New research published yesterday by UK-China Transparency (UKCT) exposed links between King’s College London (KCL) donor Dr Ming-Wai Lau and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
According to Freedom of Information (FOI) requests by UKCT, Dr Lau has donated at least £11 million to the university since 2010 to establish the Lau China Institute, described by UKCT as “the UK’s largest China studies centre”. His support of the Institute is described as “ongoing”.
Dr Lau told The New York Times in 2016 that for Hong Kong, “integration with China needs to happen on all levels – economic, social, cultural and so on.”
In the interview, he also stated that he agreed with “the ultimate aim” and “most of the methods” of a Chinese government directive to encourage more patriotic education in Hong Kong and abroad.
This comes in the context of more than a decade of Chinese government efforts for further integration of Hong Kong with the mainland. Triggering mass protests, the implementation of the National Security Law in 2020 brought Hong Kong’s integration with China to a new level. This has significantly tightened Beijing’s control over the region and altered the political landscape.
The UKCT report states that Dr Lau served in several official government offices in Hong Kong since the founding of the Institute, including as a member of the Hong Kong government’s Greater Pearl River Delta Business Council between 2010 and 2013, which is tasked “to promote the economic integration of Hong Kong and the Mainland, including by making recommendations to the Chinese central government”.
In addition, the report states Dr Lau served as the Chairman of the Commission of Youth of Hong Kong starting in 2015. The commission is an advisory body on youth development, which also sponsored internships with Chinese companies and exchange trips to the mainland. After the commission was renamed the Youth Development Commission in 2018, he became the Deputy Chairman and held this position until 2022, whilst a series of government officials chaired the commission.
According to reporting in The Times, the commission continued to sponsor internships on the mainland and worked with the United Front Work Department, a branch of the CCP that, according to the US State Department, coordinates domestic and foreign influence operations.
Dr Lau is an alumnus of KCL, earning his Law LLB and later his PhD from the university. In 2017, the university made Dr Lau a fellow.
The report has also highlighted the role of the Institute’s director, Professor Kerry Brown, who received an award in 2020 from a Chinese government think-tank for “telling a good story about China and disseminating China’s voice well”. The report describes Professor Brown as a “frequent contributor” to Chinese state media, directly citing 18 articles from publications including China Daily and China Global Television Network (CGTN).
An interview published by CGTN referred to an article by Professor Brown in which he criticised Western “moralising” against China and called for the West “to purge our language, outside China, of the constant desire to urge it to become like us, and to be constantly wanting to preach and urge it to reform and change in ways that will, we assume, make it more like us”.
In the report, UKCT also criticised the lack of transparency shown by King’s regarding Dr Lau’s influence on the Institute. KCL refused to respond to several FOI requests by UKCT as to whether terms or restrictions were attached to Dr Lau’s donations, whether Dr Lau made any request concerning the appointment of a director for the Institute and for information regarding Dr Lau’s engagement with the Institute.
After losing an appeal to the Information Commissioner challenging KCL’s refusal of several FOI requests, UKCT has escalated the case to the First-tier Tribunal.
A spokesperson from KCL told Roar:
“In line with our duty to uphold and protect academic freedom, and as set out in our robust ethical review and gift acceptance policies, all King’s Global Institutes operate completely independently from donors, who have no influence over the focus of any research undertaken by the institutes. We are proud of the work of our Global Institutes in bringing together leading academics to critically examine and deliver country-focused research and expertise, that helps shape and inform global understanding.”
Roar approached Professor Brown and Dr Lau for comment, but received no response.
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