OPINION
However inadvertent, one of the Chancellor's policies seems to be playing into another state's hands (Image: Getty)
Rachel Reeves has played an absolute blinder. Unfortunately, it's not for the UK. China has been buying up Britain's private schools after they found themselves in financial difficulty. It has been suggested that Labour’s introduction of VAT on private school fees - which has been championed by Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson, with the responsibility for the Government's fiscal policies ultimately lying at the Chancellor's door - has increased their attractiveness to Chinese investors. Officials are of the belief that the Chinese Communist Party is responsible for a spike in takeovers of independent UK schools of late, as more than 30 have been purchased by investors from the Asian country.
These include Thetford Grammar School, which was founded in 1566 and now owned by China Financial Services Holdings, and Wisbech Grammar, which was founded in 1379 and has been bought by Access Education. Feeling uneasy about this is not just a Sinophobic reflex, but a genuine strategic consideration, as Vladimir Putin's strengthening relationships with China, as well as Iran and North Korea, constitutes "a growing threat to Western security", the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) has stipulated, as "Russia is actively pursuing a global anti-Western alliance". China is also, of course, taking its own actions, including purportedly supplying the Houthis with aid, in return for safe passage for its ships through the Red Sea.
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Thetford Grammar School is one of the schools that has been bought by a Chinese firm (Image: Flickr: David for the Guess Where UK group)
Julian Fisher, a former teacher at Harrow Beijing, and co-founder and consultant at Venture Education, which "empowers education in China", has told the Times the country knows that "with the changes to VAT, a lot more schools, likely to be slightly better schools, will become available".
A senior Government source told the newspaper that China is "playing the long game" and doing what the UK used to do in its imperial territories, namely seeking to influence young people.
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This is "ideological warfare", they added, and children will grow up and be "helpful" to Xi Jinping and the party he dominates.
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China is actively attempting to go against the expansion of Western-led multilateral institutions such as NATO and AUKUS, while emphasising the expansion of SinoRussian-led institutions, such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and BRICS, specialists highlight.
Ambitions are not limited to Earth, as Moscow and Beijing’s "willingness to deepen bilateral strategic ties" has stretched to posturing against the West in space, the ISW reports.
It added in a recent report: "The PRC portrays itself as a defender of the international legal order, but in reality wishes to reshape it in its own favor.
"It does so by claiming to be a champion of the 'Global South,' a broad group of developing countries... that Beijing says are unfairly marginalised by wealthy Western nations."
It comes as Chinese influence in Britain's universities has also sparked concern, with UK-China Transparency (UKCT) publishing a report earlier this month describing "widespread concerns within the academic community about spying, intimidation, harassment, and self-censorship".
Professor Gregory Lee, professor emeritus at the University of St Andrews, expressed concern about "censorship and academic constraints surrounding China-focused and Chinese studies" in Britain.
He added: "By not taking action on such issues, we in the UK are complicit in the Chinese authorities' efforts to have their own idyllic vision of China dominate the minds of students and non-students alike."
The Conservative Government finally took action against Huawei, as it promised that all equipment from the Chinese firm was to be removed from 5G networks by end of 2027.
The relationship between Russia and China has grown closer (Image: Getty)
This followed "updated technical advice" from British cyber experts.
More recently, it has been suggested that the mooted site of China's new London embassy, the Royal Mint Court, could enable the country to infiltrate the UK's financial system by tapping into fibre optic cables carrying sensitive data for City of London firms.
This would amount to leaving your house key with the friendly neighbourhood burglar.
The latest development in this saga, which belongs in a budget spy movie or an episode of Doctor Who, is that parts of China's plans for the building have been blanked out.
Rightly, Angela Rayner has asked why this is the case.
All this is not mentioning the appaling treatment of Hong Kong after it was left in the care of China in 1997, and "Wild West" style bounties on individuals who have left the territory to the UK.
Amnesty International reported in 2024 that Chinese students in Britain, as well as other parts of Europe and North America, face intimidation and surveillance from Chinese and Hong Kong authorities.
This month, the potential acquisition of the Telegraph Media Group by investment firm RedBird Capital has sparked concern in light of the firm's reported ties to China.
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The Government should be doing what it can to hinder sinister Chinese influence in Britain, as it repeatedly rears its head.
Besides from your opinion on the impact of the VAT on private school fees on schools across the country (a Schools Week investigation found in January that fewer than a dozen schools have publicly blamed the new VAT policy for their closure, but it would be valid to suggest that the true impact of the tax hike will take time to show itself), the move, however inadvertenly, is clearly greasing the wheels of Xi Jinping's manoeuvring in Britain.
Being nice is only useful to a point, and somewhere along the line real politik should become the dominant factor in policy, especially if there is even a chance that it could lend a helping hand to a state that does not give a fig about - and is arguably openly hostile to - our interests.
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