usual’ approach takes hold.”
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Chris Law, the SNP MP for Dundee Central with a long-standing interest in China, said: “The scale of CCP involvement in the running of these university outposts is shocking but sadly not surprising.
Anyone who is aware of the regular reports from China of transnational repression of foreign nationals, the oppression of minority groups such as Tibetans, Uighurs and Hong Kongers, or the general clampdown on free speech across the country will find the extent of the influence of the CCP on the teaching at these institutions to be right in line with the rest of their actions.”
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Law chairs the all-party group at Westminster on Tibet and is a member of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, a group of politicians from democratic countries. He is worried that intelligence about Chinese threats is concentrated in London and does not drip down to devolved nations, local authorities and institutions such as universities.
“Successive UK governments have not taken the long-established warnings from experts and senior officials of the threat posed by the Chinese government to our national security seriously and this has allowed China to step into the vacuum and gain undue influence over our academic institutions,” he said.
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Asked to comment about on ideological indoctrination at its Chinese outpost, a spokesman for Glasgow University said: “Our partnership in Hainan combines the strengths of two world-class university systems to provide students with the benefit of a truly global educational experience.”
Aberdeen University, in response to the China Strategic Risks Institute research, previously said it stood by values of freedom of expression but recognised “staff and students at any international campus must operate within the legal framework of the host country”.