Will social kisses survive Covid?

There is a ‘pervasive presence of Chinese military-linked conglomerates and universities in the sponsorship of high-technology research centres in many leading UK universities’. When the think tank Civitas recently revealed this, Cambridge University denounced the report as misinformation and pushed Civitas to qualify it. Thus, when Civitas had referred to Cambridge’s Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with China’s National University of Defence Technology (NUDT), Cambridge wanted it added that the MoU had been ‘signed in the wake of the UK… government’s encouragement to create a “golden decade” for the UK-China relationship. That MoU produced no research, no collaborations, no funding and has been expired for three years’. Why, then, was it signed, one wonders? A grimly amusing link is between a bye-fellow of Gonville and Caius College who is also ‘a Distinguished Professor and a 1,000-talent plan awardee’ at NUDT and a NUDT academic called Xienwen Ran. They have done research work together.