A Communist takeover that Britain must end at once

THE world i s being taken over by stealth by the Chinese Communist Party. Under a neo-colonial project, President Xi Jinping hopes to achieve global economic domination via massive international investments.

It extends way beyond buying up mineral assets or Western telecommunication systems. There’s a cultural dimension that reeks of propaganda and indoctrination.

Not content with f i nancing some British universities, we now learn that Chinese companies directly l i nked to the highest ranks of the Communist Party have serious financial interests in our schools.

The Government must wake up to the dangers and act quickly.

Particularly at risk are private s chools. I nfl at i on has meant that fees have risen rapidly over t he l ast t wo decades and so they have become unaffordable to all but the richest.

As a result, such schools – especially those with boarders – are reliant on Chinese students to help balance the books.

Since 2014, a network of Chinese companies has been quietly buying up struggling establishments.

Nobody knows how far t his will go.

Some will shrug their shoulders and say it’s better to prop up such institutions with Chinese money t han s ee t hem cl ose. But t hat i gnores much more important issues.

For example, three schools and a network of colleges are now owned by t he Bright Scholar Group, run by Yang Huiyan,

whose billionaire father is a senior member of the Chinese Communist Party. In essence, this is nothing less than a Communist takeover of part of Britain’s private education sector.

Meanwhile, there’s the role of the Confucius Institutes. Under the control of the Chinese government, its students are taught a grossly sanitised version of Chinese history and politics.

No mention is made of the plight of the Uighur Muslims or the eradication of democracy in Hong Kong.

It is a supreme irony that one school, Thetford Grammar in Norfolk, is now in the hands of Hong Kong- based China Financial Services Holdings.

This school is the alma mater of radical think er Thomas Paine, author of Rights Of Man, whose beliefs helped set up the United States of America.

The fact is that our Government has been too pro- China for too long – and all because money talks.

With the integrity of the education of thousands of British children at stake, Education Secretary Gavin Williamson must address this as a matter of urgency.