UK funds academic to attack China hawks

Sponsorship for thesis set to criticise MPs who campaign against rights abuses is ‘unbelievable’

THE Government has agreed to pay more than £80,000 for an academic to write a thesis expected to accuse MPs of spreading “moral panic” about China.

The taxpayers’ money will support the researcher to criticise the China Research Group (CRG) of Conservative MPs, and the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC), which is made up of legislators from across the political spectrum in multiple countries.

The groups campaign against Chinese human rights abuses, such as Uyghur oppression, as well as seeking to highlight economic and infrastructure threats posed by the regime to the West.

The formal proposal for the thesis describes the CRG as having played “a major role in the social and political construction of China as the new ‘international pariah’.” It will also explore “the potential role of the CRG in the construction of a new international political moral panic focused on China”.

The proposal to the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), part of UK Research and Innovation, places the CRG “in the context of similar groups that have emerged internationally such as the ‘Committee on the Present Danger: China’ in the US, and the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China”.

The University of Birmingham academic, Rong Wei, is due to receive £20,892 plus inflation annually for the next four years. Last night, Sir Iain Duncan Smith, a British IPAC member, called for an investigation into how the grant was awarded.

“It is unbelievable that a British government can sponsor a research project whose purpose is to denigrate legitimate parliamentary research, in IPCA’s case across 22 countries, both on the left and the right,” he said.

Chaired by Tom Tugendhat, the China Research Group group was established in April 2020 after controversies over the pandemic origins and the Huawei debacle. In March this year Mr Tugendhat and Sir Iain were two of nine Britons and four organisations placed under sanctions by Beijing.

In response, the Chinese ambassador to London was banned from stepping foot in the Palace of Westminster.

Several countries, including the US, Canada and the Netherlands, have accused China of committing genocide in respect of its treatment of the Uyghur population, with allegations of mass incarceration and the forced sterilisation of women.

Alicia Kearns, who sits on the steering committee of CRG, said: “I’m pleased that the University of Birmingham recognises our impact on shaping the UK’s foreign policy toward China.

“Taxpayers may be surprised that their money is funding research which has as its base assumption that the threat of China has been exaggerated.”

A UKRI spokesman said: “ESRC funds Doctoral Training Partnerships to enable research organisations to make decisions about how to invest in postgraduate studentships in ways that best suit their institutional strategies and support for doctoral training.”