British universities are being warned that an "excessive concentration" of Chinese nationals in their student bodies has the potential to create a funding crisis as the United Kingdom is considering formally designating China as a threat.
The universities of Glasgow, Sheffield, Manchester and Liverpool are all owned by the Russell Group, which boasts of "meeting global challenges" on its website. All four schools had over 5,000 Chinese students during the latest academic year, according to the Scottish Daily Press. The University of Glasgow has more than 6,000 Chinese nationals, while the University College London has over 11,000.
Lord Johnson of Marylebone, PC, former Minister of State for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation, and brother of former Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson, warned against over-reliance on Chinese students, nothing that schools sometimes depend on their enrollment for up to a third of their total tuition profits.
An "excessive concentration" of students from particular countries "has the potential to create dependencies that may undermine financial resilience," he said.
"While universities will understandably hope for the best, they must also prepare for the worst by diversifying their academic partnerships and international student bodies to mitigate the risk of financial and strategic dependencies on potentially hostile autocratic countries," Johnson said in a similar sentiment to King's College London News Center.
Under former Conservative PM Liz Truss, the government pledged to "adapt to China's growing impact," by categorizing China as a "threat" up from a "systemic competitor" to the country, but now it's up to the new PM, fellow Conservative Rishi Sunak, to keep applying pressure, the Daily Telegraph reports.
Soon after taking office, Sunak spoke with US President Joe Biden on Tuesday about the China problem, reported the Global Times. According to a recitation of the phone call released by Downing Street, the two heads of state discussed the extent of UK-US cooperation, "in regions such as the Indo-Pacific where the AUKUS pact forms part of our efforts to enhance stability and counter China's malign influence."
During his campaign against Truss, Sunak promised to ban China's Confucius Institutes, which have been widely distinguished as Chinese "trojan horses" in the west, and to label the country as the "biggest long-term threat to Britain."
Over the past 15 years, Scottish universities have received at least £13m from China for Confucius Institute programs.
The Scottish Government has jointly funded these programs since 2004, making them one of the only British administrations to publicly fund them.
