Chinese institutes accused of censoring staff at British universities

STAFF at British Confucius Institutes are having their political views and ethnic backgrounds filtered by Chinese officials, research has found.

The 30 Chinese institutes across the country were set up to deliver cultural and language classes to international students. However, MPs have claimed they are a front for the Chinese Communist Party to clamp down on critical views of China and are having a “chilling effect” on academic freedom.

Research has uncovered evidence that Chinese bodies supervising Confucius Institutes appear to be using discriminatory employment policy to vet staff working on UK campuses and are attempting to replicate China’s legal regime which restricts free speech.

Job applications posted by Chinese universities which have partnerships to run Confucius Institutes with UK universities, including Cardiff, Southampton and Huddersfield, ask applicants to describe their “political profile/characteristics” and “ethnicity”.

Sam Dunning, who is leading the research for the Henry Jackson Society, a think tank, and the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong, said the application forms were seemingly being used to find out whether they are a Communist Party member or have potentially problematic affiliations. “Our research suggests that political and ethnic discrimination is ubiquitous in the recruitment process,” he said.

It found that of around 200 Chinese staff at Confucius Institutes in the UK, only two were not Han, the majority ethnicity which dominates the Chinese Communist Party.

Chinese staff are recruited in China before they join British Confucius Institutes. The institutes are governed by China’s Centre for Language Education and Cooperation, which is overseen by the Chinese Ministry of Education.

In response to a Freedom of Information request, Newcastle University said that staff at its Confucius Institute, which was set up with Xiamen University in China, are “guest members of staff ” at the university and the selection process takes place in China through an organisation affiliated with the Chinese Ministry of Education.

Chinese staff at the institute, when they arrive in the UK, have to comply with Chinese law in the UK as well as UK law, the university said, which would mean that they cannot say that they think Tibet should be free. The university said it “does not tolerate discrimination and we are committed to ensuring a safe environment”.

Anson Kwong, a researcher from Hong Kong now based in London, said: “By replicating China’s legal regime which restricts speech, Confucius Institutes have imported a regime of censorship. Our universities are participating in the systematic oppression of ethnic minorities and political dissidents. All this undermines our scholarship by corrupting our knowledge of China so that we only get the official version of Chinese culture, society and history.”

Naomi Cunningham, a barrister at Outer Temple Chambers, said: “UK law applies to employment in the UK. It’s not possible to opt out just by writing in the contract ‘Chinese law applies’.”

She added: “You can’t opt out of discrimination law. I can’t see why this sort of vetting for political views wouldn’t be direct discrimination.”

Rishi Sunak has pledged during his leadership campaign to ban the institutes, which he said were used to promote “Chinese soft power”.

A spokesman for the Chinese embassy said: “We hope that the educational exchanges between China and the UK are seen in an objective and sensible manner. The harmful inclination to politicise anything that has to do with people-to-people exchanges between China and the UK should stop.

“Confucius Institutes in the UK have been committed to open and transparent operation and strict adherence to local laws and university regulation.”

The universities did not respond to requests for comment.