Why are we here?

The opportunities that China presents come at a price for UK higher education.

When former state department policy adviser Francis Fukuyama wrote The End of History and the Last Man in 1992, he imagined that liberal democracy and free market capitalism would be the unassailable model for globalisation in the 21st century. He was including China in that prospectus, but the country is showing few signs of bending to the seeming inevitability of Fukuyama’s long march of history.

This week, Playbook finds itself in Shanghai as part of a trip funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council to explore collaboration between UK and Chinese cultural industries. It is an opportunity to experience first-hand the challenges that UK universities face in China.