Leading British universities are helping China expand and modernise its military, despite persistent warnings from the UK and the US, The Telegraph has found.

Universities including Oxford and Cambridge are on a list of UK institutions that have partnerships with China’s top defence universities.

The agreements allow for Britain’s top academics to assist China in researching new defence technology as well as training the next generation of China’s military leaders.

Some co-operation is explicitly related to defence, while other parts cover civilian issues such as climate change and economics. However, experts say that it doesn’t matter what the subject is – the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will take advantage of expertise and technology from anywhere it can.

The partnerships, which have grown in number in recent years, are contributing to the military expansion of one of the world’s most secretive nuclear powers, and in doing so could be leaving Britain’s national security at risk.

“Universities are sometimes naive in their understanding of how the People’s Republic of China operates and they are often approaching things by being too open and blinded to the potential threat,” said Sir Gavin Williamson, the Conservative MP who served as secretary of state for both education and defence.

“It’s an issue that needs to be addressed very rapidly because it could potentially lead to – and has led to – the theft and misappropriation of intellectual property and potentially leave vulnerabilities in the defence systems that we develop.”

‘Seven Sons of National Defence’

Over the past 25 years, China’s People’s Liberation Army has grown from a small military with hardly any money to one of the largest and most powerful in the world.

Its military has more soldiers, warships and fighter jets than any other – including the US. Last week, China’s first drone carrier, known as the Type 076 or the Sichuan, began sea trials as Beijing showcased its unrelenting naval build-up.

And this expansion of Beijing’s military is in large part thanks to its wide net of academic partnerships.

Many of the agreements involving British universities uncovered by The Telegraph are with a group of leading Chinese military institutions known as the “Seven Sons of National Defence”, which were founded with the sole purpose of expanding China’s military capabilities.

One of the “seven sons”, the Beijing Institute of Technology, responsible for developing China’s first two-stage high altitude research rocket and first light tank, lists partnerships with at least five British universities, including with the University of Lancashire, which has been in place since 1998.

The University of Southampton runs a joint institute with the Harbin Engineering University, another of the “seven sons”, which is known for research in submarines, underwater drones and naval power systems.

The joint institute has produced research as recently as this year on how to improve unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) ground detection and better facilitate multi-ship coordination.

Other “seven sons” universities have also partnered with British institutions on defence research.

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In 2021, a Bristol Robotics Laboratory researcher co-authored a study with Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics on improving coordination in UAV attacks.

A year earlier, a lecturer at the London South Bank University collaborated with Northwestern Polytechnical University on optimising ship formations to maximise air-defence capabilities.

In response to The Telegraph, Southampton University said it has “rigorous governance in place” to ensure that it “does not support military research”. London South Bank University said that its ties to Northwestern Polytechnical University “are no longer in place”.

The Bristol Robotics Laboratory did not respond to requests for comment.

Tip of the iceberg

While the “seven sons” are China’s top-tier defence institutions, the country has dozens more universities that also feed its military apparatus.

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Approximately 70 Chinese universities are under the direct supervision of the country’s primary defence agency, known as SASTIND (State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense), while others are managed by affiliate branches of the Chinese government or are part of state-owned defence conglomerates.

Cambridge, Oxford and the London School of Economics, are among universities that have ongoing partnerships with SASTIND institutions, including with the prominent Tsinghua University.

All three British universities maintain that their partnerships with these Chinese institutions are subject to thorough due diligence and follow UK government regulations.

Despite the mounting pressure, the University of Leeds signed a new agreement in March of this year with the University of Science and Technology Beijing.

While under the management of China’s ministry of education, the institution openly advertises its role in achieving “historic breakthroughs in defence equipment projects”. Leeds University did not respond to The Telegraph’s request for comment.

Oxford also claims on its website to have trained “more than 10,000 Chinese government and university officials” through its different programmes and operates a centre at the Suzhou Industrial Park, a hub known for hosting companies with dual use potential.

Cheryl Yu, a fellow in China studies at the US-based Jamestown Foundation, said that Oxford’s centre at Suzhou is a prime example of one of China’s “offshore innovation bases”.

These are sites that China uses to “bring foreign expertise and technology back to China” and support military, security, and surveillance capabilities, said Ms Yu.

Oxford and other universities approached by The Telegraph maintain that their research is not related to defence, but focused on subjects such as climate change and health, but Ms Yu explained that China is still very likely using these partnerships to boost its military, even indirectly.

“Because these universities are integrated into the [CCP’s] military-civil fusion system, any knowledge or technology shared through joint programs can ultimately be directed toward military use,” said Ms Yu, referring to a widespread strategy put in place by Xi Jinping to strengthen the military by maximising the civilian sector.

“What may appear as academic collaboration can, in reality, contribute to [China’s] military modernisation and support the CCP’s ambition of strengthening its position as a global power.”

Human rights abuses

Partnerships between British universities and China have also extended beyond military modernisation to also include cooperation with sanctioned and restricted companies, including those directly involved in the persecution of the Uyghur population in the western Xinjiang province.

More than 40 UK universities have been connected to Chinese institutions allegedly involved in the mass crackdowns against the Uyghurs, which has since been labelled by human rights groups as a genocide.

Huawei, one of China’s leading technology companies, which has been on the US trade blacklist since 2019 and linked to surveillance in Xinjiang, claims on its website to have had research partnerships with 20 British universities, including Cambridge, Oxford and Imperial College London.

Imperial signed a £5m agreement with Huawei in 2020, around the same time that evidence of Huawei’s work in Xinjiang first began to surface, while Cambridge, which signed its £25m partnership with Huawei in 2017, didn’t end the partnership until 2022.

Oxford announced in 2019 that it had suspended all new donations and sponsorships from Huawei.

A Huawei spokesperson said that “accusations of wrongdoing in Huawei’s partnerships with universities are unfounded” and the company does not “develop or sell systems targeting specific ethnic groups”.

The University of Manchester was also previously involved in research with the China Electronics Technology Group, which had been described by human rights groups as “one of the main architects of the Chinese government’s surveillance state in Xinjiang”. The agreement was terminated in 2021.

Manchester, Imperial College and the University of Strathclyde, also previously had partnerships with one of China’s leading aerospace technology companies and one of its subsidiaries, which is sanctioned by the US.

All have since been terminated according to responses sent to The Telegraph.

US winds down, UK picks up

While some high-risk partnerships with human rights implications have been terminated, the trend of cooperation between British and Chinese institutions, including those related to defence, has been increasing.

Over the past two years, the British Council claimed that it generated over 40 new partnerships and a UK government report from 2021 found that collaboration between British and Chinese universities had been increasing for decades before.

In 2022, MI5 and the FBI issued a joint warning against the growing threat of Chinese espionage efforts, but it hardly had an impact in Britain.

In a report published in April, The Times found that 23 British universities signed agreements with at least one institution likely involved in Chinese military research since the MI5-FBI announcement.

At least five of these agreements were signed with one of the “seven sons” universities.

A spokesperson from the UK Department for Science, Innovation and Technology told The Telegraph that the UK encourages institutions to “pursue partnerships and engage internationally” provided they “comply with UK security policies and regulations, which are designed to safeguard the UK’s national security”.

Earlier this month, Lord Patrick Vallance, science and technology minister, also signed a new bilateral agreement with his Chinese counterpart to cut back scientific research and focus on areas which “are not carrying such a security risk”.

However, in the US, mounting public pressure already seems to be several steps ahead.

After the US government committee on the CCP published consecutive reports naming existing US-China partnerships, several universities in the US terminated their partnerships.

Sir Gavin said that a likely reason for why UK universities continue to seek out partnerships despite the risk is, in part, due to a willingness to collaborate, but mostly “down to money” and the “access and ability to open up new resources”.

The former education secretary added: “Our universities in the UK are an enormous asset, but they’ve also got to guard against being used as the back door and the route in by the CCP and its affiliates.”