Scottish Centre for China Research

When: Wednesday 4 March 2026 at 4:10pm–5.30pm 

Where: 139 Board Room, 25 Bute Gardens, University of Glasgow (and online with registration here). 

 

Abstract: 

This paper explores the extent to which Chinese higher education has become a national security concern under General Secretary Xi Jinping’s leadership. To do so, it draws on ‘second-wave’ securitisation theory, demonstrating the broader analytical value of this framework and highlighting its urgent relevance for understanding how higher education is increasingly being brought under the purview of national security across the globe. The paper analyses how Chinese universities have been transformed into arenas for ideological securitisation, where dissent and international collaboration are increasingly framed as threats to both regime and research security. Through an analysis of policy texts, state media reports and institutional practices, it examines how discursive constructs, such as the framing of ‘Western’ ideology as subversive, and the linking of those deemed to be internal ideological threats to this external threat, have legitimated the securitisation of Chinese universities. It also details the everyday or mundane security practices, including surveillance, training sessions and political education which have contributed to this process of securitisation. These developments are situated within a broader trend of rising nationalism and tightened control over knowledge production. The analysis underscores how the securitisation of higher education impacts academic freedom and creates barriers to international collaboration.

Short Bio: 

Benjamin Mulvey is a Lecturer in the School of Education at the University of Glasgow, Programme Leader for the MSc in Education, Public Policy and Equity, and Deputy Director of Postgraduate Research within the School. He was previously a Research Grants Council Post-doctoral Fellow at the Education University of Hong Kong, and a Visiting Researcher at the University of Sydney and University College London.

He is co-editor of Compare: A Journal of International and Comparative Education and serves on the editorial boards of Global Networks, British Journal of Sociology of Education, and International Studies in Sociology of Education. His research is interdisciplinary and has been published in journals across the fields of education studies, sociology, and geography. He has published extensively on international student mobility between Africa and China, as well as on social inequalities in transitions from higher education to the labour market and issues of academic freedom in the Chinese context. His work has appeared in journals such as Higher Education, Sociology, and the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, and he is regularly invited to contribute to and comment in international media outlets including The Economist, The New York Times, and Times Higher Education.