Opinion | London must look within, not towards Beijing, to fix academic woes
Instead of worrying about political interference from abroad, UK higher education administrators should deal with institutional decay at home
The recently released report Cold Crisis: Academic Freedom and Interference in China Studies in the UK, featured in British media, opens with a sobering statement: “The study of China in the UK is in crisis.” On this point, I wholeheartedly agree. But the diagnosis offered by the report misses the mark entirely.
However, this narrative overlooks a more urgent and uncomfortable truth. Yes, China studies in the UK is indeed in crisis – not because of Chinese interference, but because of years of domestic neglect.
The British university system is suffering from chronic underfunding and a market-driven logic that has left modern languages and area studies on life support. Departments are being downsized, academics are losing jobs and plans are under way to cut degree programmes. In this context, China studies is simply another casualty of a much broader collapse in support for the humanities and social sciences.
The report takes aim at universities for engaging with Chinese institutions and for their supposed financial dependencies on tuition income from Chinese students. However, it fails to acknowledge the reality that, in a chronically underfunded sector, international students – including those from China – are not a problem to be solved but a financial lifeline.