Monday, November 5, 2018

In Chinese Spy Ops, Something Old, Something New

Indictments reveal how Beijing mixes traditional spycraft with cyberespionage to steal U.S. technology.

A person walks past a 12-story building alleged in a report on Feb. 19, 2013, by the internet security firm Mandiant as the home of a Chinese military-led hacking group after the firm reportedly traced a host of cyberattacks to the building in Shanghai's northern suburb of Gaoqiao. (Peter Parks/AFP/Getty Images)

BY ELIAS GROLL-

NOVEMBER 5, 2018, 10:53 AM
For years, U.S. intelligence officials have warned about the hacking threat posed by Chinese operatives using sophisticated technology to steal American intellectual property.

But a series of recent indictments targeting Chinese agents highlight something else: Alongside technology, Beijing is also using old-school methods of human intelligence to pilfer the items it needs.

On Tuesday, U.S. prosecutors charged two officers of the Ministry of State Security—China’s main spy agency—and a team of hackers with attempting to steal advanced jet-engine technology being developed jointly by an American company and a French one.

As part of the operation, the spy agency developed malware that would infiltrate the French company’s servers. But to install the software on the computer system, the agency resorted to an older bit of spycraft. It recruited an employee of the company, named in the indictment as Tian Xi, who implanted malware dubbed Sakula using a USB stick.

The development of an advanced domestic jet-engine industry represents a key goal for Beijing, which is looking to surpass Western high-tech manufacturing companies as part of its “Made in China 2025” initiative. To do so, the Chinese Communist Party has embarked on an aggressive espionage campaign aimed at boosting domestic companies working on everything from jet engines to semiconductors.

The ability to operate effectively in both old and new forms of espionage is what makes the Chinese spy agencies so formidable, according to analysts.

“When China identifies a target, especially the chip industry that is seen as critical to the next generation of technological innovation, it will try cyber, bribery, insider theft, recruitment until something works,” said Adam Segal, who directs the Digital and Cyberspace Policy Program at the Council on Foreign Relations.

The Trump administration has stepped up efforts on multiple fronts to confront China. It has slapped tariffs on some $250 billion in Chinese goods and has signed into law the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act, which will increase scrutiny on Chinese investments in the United States and allow the government to block a wider range of transactions.

On Thursday, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the formation of a new task force to combat efforts by China to steal American corporate secrets.

“Chinese economic espionage against the United States has been increasing—and it has been increasing rapidly,” Sessions said at a press conference in Washington. “We are here today to say: enough is enough. We’re not going to take it anymore.”

Sessions made the announcement as he unveiled yet another indictment involving Chinese economic espionage. This one alleges that a Taiwanese semiconductor company and its Chinese partner conspired to steal semiconductor technology from Micron, an Idaho-based semiconductor manufacturer.

As with the earlier indictment, this one also illustrates how Chinese operatives leverage traditional techniques of intelligence gathering to acquire business secrets.

According to the document, officials from the Taiwanese semiconductor company United Microelectronics Corporation recruited Micron executives to steal company trade secrets associated with the production of semiconductors. The Taiwanese company then hired the officials, who brought Micron’s technology with them.

The indictment alleges that the Taiwanese company entered into a cooperation agreement with Jinhua, a state-owned Chinese company, to provide that technology to Beijing.

Other recent targets of Chinese economic espionage include military-grade high-speed computer chips, a foam with both military and commercial applications, and rice seeds engineered for use in medical applications.

A majority of economic espionage cases prosecuted by the U.S. Department of Justice involve “the marriage of cyber and human operations,” said Priscilla Moriuchi, a former National Security Agency official and the director of strategic threat development at the cybersecurity firm Recorded Future. “From a historic perspective, that is how China has preferred to do things.”

In 2011, Chinese operatives recruited an Austrian employee of American Superconductor, which makes software that runs wind turbines, to hand over the company’s source code to Sinovel, its Chinese partner, in exchange for $1.7 million. American Superconductor sued Sinovel, and Chinese operatives immediately tried to hack the U.S. company and steal its legal strategy.

But even as these recruitment remains a staple of Chinese spy operations, the hacking activity has intensified. According to a report published this year by the cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike, in the first six months of 2018, China was as the most prolific nation-state hacker among the countries tracked by the firm. Its targets included companies in the biotech, defense, mining, pharmaceutical, professional services, and transportation sectors.

Experts point out that digital technology has made espionage much easier. “Kim Philby [a British intelligence agent who spied for the Soviet Union in the last century] had to sneak files out of MI6 in a briefcase,” said Phillip Hallam-Baker, the principal scientist at Comodo Cybersecurity.

“A truckload of printed paper contains about 1 gigabyte of data. A single thumb drive can contain 250 truckloads. A residential internet connection can transfer a truckload of data in eight seconds.”

Elias Groll is a staff writer at Foreign Policy covering cyberspace. @EliasGroll

The costs and benefits of China’s Belt and Road Initiative

000_OF23L-940x580 — Chinese President Xi Jinping speaks during a news conference at the Belt and Road Forum, at the International Conference Center in Yanqi Lake, north of Beijing, on May 15, 2017. Source: Jason Lee/AFP

By Lauren Johnston | 5th November 2018

IN two steps in 2013, first in Kazakhstan and then in Indonesia, Chinese President Xi Jinping launched what is now known as the ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ (BRI). Among confusion as to the dynamic form and intent of the BRI, and the fundamental priority within China of maintaining growth and delivering moderate prosperity to all Chinese citizens, the big question for many is what, economically, is in it for China?

December 2018 marks four decades since Deng Xiaoping launched the ‘reform and opening’ era. That era instigated China’s shift to becoming the world’s second-largest economy and helped some 800 million people escape poverty.

It was a process characterised by the incremental transfer of informal rural labour into primary urban and industrial labour, alongside concentrated investment in fixed capital and the energy-intensive industrial and export-oriented sectors in general.

SEE ALSO: China’s foreign policy is buying influence, but not respect

The Chinese economy has undergone four decades of structural change, resulting in a greater role for consumption, increased independent innovation capacity, and the now fast-development of service industries in the country.

Consequently, several coastal and municipal provinces in China already enjoy high per capita incomes. In China’s central and western regions, however, absolute poverty remains an issue. The services sector is rapidly developing, but the financial sector and the internationalisation of China’s currency, the Renminbi (RMB), lag behind the maturity and size of China’s economy and international integration.

The BRI emphasises cooperation in five areas: coordinating development policies; forging infrastructure and facilities networks; strengthening investment and trade relations; enhancing financial cooperation; and deepening social and cultural exchange.

China’s Belt & Road Initiative will sweep across some 70 nations in Asia, Africa, Europe and the Pacific region. Source: Mercator Institute for China Studies

With such a breadth of goals and dozens of countries officially signed up to the BRI, it is hard enough to understand its current form, let alone predict its future trajectory.

One approach, however, is to understand China’s economic needs in terms of realising its goal of comprehensive moderate prosperity, and also to look at the precedent of Chinese policy-making over recent decades. That is the aim of my recent article in the Asia & the Pacific Policy Studies journal, ‘The Belt and Road Initiative: What’s in it for China?’

The BRI’s launch sites and geographic emphasis link to both China’s history and the logic of economic geography. To that end, the ‘Belt’ is understood as referring to China’s historical trade partners along the Eurasian continent, and the ‘Road’ more to developing countries in Asia and Africa, but especially coastal developing countries of the Indo-Pacific Rim.

Historically, China had significant ties with Eurasia along the original Silk Road. The fleets of Zheng He, a Ming Dynasty mariner, targeted Southeast and South Asian countries alongside East Africa. In particular, Zheng He is known to have landed on the coast of modern-day Kenya and to have visited Sri Lanka several times.

SEE ALSO: Debt-trap diplomacy: Can Africa reject China’s easy money?

In light of China’s now rapidly ageing population, the ‘Road’ offers the potential for a period of growth driven by the demographic dividend of the developing world – its proportionately large working-age population, standard household accumulation levels, and favourable development patterns.

Finally, the BRI’s economic geography is also important. Node partner countries such as Kenya have an important role to play, possibly akin to the role played by provinces like Jiangsu and Zhejiang in China’s own development.

In particular, these partner countries often host important ports, allowing the BRI to play a role facilitating and encouraging connectivity between coastal trade hubs and respective sub-regions.

A case in point is the Standard Gauge railway that links to Kenya’s important trade port city of Mombasa and is incrementally being connected not only across major cities in Kenya, but also to neighbouring landlocked countries. Another example is the industrial zone and port in Bagamoyo, Tanzania: Tanzania shares borders with eight countries, most of which are landlocked.

2017-05-15T125251Z_1504083465_RC17B33AE3F0_RTRMADP_3_CHINA-SILKROAD

(File) Chinese President Xi Jinping shakes hands with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta prior to their bilateral meeting during the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China May 15, 2017. Source: Reuters/Etienne Oliveau

For China, prioritising links with neighbour countries to its west, as well as countries to its southeast such as Burma (Myanmar), also opens up the prospect of new economic corridors between coastal China and China’s own poorer economic hinterland. To the extent that this helps to reduce poverty in these regions and facilitates the development of China’s neighbourhood, it will be celebrated as one of the BRI’s ‘win-win’ achievements.

China’s approach to supporting the financing of such major infrastructure projects is conceptualised as ‘patient capital’. In essence, this refers to innovative development finance mechanisms such as the Silk Road Fund and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Fund.

This approach offers developing countries new and needed sources of development finance, but also confronts a number of high barriers, including the potential clash of different political regimes and different approaches to due diligence.

For China, funding or co-funding such infrastructure opens not only doors for Chinese companies and related downstream industries, but also opportunities to develop international and domestic finance and investment.

SEE ALSO: Could Trump and Xi’s ‘good’ chat spell an end to the US-China trade war?

Since the 2008 financial crisis, China’s foreign exchange savings have been exposed to often negative real interest returns, especially when expected exchange rate movements are accounted for. In response, China policymakers have rolled out a variety of initiatives to foster use of the RMB abroad, while identifying links between China’s outbound investments and the internationalisation of China’s own banking sector.

China’s e-commerce giants are also playing a role, with China’s most prominent e-commerce billionaire, Jack Ma, fostering direct exchange between Chinese and African e-commerce entrepreneurs and promoting the use of e-commerce in BRI countries.

In the absence of well-developed physical infrastructure in many poor countries, this also opens up modern means of rapidly facilitating market integration for remote communities, farmers, and informal traders.

Deng Xiaoping once described China’s experimental reform process as “crossing the river by feeling the stones.” Amid maturing economic conditions and demographic transition, the BRI is something of an “innovative and pragmatic” response to this process, and one that seeks to support win-win economic development.

While some of the potential and timely ‘wins’ for China are obvious, the integration of China’s outbound investment and development assistance in developing countries would be well-served by more research.

This piece was first published on Policy Forum, Asia and the Pacific’s platform for public policy analysis and opinion.

Saudi Arabia grilled over human rights record at UN review

Several countries call for 'credible' and 'transparent' investigation into murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at UN meeting in Geneva

Bandar Al Aiban, head of Saudi Human Rights Commission, says Riyadh committed to 'fair investigation' (Reuters)

Monday 5 November 2018

Saudi Arabia has insisted that its investigation into the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi will be "fair", amid a barrage of criticism at a United Nations meeting on Monday.

The half-day public debate at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva came just over than a month after the Saudi insider-turned-critic was murdered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

Turkish officials said last week that Khashoggi was strangled as soon as he entered the consulate on 2 October in a planned hit, and his body was then dismembered and dissolved in acid.

The head of the Saudi Human Rights Commission, Bandar Al Aiban, stressed that the "country is committed to carry out a fair investigation".

"All persons involved in that crime will be prosecuted," he said.

READ MORE ►

Why Mohammed bin Salman is now circling the wagons

The so-called Universal Periodic Review - which all 193 UN-member countries must undergo approximately every four years - came as a Turkish official charged on Monday that Saudi Arabia sent experts to Turkey to cover up the journalist's murder before allowing Turkish police to search the consulate.

The murder has placed huge strains on Saudi Arabia's relationship with the United States and other allies and has tarnished the image of powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Calls to end Yemen war, use of death penalty

During Monday's review, several Western countries voiced outrage at the killing, with many calling for a "credible" and "transparent" investigation, and some, like Iceland and Costa Rica, went further and demanded an international probe.

The British ambassador to the UN, Julian Braithwaite, told the council his country was "gravely concerned about the deteriorating human rights situation in Saudi Arabia", pointing to women's rights, mass arrests of rights defenders and the extensive use of the death penalty.

"But most concerning is the murder of Jamal Khashoggi," he said, urging Riyadh to "ensure comprehensive and transparent investigations into the murder" and to make sure "those responsible are held to account, and that measures are put in place to prevent any possibility of recurrence".

Meanwhile, the US representative, Mark Cassayre, said Washington strongly condemned the "premeditated killing".

"A thorough, conclusive and transparent investigation carried out in accordance with due process with results made public is essential," he said.

Both the US and the UK have deep political and economic ties to the Saudi government, selling Riyadh billions of dollars worth of weapons every year.

READ MORE ►

Rights groups join landmark appeal to block UK sales to Saudi Arabia

The review also focused heavily on the use of the death penalty in Saudi Arabia, especially as it relates to alleged crimes committed by people when they are under the age of 18.

The kingdom has one of the world's highest rates of executions, with suspects convicted of terrorism, homicide, rape, armed robbery and drug trafficking charges facing the death penalty.

Many countries urged Saudi Arabia to introduce a moratorium on the death penalty or to abolish it altogether, and to explicitly ban its use for juvenile offenders.

Saudi Arabia's role in Yemen's brutal civil war was also criticised, with a number of countries urging it to halt the devastating bombing campaign there.

Democrats lead in House preferences, but positive views of the economy and concern about border security may buoy Republicans, poll finds

The Post's Scott Clement explains voter trends revealed by nationwide polling ahead of the 2018 midterm elections. (Monica Akhtar/The Washington Post)

By Dan Balz and-Scott Clement-November 4

Heading into Tuesday’s critical midterm elections, Democrats retain their advantage in the battle for the House, but Republicans could be buoyed by increasingly positive assessments of the economy and by President Trump’s harsh focus on the issues of immigration and border security, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News national poll.

The poll finds that registered voters prefer Democratic candidates for the House over Republican candidates by 50 percent to 43 percent. That marks a slight decline from last month, when Democrats led on the generic congressional ballot by 11 points, and a bigger drop from August, when they enjoyed a 14-point advantage.

Democrats also have a 51-to- 44 percent advantage among likely voters identified by The Post. That seven-point margin, which is in line with other polls taken in the past two weeks, puts Democrats roughly within range of what they probably will need in the overall national vote for the House to capture a majority from the Republicans, based on calculations from previous midterm campaigns.

[Read full poll results| Detailed crosstabs ]

However, there is no way to translate the national numbers into the district-by-district competition that will ultimately decide who controls the House in January. Democrats need a net gain of 23 seats to capture control of the House. Public and private polls of individual races conducted by candidates, political party committees, the media and others show many contests still within the margin of error.

Republican candidates in competitive House districts, almost a third of which backed Hillary Clinton in 2016, threaten to be dragged down by the president’s unpopularity. Presidents with approval ratings as low as Trump’s have generally suffered significant losses in midterm elections. But this president has shown over time that historical statistical benchmarks don’t always apply to him.

Trump’s approval rating among all adults stands at 40 percent, holding steady from a poll in early October and slightly higher than his 36 percent rating in August. Those who disapprove account for 53 percent. Among registered voters, Trump’s approval is 44 percent, with disapproval at 52 percent, the best margin among this group during his presidency.

All midterm elections are a referendum on the incumbent president, and Trump has made this election about himself more than most presidents have, insisting in his campaign rallies that voters should approach the election as if he is on the ballot. But elections also tend to reflect views of the economy, and Tuesday’s provides a test of the tension between perceptions of the president and perceptions of the economy. Rarely has there been as great a distance between views about the economy and a president’s ratings as there is this year.

On Friday, the Labor Department’s monthly employment report produced a string of positive numbers: another month with the unemployment rate at 3.7 percent, the lowest in half a century; 250,000 jobs added to the workforce; and wages posting the biggest increase in almost a decade and faster than inflation.

The Post-ABC News poll was conducted Monday through Thursday, the day before the employment statistics were announced, and records the most optimistic attitudes about the economy in nearly two decades, with 65 percent of all Americans rating the state of the economy as good or excellent and 34 percent offering a negative assessment. The last time optimism ranked so high was in January 2001.

Among registered voters, 71 percent say the economy is good or excellent, up from 60 percent in August. Those who give the economy positive ratings favor Republican candidates for the House by 54 to 40 percent, wider than the 49 to 42 percent margin in August.

Similarly, more than 8 in 10 adults say they are either doing about as well financially as they were before Trump became president (60 percent), or are doing better (25 percent). Just 13 percent say they are not as well off. That 13 percent figure is also among the lowest in 18 years; the last time it dropped that low was in the final year of President Bill Clinton’s administration, when a boom in technology fueled a rising economy.

Republican candidates have tried to emphasize the economy in their campaigns, but they have sometimes been overwhelmed by presidential rhetoric and by sharp attacks by Democrats on the issue of health care, which have put them on the defensive.

The president has used the final weeks of the midterm campaign to hammer on immigration more than any other issue. He has warned of threats to the country from a caravan of Central Americans who are in southern Mexico and heading north. He has ordered federal troops to be deployed to the border in response.

Earlier last week, Trump promoted an incendiary video highlighting an unrepentant undocumented immigrant who killed two law enforcement officials. The video sought to make him a face of the migrant caravan, even though he is in prison, and to blame Democrats for his acts. Democrats in turn denounced the ad as racist.

The president’s focus on immigration appears to have raised the importance of the issue in the minds of his party’s voters ahead of Tuesday’s voting. Since a Post-ABC News poll three weeks ago, the share of Republicans saying immigration is “one of the most important issues” in their vote has grown from 14 percent to 21 percent. The share of Democrats saying immigration is a top issue has dropped from 23 percent to 11 percent.

When all voters were asked which party they trust more to handle immigration, Democrats were slightly favored by 47 to 42 percent over Republicans. But on border security, which has been the principal focus of the president, Republicans are more trusted by 49 percent to 39 percent.

Those who rank immigration as one of the most important issues in the election favor Republicans over Democrats by 12 points when choosing a generic congressional candidate, though the gap among this group is tenuous given its large error margin. For those who say border security is one of their top issues, Republicans lead Democrats by 42 points on the House vote.

Those groups who have shifted toward Republicans on the issues of immigration since early October include white men without college degrees, voters over age 65 and voters who live in rural areas — all staples of the coalition that elected the president two years ago.

Democrats hold a lead almost as large — 39 points — among those voters who rank health care as one of the single most important issues. They lead by 69 points among those for whom global warming is one of the most important issues and by 46 points among those who say reducing divisions in the country is a top issue.

Overall, 17 percent of voters consider health care and reducing the country’s divisions as among the single most important issues — about the same as the economy (15 percent) and immigration (14 percent). When looking more broadly at issues voters say are at least “very important,” health care and the economy top the list at 78 percent and 76 percent, respectively, followed by reducing political divisions, immigration, taxes, border security and global warming.

Presidential approval correlates closely to how people vote and the poll underscores that relationship, with 87 percent of those who approve of Trump saying they support Republicans for the House and 88 percent of those who disapprove saying they prefer Democratic House candidates.

Another measure of the polarization of the electorate is the relationship between party identification and voting intentions. In this survey, 94 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents favor GOP House candidates, and an identical percentage of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents say they favor candidates from their party.

Gender and education continue to be dividing lines in the electorate. On the vote for the House, men are split 47 to 46 percent in favor of GOP candidates, while women back Democratic candidates by 54 to 40 percent. White women with college degrees favor Democratic House candidates by 16 points and white men with college degrees back the Democrats by 14 points. Among whites without college degrees, men favor Republicans by 39 points and women by 12 points.

Young voters ages 18-39, who historically have turned out at much lower rates in midterm elections than older voters, show a wide preference for Democrats, by 58 to 35 percent. Those between age 40 and those over age 65 are nearly evenly divided.

Among those who say they are certain to vote or already have voted, Democrats enjoy a nine-point advantage, while those who say they probably will vote or that the chances are “50-50” tip toward Republicans by four points, with 10 percent undecided.

The Post-ABC News poll was conducted Oct. 29-Nov. 1 among a random national sample of 1,255 adults, with 65 percent reached on cellphones and 35 percent on landlines. Overall results have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points; the error margin is 3.5 points among the sample of 1,041 registered voters and four points among the sample of 737 likely voters.

Emily Guskin contributed to this report.

Ukraine activist Kateryna Handzyuk dies from acid attack

Campaigner’s death sparks protests and EU concern about violence against civil society

A candle burns by a portrait of Kateryna Handzyuk during a rally in Ukraine after her death. Photograph: Ukrinform/Barcroft Images

Andrew Roth-Mon 5 Nov 2018

A Ukrainian anti-corruption activist has died from wounds caused by an acid attack, sparking local protests and concern from European officials over growing violence against civil society.

Kateryna Handzyuk’s investigations into police graft and political corruption in her native Kherson, a Black Sea port, had angered local officials. In late July, a man doused her with a litre of sulphuric acid when she left her house.

Handzyuk suffered burns to more than 30% of her body. She continued to speak out against corruption from her hospital bed and called for a thorough investigation into her attackers. She had 11 operations before she finally succumbed to her injuries on Sunday.

The Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko, called for the attackers to be punished. Five suspects have been arrested, including a former police officer believed to have led the assault. But it does not appear any of those arrested ordered the attack.

Meanwhile, local anger has surged. Several hundred supporters of Handzyuk gathered by the interior ministry in downtown Kiev on Sunday evening to demand that police found the killers.

Members of the European commission on Monday demanded a vigorous investigation into Handzyuk’s death.

“Attacks against #civilsociety activists are unacceptable. The perpetrators of this vicious crime must be brought to justice,” wrote Johannes Hahn, EU commissioner for European neighbourhood and enlargement negotiations, on Twitter.

The attack on Handzyuk in July came on the same day as the death of another activist who had been shot. Vitaly Oleshko, a veteran of the conflict in south-east Ukraine, had also complained about government corruption in his native Berdyansk. He was shot in the back with a hunting rifle.

Similar attacks have highlighted the pressure being put on civil organisations in Ukraine, where corrupt politicians and sharp-elbowed businessmen are suspected of curbing scrutiny with gangland methods.

Handzyuk was a well-known activist who was also a member of Kherson’s city council. In one of her investigations, she accused a local police official, Artem Antoschuk, of taking a 3% cut of all local business deals and government contracts.

Speaking with Ukrainian broadcaster Hromadske from her hospital bed in late September, she said she believed the attack against her was an attempted assassination.

“Why do I consider this an attempt to kill me?” said Handzyuk. “Because they poured the acid on my head. If they wanted just to scare me, it would be on the arms, legs, face.”

Handzyuk added that she was still in deep pain from the acid, saying one had to “be patient”.
She called on the presidential administration to provide political pressure to investigate attacks against local activists.

“So many attacks in such a short period of time have gone without punishment and with the connivance of the police,” she said. “I think we have to speak loudly about this at the Bankova [Ukraine’s presidential administration].”

Asian students undeterred by Brexit – the UK’s national suicide

By Daniel Maxwell | November 1, 2018 | @GarODonnell

There are just four months until the UK formally breaks away from the European Union. Since the referendum in June 2016, Brexit is a term that’s saturated the news, with Remainers calling it the end of modern society as we know it, while Brexiteers believe Britain will finally be free having thrown off the arduous shackles of Brussels, the EU’s de facto capital.

From an educational perspective, concerns spring from the ongoing Brexit negotiations, which are being held by the, “absolutely ludicrous, incompetent, absurd, make it up as you go along, couldn’t run a piss up in a brewery bunch of jokers that are running the government,” which many believe will negatively impact higher education institutions.

Critics argue that the number of EU students studying in the UK will drastically decrease, the lack of EU research funding will threaten the competitiveness of British universities, and that new visa regulations will hinder the recruitment of academics.

One aspect of this debate that has received little attention, is the ever-growing popularity of British universities among Asian students, particularly those from China, who are unlikely to be put off by the UK’s ‘national suicide’.

During the 2016-2017 academic year, the Home Office issued 213,656 Tier 4 study visas to international students, 70 percent of whom were from Asia. Chinese students made up the largest proportion of this group, with 82,220 students, followed by India with 11,699 students and Hong Kong with 9,058.

In the 2017-2018 academic year, the number of students from Asia increased again, with 89,304 Chinese students, 15,392 Indian students and 9,387 students from Hong Kong. Over 40 percent of all Tier 4 visas are now awarded to students from China, making Chinese nationals the largest group of international students enrolled at British universities.

Promisingly, there are opportunities for UK universities to attract even more Chinese students over the coming years.

The number of Chinese students completing their education at universities in Europe and North America has steadily risen over the past decade. According to the Chinese Ministry of Education, a total 608,400 Chinese nationals studied abroad in 2017. Study expenses for the majority of these students were covered by their families, while just five percent received sponsorship from the state.

In 2017, universities in the United States attracted 350,755 Chinese students, and the US has long been the favoured destination for these students. But there are signs that this could change, with the growth in demand from Chinese students declining.

Between 2008 and 2012, the number of Chinese students studying at universities in the US rose by around 20 percent year on year but that growth has now slowed and in 2017 the number of Chinese students opting to study in the US rose by just 6.8 percent.

London, United Kingdom – July 2, 2016: March for Europe. Following the close result in the recent referendum in the UK, the 48 percent marched to call for a resolution of the issue. Source: Shutterstock

America’s looming trade war with China looks set to have further negative repercussions, as too will the political climate in the US, which under the Trump administration is becoming increasingly anti-immigrant.

Security issues in the US, where school and college mass shootings have become a regular occurrence, are also making parents wary of sending their children to America. For Chinese parents, the case of Zhang Yingying, who was kidnapped from her campus at the University of Illinois, and is presumed to have been murdered, has also dissuaded many from sending their children to the US.

The slowing demand for American universities provides an opportunity for British institutions to attract more Chinese students seeking western-style degrees.

The UK and US share many of the factors which attract Chinese students to study abroad, including the opportunity for students to quickly improve their language skills by interacting with native English speakers on a daily basis, access to more flexible learning environments with a greater focus on improving skills such as leadership, collaboration and critical thinking, and the chance to develop a global mindset, making friendships and connections with people from all over the world.

Another perk for Chinese students opting to study abroad is that they can avoid taking China’s notoriously difficult higher education entrance exam, the Gaokao. This examination, which is taken by millions of high school students each year, is a prerequisite for higher education in China.

A student’s Gaokao results determine which university they attend, which subjects they study and, ultimately, their future career. With such high stakes placed on one set of exams, it’s no surprise that wealthy parents are prepared to send their children abroad to avoid this intense and stressful competition.

One attraction the UK offers which the US cannot match is the long history of higher education, with some British universities having been established for over 700 years. This historical prestige is something that appeals to Chinese students and their parents. The UK’s proximity to Europe also attracts Chinese students and their families. During the holidays, international students from China will often travel to some of Europe’s most popular tourist destinations, including France, Italy and Switzerland.

Finally, Premier League football, which is watched regularly by 350 million Chinese football fans, is a surprise attraction that often motivates students to choose the UK as their study abroad destination. Universities in London, Liverpool and Manchester are particular well placed to benefit from China’s passion for ‘the beautiful game’.

On the 29th March 2019, when the UK officially leaves the European Union, logistics, trade, air travel and the economy could all be severely disrupted, and university research may well become chronically underfunded as the country come to terms with the realities of life outside the EU.

Fortunately, Brexit is unlikely to impact the growing demand from thousands of students across Asia who are attracted to study in the UK, but whether there will be enough to make up for the number of EU students the UK loses – that just remains to be seen.

Daniel Maxwell is a writer and educator who has been living and working in Asia for the past two decades. An English literature graduate from the University of London, Daniel also holds MA in Education Leadership from the University of Bath. He is currently teaching at Singapore International School Bangkok (SISB) and spends his weekends drinking coffee while writing articles on education, healthcare and human rights.