Over the past few decades, the UK and China have built strong ties in the higher education sector. Most famously, UK universities now play host to roughly 150,000 Chinese students, plus thousands of Chinese nationals working as staff in UK universities.
In both science and the humanities, there has been extensive cross-border collaboration. Most of those involved in these exchanges have benefitted from them greatly, and many institutions can attest to the enrichment brought on by Chinese visitors and by academic engagement with China. As for the study of China itself, this may be an intellectual activity of great importance to the future of the UK.
Unfortunately, however, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) does not exempt those studying or working in, or collaborating with, the UK from its norms of repression and control.
The CCP’s China today is not a purely Stalinist society, in which millions die in gulags or are executed in purges.
However, repression about sensitive political matters is the norm, and individuals can find themselves subject to aggressive national security investigations if they say or do things that are perceived as a challenge to the authority or agenda of the CCP. These can lead to imprisonment and torture in some cases, and actions taken against family members.
The bar for words or actions to be perceived as a challenge is low, a broad range of topics are securitised, and both statements of fact and ‘activism’ per se can lead to repression.
Activities attracting repression range from the promotion of independence for various parts of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and Taiwan, through to factual statements about the fate of individuals in China who have been imprisoned by the regime due to their work or words.
The CCP targets those who do and say things against it here in the UK, on British campuses. We discuss how this affects those with Chinese nationality or family in China on our page on diaspora repression. This page is focused on repression as it affects those studying China – of course, there are overlaps between these categories, as many of those studying China are Chinese nationals or have family in the country.
The underlying driver behind academic transnational repression is that the CCP’s desire to control the narrative around key issues related to China’s territory and political system. The CCP does not exempt British and other nationals who work in China studies or who deal with China intellectually within their academic work from its repression.
One of the most severe publicised cases of such transnational repression against a China studies scholar is that of Professor Anne-Marie Brady, who is based in New Zealand. A leading scholar of the CCP’s ‘United Front‘ influence apparatus, Brady’s home and office in New Zealand were burgled and her car was tampered with. Brady has received threats and repeated calls in the middle of the night, along with other digital harassment.
Many individual stories of repression are now in the public domain, however, most stories go untold. UK-China Transparency (UKCT) is aware of a large number of cases in which the person involved has endured repression and opted not to engage further in the activity that prompted repression nor to publicise what happened. This is statistically the normal response: few people decide to commit to the path of the blacklisted academic by continuing the kinds of activity that attracted repression. Beyond this, many people who consider or would consider saying or doing things that might attract repression remain silent or inactive because they know what will happen. This is the mass ‘chilling effect’ achieved by the repression of a few.
Listed on this page are some of the kinds of people who may be affected by transnational repression on campus in the UK, along with estimates of the number of people in each category. UKCT is aware of individuals belonging to all categories having been affected by CCP repression. ‘Repression’ here means, at a minimum, threats or pressure, where this has led to concern about ability to visit China and a change of course of action as a result. UKCT is aware of students born in the UK, both with and without Chinese nationality, repressed in this way.
This page relates to repression as a dynamic affecting the study of China. There is naturally a great deal of overlap between this and broader diaspora repression, for example, in that Chinese students in the UK may be considered part of the diaspora – read our page on diaspora repression here.
In 2025, UK-China Transparency released the results of the biggest ever survey of China studies academics on the topic of CCP-connected academic repression. The report found that:
“The study of China in the UK is in crisis. The field is subject to Chinese Communist Party (CCP) repression and harassment, undermining academic freedom and the safety of staff and students, especially those of Chinese nationality. For Chinese nationals, surveillance is so entrenched that it appears the situation in China itself has been partially replicated in the UK.”
“There is strong evidence that CCP influence is a source of systemic distortion for the study of China in the UK, shaping careers and disincentivising certain research and other activity that might be negatively received by the CCP. This distortion is likely to have a downstream effect on the knowledge and advice supplied to government, the press, the public, think-tanks and business.”
You can read the full report here. One of its key themes is that universities’ financial dependency on Chinese student fees is perceived as a factor that enables and encourages self-censorship and repression.
The report generated some debate within the China studies community. Some professors and researchers welcomed it and described it as long overdue; others challenged its methodology and yet others belittled its findings.
It is a matter of fact that there are experienced China studies professors in the UK who have consistently downplayed the repression of China studies academics. UKCT collects evidence of this.
It is important to note that there are also those who exaggerate the issue.
Click on the various statements below to find out more
- There were certainly more than 2,500 China studies students and 150 China studies staff in 2021/22, the most recent year for which good data is available. The real figure is higher because some institutions do not report their numbers.
- There were roughly 150,000 Chinese students in the UK* in the 2023/24 academic year, according to the Higher Education Statistics Agency
[*’Chinese students’ is defined here as students with a permanent address in China. The number may in fact be higher, considering some Chinese nationals list a permanent address in the UK. We are seeking to clarify this with the relevant statistics agency.]
- There were roughly 7,000 Chinese nationals working as staff for UK higher education institutions, representing more than 15% growth from the previous year, in 2022/23. Not all of these are based in the UK.
- There were roughly 3,500 staff of British nationality with Chinese ethnicity in 2022/23, a proportion of whom have family members in the PRC. Of these 3,500, nearly 20% are professors.
- There were roughly 12,000 British nationality students with Chinese ethnicity in 2022/23, a proportion of whom have family members in the PRC.
Some known incidents to date include those listed below.
Professor Steve Tsang of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) is one of the UK’s foremost experts on the CCP. Whilst serving as head of the School of Chinese Studies at Nottingham University in 2014, Professor Tsang was asked by a university pro-vice chancellor to cancel the invitation of a Taiwanese politician to speak at an academic event. The pro-vice chancellor stated that he had been “summoned” to the Chinese embassy and reprimanded because of the invitation. The next year, Professor Tsang was told by Nottingham University administrators not to make public comments during the visit to the UK of Xi Jinping. The next year, the university announced the closure of Tsang’s School of Chinese Studies. Tsang was not consulted. University administrators who spoke to Channel 4’s Dispatches in 2023 stated that the closure was a response to Tsang’s work.
In 2019, pro-CCP students at Sheffield University intimidated, photographed and threw bottles at students gathered in support of the Hong Kong democracy movement. The incident was reported by the BBC and led to one arrest. In the months following, Sheffield Student Union’s International Students’ officer urged “every patriotic Chinese person” at the university to work with her to pressure the university into remove references to Taiwan and Hong Kong from the university’s documentation. The officer was accused by Hongkonger students of encouraging PRC students to report on them and one another.
In 2019, comparable incidents involving violence, intimidation, inappropriate behaviour, or threats to report students to Chinese authorities took place at Leeds University, Exeter University, Reading University, Aston University, and elsewhere. Such incidents were widespread and attested in media from across the political spectrum.
UK-China Transparency is monitoring a number of ongoing cases and will post updates at the bottom of this page in due course if appropriate.
The CCP’s repression relies on it being able to identify those expressing dissident views or those that dissent from CCP orthodoxy and having the means to intimidate or undermine them directly or indirectly.
Below is a list of institutions and mechanisms over which the CCP exerts varying degrees of control and which it may instrumentalise in pursuit of its goals:
- Chinese Students and Scholars Associations (CSSAs): Research suggests that CSSA student societies (present at as many as 100 British universities) are branches of a central UK CSSA based at the Chinese embassy in London, and which acts an overseas office for an organisation controlled by the CCP’s United Front Work Department.
- China Scholarship Council (CSC) funding: Research by UK-China Transparency shows that hundreds of recipients of this Chinese government scholarship are obliged to accept the “guidance and management” of Chinese diplomats in the UK – with penalties imposed on them and their families if they fail to do so or otherwise negatively impact China’s national security.
- Academic partnerships including Confucius Institutes: Research by UK-China Transparency shows that staff from China agree to follow CCP ‘discipline’ rules that would oblige them to inform on university members if requested.
- Student fees: Many British universities are financially dependent upon fees from Chinese students and have, for this and other reasons, built a working relationship with Chinese diplomats in the UK.
- CCP members: All CCP members take an admission oath, by which they vow to obey the CCP, uphold its ‘discipline’, guard CCP secrets, and so on. Members thus agree to act on the CCP’s behalf, and face special sanctions and punishments if they fail to do so, along with rewards for approved conduct.
