UK universities would be hugely damaged by a sustained diplomatic rift between Britain and China, according to a report that predicts difficulty in replacing the Chinese students who now take up more than one in four PhD places.
The study, co-authored by the former universities minister Jo Johnson, found that many leading institutions remain highly dependent on Chinese students for tuition fee income as well as to fill postgraduate research courses in subjects such as economics, science and technology.
A sudden inflaming of tensions between the UK and China – recently a parliamentary researcher was arrested for allegedly spying for China – could see the pipeline shut off, leaving UK universities with few viable alternatives after the collapse in EU student numbers coming to the UK since Brexit.
Johnson, a visiting professor at King’s College London’s policy institute, said: “The sector continues to follow a ‘cross your fingers’ strategy that decoupling is in the future never necessary for China, in the same ways it was for relations with Russia in February 2022. The China question therefore to a great degree remains unanswered.
“The government must urgently help universities with a framework for how to maximise the benefits from research collaboration and student and academic mobility while managing the downsides, including the risks to national security from bad-faith actors and the dangers of over-reliance on a single country.”
The KCL report says the single most effective way for the government to reduce the reliance on Chinese students would be to raise tuition fees for UK undergraduates in line with inflation for the first time since 2016, when fees were set at £9,250 a year.
