UK's universities told to reduce dependency on Chinese students
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
The enrolment of foreign citizens in British universities has boomed over the past few decades.
PHOTO: REUTERS
LONDON - A new report warns Britain's universities that if they wish to protect themselves from "well founded fears" of Chinese interference in their academic freedoms, they should reduce their dependency on tuition fees from Chinese students.
The warning, from a think-tank, comes at a time when relations between the United Kingdom and China are at their lowest ebb in more than half a century. The government of Prime Minister Boris Johnson has banned China's Huawei from supplying equipment to Britain's telecommunication infrastructure, and the UK offered the prospect of citizenship to 3 million residents of Hong Kong in response to China's imposition of new security legislation on the territory.
