As Robert Clark, the former director of defence and security at Civitas, showed in our report on the strategic dependence of UK universities on China, up to 20% of around £150 million of recent Chinese funding for UK higher education research was sourced from entities sanctioned by the US Commerce Department due to their links to the People’s Liberation Army.
When accounting for unsanctioned entities that have demonstrable links to the PRC military, that proportion rises to one-third. Put simply, universities in this country have helped the Chinese military design ballistic missiles and killer drones.
Moreover, the same report showed that 40% of all declared Chinese funding to Confucius Institutes hosted at UK universities derives from Chinese entities involved in Beijing’s military industrial complex. Perhaps Prof Williams should take this up with Zhang Ping, the former “Chinese co-director” of the Confucius Institute for Business and Communication, the outpost based within Heriot-Watt.
The Institute is tied to the CCP’s propaganda department, and Zhang, who was based in Edinburgh, was effectively Heriot-Watt staff. Yet, as a CCP member (according to her Chinese biography), she was obliged, under CCP rules and Chinese law, to report on anti-CCP activity in the UK, and to fulfil the party’s programme, including “civil military fusion”, a doctrine which requires civilian and academic scientists to cooperate fully with the Chinese military. Clearly, this put Heriot-Watt’s Chinese student body at risk from surveillance and harassment.
Humanity’s chances of counteracting climate change are not helped by allowing the CCP to infiltrate Western universities, co-opting tolerance and freedom in order to play international power games. It is the CCP that is determined to undermine the institutions and systems of trust that enable international science to flourish – they do so because they are ultra-nationalists bent on what they call the “rejuvenation of the ancestor-land”, and dominance over their East Asian neighbours.
Whatever version of China Prof Williams has acquainted himself with, it is not the reality, and we urge him to review his university’s engagement with PRC counterparts as a matter of urgency.
David Green, Head of Communications, Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation, Washington DC.
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Protecting our built heritage
IAN McConnell conveyed some excellent points about the challenges facing Glasgow and other town and city centres (“Post-apocalyptic vibe on Glasgow street but city has much to celebrate”, The Herald, January 8).
Our built heritage already plays a significant economic role, particularly through the tourism it attracts, yet it could do so much more. A lack of joined-up thinking at Scottish and UK levels has undermined the advantages this legacy could and should bring.
The imposition of VAT to the maintenance and repair of older buildings, while encouraging demolition and new build by applying zero rating, in the middle of a housing crisis, stymies both the re-use of older buildings that no longer fulfil their original purposes and the retrofitting of homes for new net zero heating systems. This makes little sense when almost 20% of Scottish housing pre-dates 1919. Understanding that “the greenest building is one that already exists” is surely fundamental to our nation’s ambitions for reducing emissions and use of precious resources.
Another long-term policy failure is failure to provide for effective vocational and traditional skills training. This means we are short of people who can work with stone, slate and other materials, further compounding the crisis for built heritage.
These problems cannot be laid at the door of Glasgow City Council and other local authorities: the Our Past, Our Future national historic environment strategy requires proper investment and implementation across the sector.
Stuart Brooks, Director of Conservation & Policy, National Trust for Scotland, Edinburgh.
It’s right that tourists should pay
YOUR headline today, “Visitors will be charged tourist tax for trips to Edinburgh” (The Herald, January 9) in my opinion puts completely the wrong slant on this tax. As a resident of Scotland I get free admission to museums, and the recording on the tour bus of Glasgow proudly proclaims at almost every stop that “Entrance to Glasgow’s museums is free”. It is far from the case in other countries where there is a charge, sometimes lower for residents than visitors, but a charge nevertheless. Other countries also see the sense in having a tourist tax.
Indeed, a headline on your “Breaking News” emailed out at 07:20 this morning, makes the very point that I am: “National Galleries of Scotland warn of closure without urgent government investment”
Why should we, the residents of Scotland, most of us taxpayers here, which is really what is meant by the “government” pay for this investment when tourists and other visitors pay nothing towards the upkeep of our cities?
Patricia Fort, Glasgow.
Should tourists have to pay for access to the National Galleries? (Image: Gordon Terris)
We use the bins, please empty them
MY wife and I spent a fairly pleasant walk in the frosty Queens Park, Glasgow, with our two grandsons today.
We were appalled at the number of large litter bins that were overflowing. It indicates that the people taking advantage of the park were at least making an effort to use these bins. But why are the authorities not ensuring that they are emptied on a regular basis? Surely this mess will attract vermin and winds will scatter it undoing the good intentions of park users.
Ivor Matheson, Dumfries.