A number of articles in Chinese and international media have recently reported that Chinese authorities have cancelled a large number of transnational education partnerships. These reports are based on a misunderstanding and do not reflect recent events.

The reports, in media such as the South China Morning Post, claim that Chinese authorities have terminated 286 cooperative programmes between Chinese and foreign universities (including many UK partnerships) in August 2021. However these reports are based on a list of cancelled programmes from the Ministry of Education's website which is not recent and has listed the same 286 partnerships since at least June 2020. The majority of programmes on the list were formally closed in 2018 but many of them had already ceased recruiting students before that point.

China's Ministry of Education has confirmed that they have not recently closed or suspended a large number of TNE partnerships.

Sources

South China Morning Post: China kills almost 300 partnerships with elite foreign universities [misleading article] - https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3145208/china-kills-almost-300-partnerships-elite

Ministry of Education: List of terminated Sino-foreign joint programmes at the bachelor’s degree level and above [archived page as of June 2020, showing the same 286 programmes as recent news reports] - http://web.archive.org/web/20200613162425/http://www.crs.jsj.edu.cn/aproval/termination