Up on Boars Hill, a hamlet of 600 residents blessed with a panoramic view of Oxford’s dreaming spires, lies a unique institution — an educational outpost sponsored by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the British campus of Peking University’s HSBC business school. For the past three years, it has been trying to expand, seeking permission from the government and the local authority to build new accommodation blocks, a 200-seat lecture theater, a gym and a restaurant. Now, however, its future is in question, with the government’s Office for Students (OfS) investigating whether it meets UK academic standards and free speech requirements.

Earlier this week, UnHerd revealed that the recent wave of purchases by Chinese companies of some 30 British independent schools stems directly from high-level CCP directives, which describe such acquisitions as a means of propagating “socialism with Chinese characteristics”, supported by China’s president Xi Jinping. Many of the firms and individuals involved have close Party links, and in some cases, the Chinese government owns a substantial stake.

The same is true of the Boars Hill campus. Companies House and Land Registry filings show that when the Open University sold the site for £8.8 million in 2017 along with Foxcombe Hall, the gabled nineteenth-century manor that stands on it, the ultimate new beneficial owner was China’s government.

At present, only a few dozen students, almost all from China, take courses there, for periods of 10 weeks or one year. But Peking University, whose main campus in China houses numerous labs that conduct a broad swath of classified defense and intelligence-related research, wants their numbers to grow to at least 200. The authoritative database of Chinese universities maintained by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, which is partly funded by the UK Foreign Office, classes Peking as a “high risk” institution because of its close relationship with China’s military-industrial complex.

The Friends of Boars Hill, a local pressure group fighting the outpost’s plans for expansion, say they may endanger UK national security. Maps they have shared with UnHerd show that from the top of Foxcombe Manor’s 20-meter tower, several Oxford university departments that conduct sensitive scientific research, along with the numerous high-tech start-ups housed at the Oxford Science Park and the Culham Innovation Center, lie in a direct line of sight. This, a Whitehall security expert confirmed, makes them potentially vulnerable to radio frequency espionage.

Peking University’s UK spokesman told me such claims “have no basis” and that the outpost’s “only purpose” was education. Be that as it may, there is no doubting the CCP’s indelible involvement with the Boars Hill campus. Mandarin-language websites show it was formally inaugurated in September 2018 at a meeting in Beijing attended by more than 300 CCP members and chaired by the business faculty’s Party secretary, Wang Qing. His colleague Tan Wenchang told the gathering he hoped that the Oxford outpost would “become a benchmark for Party building in future”.

Another speaker, Ren Ying, promised the Party would “fully play its role as the [outpost’s] political nucleus and a bastion of strength”, so influencing every aspect of its work.

According to Sam Dunning, director of the research group UK-China Transparency, this raises serious questions about whether the institution should be allowed to operate on British soil. Direction by the CCP flies in the face of British legal requirements that universities should grant equal opportunities for applicants, and uphold the freedom of thought and speech.

To be listed on the OfS register, institutions must observe such obligations. But Dunning points out that in China, the CCP requires students not only to follow its ideological strictures, but to inform Party authorities about any who do not. Moreover, the CCP ruthlessly discriminates against pro-democracy activists and ethnic and religious minorities such as members of Falun Gong — of whom there are many thousands living in Britain. “How can Peking UK’s leaders ensure the highest standards of teaching, when they are bound by Chinese law and the CCP to politicize teaching in line with the views of an authoritarian political group on the other side of the world?”, asks Dunning, who has raised his concerns with the OfS.

It appears they have not fallen on deaf ears. An OfS spokesman told me it was now “engaging with relevant parties” to investigate the issues Dunning and other critics have raised about the Peking UK campus.

The outpost’s spokesman said that last year, it set up a new management committee, none of whose members were Chinese nationals or CCP members:  “Like all legitimate higher educational institutions operating in the UK PHBS-UK abides by and adheres to the laws and regulations that govern it,” he said.

However, he failed to respond to questions about its behind-the-scenes links to the Chinese government and CCP, though he said Peking University hoped the OFS would eventually grant its UK branch powers to award British degrees, which it currently lacks.

That may be a forlorn hope. “As outlined in our regulatory framework, if we identify a breach of a specific or general ongoing condition of registration as part of our enquiries, then we will consider the use of formal sanctions,” the OFS spokesperson said. “These may include monetary penalties, suspension from the register or de-registration.”

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David Rose is UnHerd‘s Investigations Editor.

DavidRoseUK

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