British professor censored by college bowing to China

A British professor named Michelle Shipworth is banned from teaching a China course at her university because they need the Chinese money. At the UCL, or University College London, last year, she hosted a seminar in which afterwards she was accused of being racist, among other things, offending China, and since then, she's been barred from teaching that same course, and her head of department is giving all sorts of excuses. And the students claim she's using horrible provocation in the process. Love it, brainwashed Chinese college students coming to London and displaying their wolf warriorism and nationalism just in front of everyone. In the words of her superior, in order for the university to be commercially viable for those Chinese students, well, of course, the university courses need to retain a good reputation amongst future Chinese applicants. So they took away the course that she taught for the last 10 years. Meanwhile, separately at Imperial College London, researchers have been teaming up with Chinese military-type research institutions and continue to help them expand the Chinese military power. London, you really have a CCP problem. Let's talk about it. Welcome to China Insider, I'm David Zhang, just filming in a temporary location. Now over the last few months, you might have noticed something really interesting, which is that London is heavily infiltrated, as we've learned, from all aspects of life. Now when it comes to the college campus, the problem that's been happening right now with the University College London with Professor Shipworth is a prime example of essentially the CCP using their money and influence to control academia and every part of society, and we've seen that displayed in the last few years. So really, London has a huge problem when it comes to the Chinese Communist Party. Think about it, how many brainwashed little pinks are you letting run around your country, your city, and your academic institution to let them be the judge of things? So according to her department head, in order to not risk losing the tuition money, international students from China are paying more than double or maybe triple the amount than what domestic students would have to pay in tuition to not lose that portion, which apparently makes up almost a quarter of its total student population. Chinese students from China, they are going to aid in providing the CCP's transnational repression of values in academia, freedom, as well as just in general, the ideology. Now in doing so, they're essentially aiding in promoting the CCP ideology and values in the British academia world. So Professor Shipworth held a seminar last October examining data from the Global Slavery Index 2014, and the data claimed that China had the second highest prevalence of modern slavery in the world. Now she then asked her small group of students, Why does China have so many slaves? That question is at the heart of a case that has seen an academic reprimanded and her academic freedom curtailed after claims from a handful of Chinese students that this provocative question had left them feeling distressed. One of the Chinese students stood up and in a slightly cross voice asked why I had asked such a provocative question. The purpose here was to help them learn skills and such as examining the methodology in which the study itself was conducted in or how they gathered those data. So it sounds like she's trying to teach something to her students. Far from being anti-Chinese, Ms. Shipworth said that her use of the survey was only to highlight things or problems with it to identify some of the key points to learn. Because right now, China has the second largest population in the world, and so inevitably it would be close to the top when it comes to modern slavery. This really prompted a nationalistic reflex from one of her students who shouted at the end of the class saying that she used a horrible provocation because of course China was the example that was used. Following the incident, Professor Shipworth was actually left suicidal according to her talk with the Telegraph and she blew the whistle on the college because she felt like this was something that she was actively being oppressed by the school, of course, at least in her department. And then according to the Telegraph, she was also accused of being anti-Chinese after she caught two Chinese nationals cheating on their exam. So of course they were investigated and expelled, but that somehow turned it into that she is actually racist towards Chinese students, which this claim is so hilarious because you got caught cheating and now you dare to ask and accuse racism onto this professor when you're the one who has been cheating. That's just bizarre to me, right? One of them even used a buddy double to try to hoodwink her, and it's pretty crazy to me. So this, to me, sounds exactly like what China is doing with exporting the methods of cultural revolution, which is that if you deviate from their version of the so-called politically correct ideology or understanding, then you are automatically considered to be the aggressive one, right? So in this case, she's actually being discriminated against because the school itself, the administration, is deciding to side with a few students who are in the wrong, in my view. And this is really the issue, right? If academia cannot challenge critical thinking, what is the point of higher education or just providing the higher thinking skills and the execution of said methods and planning, etc. that people would acquire in a college course that otherwise you would just get nothing out of if this was an elementary school. That's the exact reason why colleges exist in the first place, which is to further develop your thinking skills, your ability to ask questions, to seek truth. All of that, we know that in China, is definitely not allowed to happen today because of the one-man rule, right? And so what they're doing is, these universities and colleges, they're succumbing to that really authoritarian way of thinking, which is to not think at all. And we've seen so many of the students, right, on college campuses, professors as well, they've fallen to the so-called, you know, xenophobia or whatever xenophobia defense that they use to sort of go against the criticisms against the CCP. And in that, they don't dare to make any accusations or even to challenge the idea of China, yet you have a brave professor here doing that in front of our eyes, and then she's being punished for it. So the British academia world, or at least in University College London, they're actually, they're not promoting free thinking, they're promoting academic censorship. Now according to the latest update, UCL has since launched an investigation following her going public with the whistleblower, as a whistleblower. So the, you know, think of what would happen if she had kept quiet, and after she was being accused, basically lost her passionate project of teaching this course, which she's done in the past, right? And then think about, you know, expanding and extrapolating this exact example around the world, how many colleges and how many professors are silently enduring this very same level of treatment, maybe not even to her level, right? Maybe if they were just actively being told to censor their words about China, or to even just not talk about it. How many examples are out there? And you know, some more details on this, right? So she was also told to not use any examples of particular single country to focus on that particular country, aka don't use China as the example, because that apparently will raise a lot of educational concerns among those students. Also in the email to her from her boss, he informed her, Ms. Shipworth, that she had been accused of being biased against students from a particular country, which is China. And he cited an example of a specific instance of bias that apparently have caught Chinese students from cheating. So now she is considered an overly suspicious person when it comes to dealing with Chinese students. And then also her department had said that a further complaint had said, quote, used a provocative in-class exercise, referring to that October seminar, investigating data quality, but using the subject of slavery that focused only on China that made Chinese students feel demeaned. And then he further went on to say that, quote, the result of this perceived bias is that Chinese students are not having a good experience at UCL and that the reputation and future recruitment is on the line. So see that last part, right? They're not really worried about academic freedom here. They're just worried about how much money they would lose if they got rid of these rich Chinese students. How will we ever compete against Oxford or Cambridge if we lose all the money coming from China? Right. So they don't it's no longer about integrity anymore for protecting your professor from this. Now, of course, the story has a few issue at play. One of the first one that stands out to me is the fact that it is threatening free speech, of course, because, you know, this issue isn't even about China itself, but it's being made into a nationalistic topic by the particular sensitive student, because anytime they hear that China is on the negative portrayal side, they immediately think that it's hurting their country's image, when in fact, you know, things like the slavery issue is actually actively ongoing in China, like the Uyghur concentration camps, you know, all the slave laborers that they used to use in in prison camps, etc. So these are not just coming out of thin air. They're actually happening in China. They're barring professors from using reality as examples to teach students. Now, the second one is pretty obvious. It's catering to China's censorship. If you think about this, in the process, the school is allowing the few pro-China voices students to dictate the story over the majority of the other students who are not offended by this. In actuality, according to the Telegraph, this professor, she's previously had this course done for over years. And she's even had Chinese students who thanked her at the end of the course, as well as she's previously had teaching students like research assistants who are her TAs that would help her who are Chinese. And so it's not like this was something that every single year started raising suspicion. So like I said, it's just one of those few nationalistic things, the response coming from the students. Right. And so according to her words, here's what she says. She says that our obligation is to teach the very best we can. And it doesn't mean making them students happy every day, but it does mean challenging them. OK, so when you cannot distinguish between academia, critical thinking to that of CCP nationalism. Something went wrong in that part. Right. And the third thing, I think it's probably the most important fundamentally, but it's the least likely to change, which is academic institutions. They really need to have a soul searching, which is, you know, they've lost the basic integrity of protecting free speech to allow students to freely exercise their rights to speak freely, to not promote one single idea on the campus that has gone out of the window. Right. It's something they're probably never going to find in a few years. It's going to take a large amount of time before it turns back. But that's the fundamental issue. I think we all understand that. But I think at the basic level, just the idea that you're willing to sacrifice academic integrity over censorship is already a problematic one. I think no matter where you go in the world. Still, the topic about London having a CCP problem is a big one, because at another college in London called the Imperial College London, researchers have been actively working with the Chinese research institutions, including many from something called the Seven Sons of National Defense. Now, these are seven institutions that actively help develop China's military power. And you have a prestigious research institute in London promoting and helping them develop this technology or being part of those research. Basically, Western scientists are actively aiding in China's military rise. And yet sometimes they're very proud of it. So in recent years, the UK government has toughened its rules when it comes to collaboration with the overseas institutions, particularly when it comes to transferring of technology. In this case, you can actually bypass said rules when it comes to basic scientific research. So if you're participating in research where it doesn't seem like the research itself is directly contributing to something of a particular knowledge that has already happened, but you're actually working towards a new knowledge, then in that sense, you can actually have it done still. And so a lot of the research was bypassing this rule by making the excuse that they're working on something new. Now, Imperial in 2022 was already facing a lot of scrutiny for their connections to China, but they're actually really proud because on their website, they have partnerships with Huawei, Telecom, as well as China's Aviation Industry Corporation. And they actively promote these like state-owned defense groups, etc., as well as it boasts on its website saying that it's one of the top UK universities, actually number one, I think they say, when it comes to collaborating with China, publishing over 600 research papers each year with China. Now, some of these papers, they're basically something like a military steel application, right? Others are like, well, how do we work on something with batteries or something like that? Now, there's a third paper that was published last June, and this one examined how to turn a common titanium alloy into applications for both military and civilian aerospace usage. And they work with researchers at Harbin Institute of Technology, which is one of the seven sons of national defense universities. Of course, again, you know, contributes to China's military power. Now, another paper involves another seven sons institution called Northwestern Polytechnical University in Xi'an. And that examined the electromagnetic interference shielding of a new type of carbon fiber reinforced polymer composite. And again, that's used in aerospace. And fifth paper, which was published last April, by the way, these are all examined by the Financial Times, examined aircraft thermoplastic fiber metal laminate panels, which are used again in both military and civil aviation. Now, I don't know what it takes to stop these, but you can see a pattern here, right? Most of these research are done for both a civilian application and a military application. It's very likely that the researchers at the Imperial College, they're using this as the excuse for the research, which is that we're actually collaborating for a civilian purpose, not the military side. And you should allow us to improve the lives of fellow people around the world with these research. So that's why they were published. They're mostly co-authored with one of the seven sons institutions, which again, it tells us automatically that this is for a military application, particularly when it comes to aerospace and aviation, which are two great areas in which the CCP wants to surpass the United States and others in the next decade or so. And so that's really the problem, right? I said in the third concern that I have, which is these institutions, they lost their soul, which is, you know, at what point are you really just helping the enemies to destroy your own country or your allies and being happy about that and actually posting on your website, just all because that there's money to be made. But again, you know, that's something that would take a long time for them to rediscover. We'll hope for the best, see if things come out of that, but, you know, highly doubt that's something that's going to happen. Anyways, that's it today for the episode on how London has the CCP problem. If you enjoy the content, leave a like, comment below your thoughts, and subscribe to our channel. Until next time. Bye bye.