European-Chinese collaboration in academia is another area that has been becoming increasingly sensitive in recent years.
Guardians of Knowledge: Why the EU’s New Research Security Approach Puts European Universities in a Bind -- [March 2024]
... Ten years ago, the EU (as well as its member states and many other states across the globe) was advocating for greater research cooperation with all countries, including China. Global academic engagement was an indirect way of increasing the EU’s diplomatic clout ...
However, the rise of [Chinese leader] Xi Jinping and his authoritarian, inward-looking governance model led to gradual shift in the EU-China relationship, including in R&I. The final acknowledgement of this development came from von der Leyen Commission in the Strategic Outlook on China in 2019. The EU DG RTD, then led by Commissioner Maria Gabriel, coined a new strategy – “Global Approach” – which recalibrated the openness in R&I to be “as open as possible, as closed as necessary." ...
The current Chinese leadership is tightening organizational control over universities, reducing their autonomy, dictating top-down research topics that it deems crucial for China’s national security, and excluding those considered harmful to the CCP’s official narrative. Aiming for technological sovereignty, the CCP also seeks global influence, standard-setting, and norm-shaping abroad, including in science and higher education. Chinese laws and regulations on espionage, military-civil integration and Party-academia integration, involve all ministries, universities and academies of science, and outline plans to increase Chinese influence in academia abroad while achieving “China-style modernization” at home ...
Dealing with China necessitates structural changes in how universities organize collaborative research, meaning that any new regulations, however urgent, will take years to take effect ...