The Birmingham University in the UK is all set to spend over 80,000 pounds of public money for a pro-China research grant that will focus on MPs who have been critical of China’s activities. As per reports, the focus of the so-called research work is to accuse anti-China MPs of spreading ‘moral panic’.
As per a report in the Daily Mail, the government-sponsored research work is to call out the ‘China Research Group’ or CRG, and the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC), a group of conservative MPs who have been critical of the blatant human rights abuse happening in China.
The report says that Rong Wei, a researcher from the University of Birmingham is set to receive 20,892 pounds annually plus inflation for the next four years for the so-called research work.
Thesis to focus on how some MPs have campaigned against China
The government-sponsored grant is for a thesis by Rong Wei. The thesis proposal reportedly described the China Research Group as having played ‘a major role in the social and political construction of China as the new international pariah’.
It will also focus on ‘the potential role of the CRG in the construction of a new international political moral panic focused on China’.
The fact that public money is being used by the University to sponsor research to propagate China’s interests has alarmed many.
Why is £80,000 of taxpayers money being used to fund attacks on Parliamentarians who have exposed Uyghur Genocide?The Select Committee of MPs who found “substantial research connections between the Chinese organisations responsible for these crimes and UK universities” was right. pic.twitter.com/rqKLEjXZTa
— Lord (David) Alton (@DavidAltonHL) November 28, 2021
Sir Iain Duncan Smith, a Tory MP and IPAC member has stated that the process of the grant should be investigated.
‘It is unbelievable that a British government can sponsor a research project whose purpose is to denigrate legitimate parliamentary research, in IPAC’s case across 22 countries,’ he has tweeted.
The CRG is headed by Tory MP Tom Tugendhat. The CRG is a group that was established in 2020 after multiple controversies over the Covid pandemic and China’s role in it were reported. Both Tugendhat and Duncan Smith facing sanctions from the Chinese government. A total of 9 British citizens and 4 organisations have been facing sanctions from China over the issue.
In response to sanctions against the MPs, the British government had banned the Chinese ambassador from the Palace of Westminster.
