Academics urge caution over Chinese collaboration
Academics urge caution over Chinese collaborationAnthea Lipsett
Thursday December 6, 2007
EducationGuardian.co.uk
British universities must stop courting China and start seeing the country as a threat, the former head of Nottingham University's Chinese campus warned today.
In a report from the higher education thinktank Agora, the founding provost of Nottingham-Ningbo, Prof Ian Gow, claimed China wants to profit from the UK's strengths in science and technology by absorbing the talent and intellectual property of its partners.
When it comes to higher education, China may be more of a threat than an opportunity, Gow said.
\"British institutions must stop viewing this aggressively ambitious country through rose-tinted spectacles. Make no mistake, China wants to be the leading power in higher education, and it will extract what it can from the UK.\"
Now pro-vice-chancellor at the University of West of England, having left Ningbo a year ago, the professor called British institutions \"incredibly na飗e\" for handing over their research in key disciplines to get a foothold in China.
He predicts that institutions negotiating entry to China would gain it only on Chinese terms, with the country staying very much in control.
\"The Chinese no longer have to persuade, they seem to have everyone eating out of their hands. The pull factor is being replaced by a push from the foreign institutions. But we are not thinking sufficiently about how to engineer a win-win situation. We are simply rushing to establish any sort of partnership to get out there,\" he said.
\"Unless emerging Sino-UK strategic alliances are better thought through, British higher education could be sorry.\"
Universities bank on sending academics to spend one semester in China for two or three years, but Chinese students want to see more western faces in return for higher fees, he said.
\"And the Chinese government want us to send our top research staff - and especially core research staff in the sciences - to work full-time for three years or longer.\"
The report, British universities in China: The reality beyond the rhetoric, outlines the views of six key academics with personal experience of higher education partnerships in China and other countries.
They include the Institute of Education's Prof Michael Shattock, Dr David Pilsbury, chief executive of the Worldwide Universities Network and Andrew Halper, partner and head of China business group Eversheds.
The report criticises the rush to set up campuses in China, warning that these ambitious ventures are \"a leap in the dark\".
Agora's director, Anna Fazackerley, said Chinese partners could prove \"unknown quantities\", operating within a legal and cultural system institutions may not fully understand.
Institutions' calculations about how many students and staff they would be able to attract could prove \"alarmingly optimistic\", she added.
Pilsbury said: \"There is a lot of excitement about overseas campuses, but I do not think people should underestimate how difficult it is to make these ventures a success.\"
Only Nottingham and Liverpool universities have set up campuses in China so far. The University of Nottingham Ningbo is sponsored by the city of Ningbo and run by Nottingham with cooperation from Zhejiang Wanli University. While the Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU) is a partnership between both universities.
Both ventures are the first Sino-foreign universities in China to have the Chinese ministry of education's approval.
City and Westminster universities in London were negotiating to establish campuses in China, but both are believed to have now pulled out. Imperial, King's and University College London are all also thought to be looking at the possibility of setting up outposts in the country.
Several UK universities have established links and joint degrees with the 5,000 institutions in China. Not an approving occasion to talk about Chinese Dream. I really glad to read the last sentence!
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