Long-Term Strategic Challenges Posed by China

Baroness Coussins Excerpts

Thursday 19th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Coussins (CB)]

My Lords, I endorse what others have said about human rights abuses in China, so I will not indulge in any repetition. I will use my contribution to flag up how Mandarin teaching in the UK fits in with His Majesty’s Government’s long-term strategic objectives and challenges. I spoke about this in the debate a year ago referred to by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, and there are some relevant new facts and figures to report since then, following the latest independent evaluation of the Mandarin Excellence Programme, including the role and significance of the Confucius Institutes, which themselves pose one of the strategic challenges to be resolved. I declare my interests as a current member of the International Relations and Defence Committee and co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Modern Languages.

In the integrated review refresh, the Government announced that they would double their funding for their China capabilities programme in 2024-25, and that this would include training for government staff on economic and military policy and Mandarin language skills. The Government are to be congratulated on acknowledging and targeting the importance of language skills as one of the decisive factors in both foreign and economic policy. Whenever I draw attention to the UK’s shortcomings in the teaching and learning of foreign languages within the education system, I always try to make sure that I draw attention to the fact that the Armed Forces and the diplomatic and security services are exemplary in their understanding of, investment in and rewarding of language skills. What level is the additional funding indicated in the refresh policy now to be set at? How many government officials are expected to receive the language training, and up to what standard?

This is obviously not the right debate to discuss the detail of the Mandarin Excellence Programme’s educational value, pedagogical approach or results. Rather, the main issue I want to highlight is whether there is any legitimate concern that the programme and its delivery in the classroom is at all compromised by undue influence from the Chinese Government in relation to content or personnel. His Majesty’s Government have made a significant investment in the MEP, which funds the teaching and learning of Mandarin in state schools, aiming to provide an increased

“pipeline of fluent Mandarin speakers to meet the future business and economic needs of the country”.

By all measures, the programme continues to be successful and to exceed its own targets. By 2023, 11,000 students from 79 schools were enrolled in it, and this is expected to increase to 13,000 by 2024. The latest independent assessment shows that it is an effective model for developing young Chinese scholars with no prior or family link to China or Chinese.

The MEP is delivered by the University of London’s Institute of Education, in partnership with the British Council. The DfE’s contract for the programme is with UCL, not the Confucius Institutes. No one sent by China works in the MEP office. Every school participating in the MEP is responsible for engaging its own teachers locally, in exactly the same way as they employ teachers of Spanish, French or anything else. The teachers are not provided by the Confucius Institutes; they supply guest teaching assistants from China but these are supplementary to the core classroom teachers. Schools do not have any contractual agreements with any Chinese organisation; their agreements are with UCL and governed by English law, covering adherence to data protection and freedom of information.

However, for some time, high-profile concern has been expressed about the role of the Confucius Institutes and their presence within the UK education system. The China Research Group of MPs described them as an arm of the Chinese state and inaccurately claimed that the government funding of the MEP is channelled through the Confucius Institutes—as I said, this is not the case. Others have accused them of engaging in lobbying more than simply education, and there has been talk of the Government phasing out Confucius Institutes altogether and replacing them with Taiwanese alternatives. Here I respectfully disagree with my noble friend Lord Alton, because these alternatives would be educationally inadequate and would kill off the educational excellence of the MEP—although those details are also clearly not for this particular debate.

I have no doubt that it is a perfectly fair assessment to claim that the Confucius Institutes are effectively an arm of the Chinese state, but I would caution the Government against throwing the baby out with the bathwater by responding to pressure to sever all connection between them and the MEP. While the Confucius Institutes’ involvement with the teaching of Mandarin in our universities may well be giving rise to some legitimate concerns about undue influence in content, structure or personnel, the evidence shows that it is wide of the mark to suggest that this is the case with the schools programme. I urge the Minister to acknowledge this very clear and important distinction. As I have said already, there is clear blue water, legally, contractually and organisationally, between the institutes and the schools programme. The concerns that have been expressed are not shared by students, parents, teachers or head teachers. At the same time, it must of course be conceded that closer monitoring of the situation in some universities is clearly advisable, but any action against the Confucius Institutes should be proportionate and properly targeted.

I realise that the Mandarin Excellence Programme, which comes under the DfE, is one of the few things that the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, is not responsible for as Minister. However, I should be grateful if he would contact and liaise with colleagues in that department and perhaps write to me later to confirm that the MEP’s funding will be extended into 2025 and beyond. I hope that he will be happy to nail this down with the DfE, because it is as much in the long-term strategic interests of our foreign and economic policies as it is of education policy that we should maintain this pipeline of non-Chinese Mandarin speakers. We know from recent ground-breaking research by Cambridge University that, if more money were invested in the teaching of Mandarin, the UK could increase the value of its exports by £5 billion a year. Building and developing a larger cohort of Mandarin speakers is important not just for trade but for the all-important intercultural understanding that underpins so many geopolitical challenges, including human rights, climate change, counterterrorism and AI.

I look forward to the Minister’s comments on the issues I have raised.