The Hidden Role of the Chinese Communist Party in UK-China Joint Educational Institutes
Executive Summary
Joint Educational Institutes (JEIs) have functioned as a centre-piece of UK-China academic collaborations since the launch of the first partnership in 2004. The JEI structure allows UK universities to work with a Chinese partner to teach and award UK university degrees in China, helping them to boost their international profile and expand into the world’s largest higher education market. This model has proved highly popular with UK universities, with Chinese universities hosting more JEIs with UK partners than any other country and 81,380 students studying at these UK-China JEIs and similar UK-China joint programmes in the academic year 2022/23.
Although promoted as an opportunity to experience a UK university education in China, our research finds that UK university partners have far less control over the leadership and functioning of JEIs than the joint branding of such institutions may suggest. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been highly effective in placing itself at the heart of JEI leadership and governance structures. CCP branches are mandatory at all UK-China JEIs, while Party Secretaries sit on Joint Management Committees (JMC) alongside UK university partners. The CCP’s influence operates both within and outside formal governance structures at the JEI, with blurred lines of responsibility between the two. This is seen most clearly in the Joint-Party Governance Meetings held by CCP branches, which function as a shadow decision-making process at JEIs, and in the decisions made by Party Secretaries over senior staffing recruitments.
The central role of the CCP within UK-China JEIs is rarely acknowledged by the UK university partner and stands in contradiction to the principles of equal and cooperative partnership that JEI structures profess to reflect. Instead, the CCP’s role at JEIs is enshrined in extra-legal CCP policy documents and often hidden within clauses of previously undisclosed agreements between UK and Chinese universities. Our research finds that many UK universities are seemingly unaware or unwilling to admit the full extent of CCP influence in JEIs, including on questions of budget allocations to CCP branches.
The hidden role of the CCP within UK-China JEIs raises urgent concerns about the transparency, accountability and governance of these institutions. The UK’s higher education regulators must work with universities to urgently review governance structures at JEIs and mitigate the risks that the CCP’s shadow structures present. At a time when the CCP party-state is undertaking unprecedented surveillance, crackdowns and other repressive measures across China and Hong Kong, the UK government should also consider the extent to which UK-China JEIs are compatible with commitments to uphold academic freedoms in UK universities, including through the new guidelines drafted by the Office for Students under the now paused Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023.
All research in this report is conducted through a series of Freedom of Information requests (FOIs), examination of public academic records, media reports, university websites and other open source documents. We have sent FOI requests to UK universities regarding their JEI operation in the PRC, and we have also independently examined publicly available information on all UK-China JEI websites in both the English and Chinese languages. All FOIs and other relevant documents will be published alongside this paper and accessible online.
Policy Recommendations
The UK Government should clarify the status of draft guidance issued by the OfS under the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023, and the place of UK-PRC JEIs within it.
This paper strongly recommends that the government seeks to amend, rather than repeal, the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 in response to concerns that its implementation may be overly burdensome and costly to universities. Repealing the act would undo much of the important progress that has been made to tackling threats to academic freedom on university campuses posed by authoritarian states. However, if the Act is repealed, the government must commit to issuing comprehensive guidance to UK universities on their role in addressing the challenges to freedom of speech arising from the actions of authoritarian states, including in TNE collaborations.The UK Government should instruct immediate assessments of governance structures at UK-China JEI collaborations.
The UK government and devolved administrations should instruct the OfS and equivalent bodies to conduct an urgent review of the governance structures of UK-China JEIs and the role of the CCP within the management and operation of such institutions. In particular, the review should consider the ability of UK universities to effectively uphold freedom of speech at UK-China JEIs, as well as their legal obligations to prevent discrimination under the Equality Act 2010. Such assessments should consult all sources of information, including those kept by their PRC partners and in Chinese language. The results of this review should be published and form the basis of new guidance issued to universities on upholding freedom of speech and anti-discrimination in TNE partnerships.
In the meantime, this paper recommends that UK universities hosting UK-China JEIs conduct their own internal reviews of the governance structures of such institutions and their obligations under human rights and equality law.The UK Government and devolved administrations should introduce regulatory frameworks for transnational education partnerships undertaken by UK universities.
There are currently limited regulations governing how UK universities conduct transnational education (TNE) partnerships. The UK government and devolved administrations should urgently introduce new regulations to ensure greater transparency and accountability for transnational educational institutions, and set guidelines for upholding academic freedoms in international partnerships.
To exemplify, under the current frameworks in England, the government could amend the Higher Education and Research Act 2017 to expand the general duties of the Office for Students (OfS) and equivalent authorities to regulate the provision of TNE. Higher education providers should be required to disclose detailed reports on their TNE collaborations to the OfS and equivalent bodies, including the nature of agreements, financial information, and activities under these collaborations.
To limit the scope of commercial confidentiality where there is a significant public interest in transparency and upholding human rights, the government should also seek to extend the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to cover private agreements made by higher education providers with foreign entities.The UK government should review and recommend the inclusion of whistleblower protection in TNE collaborations.
The UK government should commission a review into the obligations of UK universities running TNE initiatives, including the JEIs, under the Public Interests Disclosure Act 1998, which requires employers to provide protection for whistleblowers in the workplace. Relevant UK regulatory authorities, such as the OfS for England, must establish guidelines for the mandatory inclusion of whistleblowing frameworks for all staff at TNE initiatives. Guidelines should also recommend that universities provide risks and awareness training regarding CCP governance practices to staff involved in UK-PRC TNE initiatives.
The critical unawareness of UK universities stands in stark contrast to the systemic, extensive level of governance influences that the CCP has in these institutions. It is likely that the absence of a speak-up culture and whistleblowing protections in JEI workplaces contributes to the overall unawareness of senior management on these issues. UK universities, under the guidance of UK educational authorities, must take concrete steps to facilitate legal protections for all UK university employees at the UK-China JEIs and promote robust, inclusive whistleblowing programmes to minimise the risk of exposure to authoritarian practices at the JEIs.