Crackdown on Chinese Students Raises Fears for UK Tech Ambitions
Some business leaders and academics worry that a campaign to protect universities from espionage puts the country’s scientific ambitions at risk.
Chinese students are a key source of revenue for UK universities.
Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Chinese national Luo, 23, was thrilled when he was accepted into Cambridge University’s electrical engineering PhD program in 2021.
All he needed before starting was clearance from a UK government agency that vets postgraduate students who study topics that could have military applications. Luo considered that a formality, he told Bloomberg in an interview, considering he’d already been green-lit for his masters degree at the same school.