In the UK–China context, local authorities pursue partnerships covering cultural exchanges, trade and investment, education links, and community engagement. These are sometimes formalised in various ways, for example, through twin city arrangements.
Subnational diplomacy can yield significant benefits.
For example, it can support British companies looking to increase their exports to China; or it can lead to enriching cooperation between cultural institutions.
However, subnational diplomacy also incurs reputational/ethical, economic, safeguarding, legal and security risks.
UKCT is investigating these ties with a focus on the following:
- Diplomacy between the devolved administrations and China.
- Diplomacy at the council, county and city levels, including twinning relationships between British and Chinese cities.
- Coordination between local governments and Whitehall.
- Exchanges between British and Chinese police forces.
- The relationship between sub-national diplomacy and the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) united front work.
- Exchanges relating to higher education.
- Analysis of the strategic intent behind the CCP’s subnational diplomacy.
Renewed attention
During the COVID-19 pandemic, subnational diplomatic activities reduced markedly.
In the last year or so, the British government has been looking at how to adapt to and encourage its resumption. This included the commission of a study on the recent history of UK-China subnational diplomacy by the Royal United Services Institute.
It argued that “the main factor holding back local authority engagement with China today is the widespread local assessment that, all things considered, the benefits do not outweigh the risks and the costs. Changing this would require clearer direction and guidance from the UK government and support to China capability-building.“
Supporting an informed approach
Many British local authorities have a limited understanding of the nature and methods of the CCP, and the role of its different departments in shaping and guiding subnational engagement.
There is evidence that British local authorities do not know where to turn when it comes to understanding the CCP’s involvement. There is a lack of accessible expertise.
Beneath formal twinning agreements and other partnerships lie various hidden dynamics:
- CCP-led coordination: local Chinese governments operate under a CCP-led system where all external outreach is supposed to (but may not always) align with national policy priorities as determined by the central CCP leadership.
- Ostensibly private actors: engagement may involve private companies, academic institutions, and industry associations, for example, as mediators or subjects of investment promotion activity. Some may have undisclosed or unclear ties to CCP or state organs. Others may be based in the UK and have undisclosed ties to those organs or to the Chinese embassy in London.
- Information, influence and interference operations: events, scholarships, and study tours can serve dual purposes - cultural exchange on the surface can serve as a disguise for intelligence-gathering, for example. Such hidden agendas may be in essence secondary or incidental, or they may be the primary goal.
- Espionage and transnational repression: in some cases, the CCP may use subnational ties as a vehicle for the activities of PRC security and intelligence agencies. A concrete example of this is considered below.
Case study:
How Nottingham University, the Chinese government, and intelligence agents worked to counter a campaign to ‘de-twin’ Nottingham from Ningbo city
The FOI data on subnational ties held in UKCT’s digital library was originally acquired by mostly anonymous activists associated with ‘Global Detwin with China’ (GDC), described as a “group of Hongkongers calling for the termination of sister city agreements with China”.
UKCT has stored, with GDC’s consent, an archive of the group’s website which we can provide on demand.
Established in 2022, GDC had a series of successes convincing local government authorities in the West to cancel sister or friendship city arrangements with Chinese cities. Some of these successes are documented on GDC’s website. Following this, the group began to be targeted by the Chinese state.
In 2023, GDC worked with UKCT director Sam Dunning and Channel 4’s Dispatches to expose, in a video call, an apparent spy trying to gather information about the group.
This individual, an American, who had falsely pretended to be a journalist working for a news outlet, refused to give their real name and signed off the call shortly after being confronted by the presenter of the programme.
The interaction was recorded and broadcast on British television as part of the award-winning documentary, Secrets & Power: China in the UK. The film can now be watched online, here.
In this instance, it appears that the CCP leveraged its intelligence and security services to harass and spy on civil society actors.
This is the kind of hostility faced by some in the UK campaigning for a different approach to subnational diplomacy.
Secrets & Power: China in the UK also revealed how the University of Nottingham shut its China studies department in response to requests and pressure from the CCP about its head, Professor Steve Tsang’s, outspoken criticism of the CCP.
In early 2025, the BBC reported on the results of a case heard in the General Regulatory Chamber as a result of which Nottingham Council was forced to publish details of its response to a GDC campaign in Nottingham and its deliberations about Nottingham’s twin city relationship with Ningbo, China.
The Council fought not to publish this information, claiming that it related to the deliberations of the Council’s Labour group, and was not Council business. The information published as a result of a case, combined with the results of other FOIs sent to the Council, make for a detailed picture of the Ningbo-Nottingham twin city relationship.
According to the Council, “one of the primary reasons for the link between Nottingham and Ningbo” was the establishment of an overseas campus of the University of Nottingham in Ningbo in 2004. A formal twin relationship between the two cities followed in 2005. The university apparently remained at the heart of the relationship, and the key review paper put together by the Council in response to the GDC campaign emphasised the financial value of the Ningbo campus to Nottingham University, the potential loss of associated revenue should detwinning take place, and the impact of this on the local economy.
“4.10 The University of Nottingham has modelled the impact of the reaction to cancelling the Ningbo twinning relationship on student recruitment which indicates a central estimate of 40% decline in Chinese students enrolling, with a worst-case estimate of around 80%. In monetary terms, this suggests a loss of income to the University of Nottingham alone, between £37m and £70m per year. This would represent a significant immediate impact on university budgets and would likely mean uncertainty over jobs and loss of wider income to the city.
“4.11 The Council’s Head of Business, Growth and International Strategy confirms that the total value of Chinese students to the economy in Nottingham can reasonably be estimated at between £40m – £80m, depending on the scale of decline in student numbers.”
The ‘modelling’ cited uncritically in the Council’s review paper was drawn from a submission from the University, according to which:
“As an example, over the past three years, declining diplomatic relations between Australia and China have led to China’s Ministry of Education issuing caution against studying in Australia, citing a hostile and unwelcoming environment for Chinese students. This has resulted in a consistent decline in recruitment year-on-year and has added to significant challenges for the Australian economy.
“Based on examples of this seen in Australia and the USA, the University of Nottingham has modelled the impact of the reaction to cancelling the Ningbo twinning relationship on student recruitment. This modelling suggests a central estimate of around 40% decline in Chinese students enrolling, with a worst-case estimate of around 80% reduction. In monetary terms this suggests a loss of income, to the University of Nottingham alone, of between £37 and £70+ million per year. The impact of this rapid and unplanned income decline on the University would be extremely serious.”
The University shared no details of the methodology by which it arrived at the 40% “central estimate” figure.
The focus of the Council’s review on the University and its fears was debated by Labour councillors, one complaining that:
“The paper says it will provide views of key stakeholders. However, the universities’ views dominate (7 pages of text directly from the universities, sections of which are reproduced multiple times almost verbatim in the main paper). There is no representation at all of views of the Hong Kong community in Nottingham (apart from the wording of the petition), or of Hong Kong students, or academics who work in China, or indeed other businesses which the paper notes have managed to have successful relationships with China without needing to rely on the Ningbo agreement.”
In this case then, a university dependent upon Chinese funding lobbied a British local government to adopt a certain political position towards a Chinese local government, based on the fear that tuition fees would be lost. This lobbying was secretive and ultimately effective: Ningbo and Nottingham remain twinned.
Not only that, but the lobbying was clearly the result of some pressure from Ningbo. A letter from its Municipal Government to Nottingham Council from June 2022 reads:
“Lately, we’ve noticed that an organization named “”Nottingham Stands With Hong Kong”” has started an online petition trying to end our two cities’ friendship. We are concerned about this. International exchanges and cooperation is always a necessity to ensure a solid foundation for our cities’ prosperity. Nobody and no other forces can separate us and damage the existing good relationship between our cities. I hope we could continue to press ahead with current exchange projects which will make our ties closer and stronger against all odds.”
If Nottingham University’s lobbying were taking place today, it would quite possibly have to be registered as foreign influence lobbying under the Foreign Influence Registration Scheme (FIRS).
That this lobbying was accompanied by Chinese government pressure and by intelligence operations against civil society activists in the UK sets a concerning precedent.
