Commentary | Jeppe Mulich, Academic Freedom, Confucius Institutes, and the China Debate in UK Politics
As the British Conservative Party leadership contest rages on, the two remaining candidates are seemingly trying to outdo one another on every conceivable topic. Particularly eyebrow-raising have been their stances on the People’s Republic of China and the future of Sino-British relations. Liz Truss has been positioning herself as a China hawk for a while — and is often referred to as such in the UK press — but Rishi Sunak’s position has historically been more ambivalent. Perhaps because of this perceived asymmetry, or perhaps as a reaction to a recent quasi-endorsement from the Global Times, Sunak last week launched a series of tweets outlining his view of China as “the largest threat to Britain and the world’s security and prosperity this century.” In a string of garish graphics and clunky slogans, Sunak promised to create an “international alliance of free nations to tackle Chinese cyber-threats,” “expand MI5’s reach,” and “prevent Chinese acquisitions of key British assets.” Striking close to the heart of scholars of Chinese studies across the country, he also vowed to close down all 30 Confucius Institutes in the UK.
These campaign promises have come under attack by people on the British left, some of whom rightly point out the dangerous conflation of China with the Chinese Communist Party and the way in which this rhetoric might further fuel the flames of xenophobia in Britain. There has also been, however, a tendency to dismiss all the claims made by Sunak as ridiculous and, among academics, to defend the existence and work of UK-based Confucius Institutes.
“We...need to reckon more seriously with the role of CCP influence in higher education and the threat that it poses to academic freedom and to the safety of our students.”
I want to suggest here that we, as left-wing academics in the UK, should absolutely be critical of conservative yellow peril tactics, but that we also need to reckon more seriously with the role of CCP influence in higher education and the threat that it poses to academic freedom and to the safety of our students. It is not just possible, but imperative, to be critical of right-wing fear mongering without defending the state power of foreign regimes busy with their own attacks on academic freedom.
Anyone doubting the Chinese party-state’s stance on academic freedom need only look at the changes made to the charters of top PRC universities in 2019. Fudan University, Shaanxi Normal University, and Nanjing University all added new pledges to strengthen and follow the leadership of the Communist Party, and Fudan explicitly removed its commitment to “freedom of thought” — leading to a widespread, if short-lived, backlash on Weibo and in WeChat groups. This development, of course, comes alongside a range of other restrictions to academic freedom within the PRC under Xi Jinping, as the climate for dissent has all but frozen over.
The speed at which academic freedom can deteriorate is illustrated by the recent changes brought about at Hong Kong universities following the introduction of the new National Security Law. A slew of prominent academics working on sensitive topics or connected to the pro-democracy movement have been fired, denied tenure, or otherwise forced out since 2020. Entire departments have been restructured or shrunk down, most notably politics departments at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and CityU — the latter after letting much of its foreign faculty go. Meanwhile, academics report difficulties navigating the city’s invisible red lines in both their teaching and research, while living in fear of seeing their names called out in op-eds in the pro-Beijing newspapers that have served as warnings of looming arrests or dismissals. Most recently Hong Kong University announced a new course on “the Constitution, the Basic Law and the National Security Law” as a mandatory requirement for students to graduate – a move reminiscent of similar requirements at mainland universities, including at joint institutions like NYU-Shanghai.
Confucius Institutes have long been among the most visible vehicles through which the CCP connects to foreign academic institutions. Ostensibly, they are primarily providing language courses along with seminars on Chinese culture and topics like Traditional Chinese Medicine. Yet there are examples of this activity growing to other, more controversial areas. At University College Dublin, the Irish Institute for Chinese Studies (IICS) — a spin-off of the Confucius Institute — was recently at the center of heated debate. The Institute is not just facilitating language courses but is in fact offering credit-bearing modules to UCD students on Chinese history and politics, taught by its own staff without direct oversight by other academic departments. When faculty members at the school of politics and international relations criticized this arrangement and offered to replace the modules, university leadership turned them down and dismissed the criticism as unwarranted. This decision is hardly a surprise, given the fact that this was the same university leadership team that in 2020 identified academic freedom as a potential obstacle to “the strategic imperative to internationalise higher education” - a sentiment that unfortunately does not seem too far removed from that of several British university management teams.
Efforts to influence what is being taught and what is being discussed on China-related issues at foreign universities might well take place through Confucius Institutes, as academics working on the topic have been warning about for years. But they also extend to other institutions. At the University of Cambridge, Jesus College is now engaged in a last-ditch campaign to rebrand its own China Centre (now named the China Forum) and salvage its reputation. The center was set up in 2016 to “deepen mutual understanding between China and the West,” according to its own mission statement. Since then, it has been through a number of scandals, ranging from a variety of dubious funding sources linked to the Chinese state or prominent CCP leaders to attempts by Peter Nolan, the center’s director, at dissuading students from holding debates on Uyghur human rights abuses or inviting potentially critical speakers. In a recently published report on the center, the review panel suggested that funding be made more transparent and that the center demonstrate its commitment to academic freedom.
Given these and the many other examples seen in recent years, we should take seriously the attempts by the Chinese party-state to limit academic freedom at home and abroad. Yet Sunak’s turn to hawkishness on China is nonetheless a clear example of what too many on the British right have gotten wrong on these issues. First, as mentioned above, his rhetoric is a classic case of conflating the people of China with the doings of the party-state. One hardly needs to elaborate on why that is a terrible idea, especially at a time of rising anti-Asian hate in the UK and elsewhere.
Second, the scaremongering that both candidates have engaged in comes dangerously close to casting the presence of a high number of Chinese students at UK universities as a threat in and of itself. More internationalization is a good thing, and we should encourage Chinese students to study abroad, not limit their access. What we need to do is take their safety and welfare seriously, making sure that they can study freely without having their academic freedom undermined by monitoring mechanisms or insidious surveillance systems.
Third, what most Tories seem to miss when calling out Confucius Institutes and similar institutions is the underlying problem of resources in UK higher education. If a string of British governments had not been so eager to cut funding to the university sector and to undermine the delivery of higher education in this country, turning to foreign governments for funding and teaching would be a lot less appealing. This is especially true for areas like foreign language study, which are under particular threat following Brexit. Ensuring a continued robust academic sector in Britain means securing sound, reliable funding and avoiding top-down attacks on academic freedom in a deluded attempt at scoring points in a misguided culture war.
At issue here is not just the specifics of Sunak’s bid for Tory leadership. Critically minded academics need to call out the failings of the British government and critique the dangerous rhetoric of leading politicians, without inadvertently becoming defenders of authoritarian regimes that actively work to censor or undermine dissenting scholarship. Academic freedom must be defended across the board.
Jeppe Mulich is a Lecturer in Modern History at the Department of International Politics at City, University of London. He works on law, empire, and contentious politics in Asia and the Caribbean.
To cite this essay, please use the entry suggested below:
Jeppe Mulich, “Academic Freedom, Confucius Institutes, and the China Debate in UK Politics,” criticalasianstudies.org Commentary Board, August 15, 2022; https://doi.org/10.52698/LNDW9064.