Events

Host

Tom Randall MP, Vice Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Hong Kong

Panellists

Ambassador James Cunningham, Chairman of the CFHK Foundation

Robert Clark, Head of Defence and Security Unit, Civitas

Patricia Devlin, Investigative Journalist, The Epoch Times

Marc Sidwell, Research Director, Henry Jackson Society

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Whilst the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) attempts to extend its overseas intelligence gathering and foreign policy agenda on to UK campuses, it is the CCP’s ‘Military-Civil Fusion’ (MCF) strategy which further endangers national security, through attempts to rapidly expand its military modernisation programs, and ambitions for regional military hegemony across the Indo-Pacific – a critical region for UK foreign policy and national security.

The new study by Robert Clark investigates two overarching aspects of the dependence of UK universities on China. The first is the ability for UK higher education institutions, universities and academics, to financially de-risk from the People’s Republic of China (PRC), in order to end the reliance on Chinese funding (in terms of international student fees, research grants and donations) made from Chinese entities which will often have the capacity to harm or compromise national security.

The second aspect of this research is concerned with highlighting how this over-reliance on the PRC negatively affects British campuses, including academic freedoms and high-risk research collaborations with Chinese entities linked to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

The Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation and the Henry Jackson Society hope you can join this timely discussion about the Chinese influence on British education system.