A businessman who reportedly has close links to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has donated “up to 4.9M” to the University of Cambridge, according to a report by The Telegraph.

Daryl Ng, a Hong Kong-based property tycoon, donated between £1 million and £4.99 million to fund a Land Economy PhD scholarship at the university, according to Freedom of Information requests.

Cambridge refused to specify the exact sum but shared that the scholarship would be named to honour his grandfather, a Cambridge student during the 1940s. The University also stressed Ng’s “passion for real estate”.

Ng, who runs the Sino Group among other businesses and is estimated to be worth over £11 billion, has worked with the former and current Chief Executives of Hong Kong, Carrie Lam and John Lee Ka-chiu. In 2017, he served as deputy director of Lam’s election campaign and in 2023, he formed part of a three-member campaign finance team for Ka-chiu.

In 2020, the US treasury sanctioned both Ka-chiu and Lam for their crackdown on free speech and political freedoms in the city.

Ng has also worked on two regional advisory committees in mainland China, which perform a key role in the structure of the Chinese Communist Party government.

According to the report, Cambridge was under pressure on Thursday to return the cash following claims that accepting the money compromised its academic independence.

Former Conservative Party leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith stated: “My worry is that Cambridge has pretty much sold out to China. Anything that comes from China is going to be money that is tainted by the CCP’s own actions.

“It is a brutal Government that practised genocide and slave labour. Cambridge should hand [the donation] back,” Smith continued.

Luke de Pulford, executive director of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China said: “This is a characteristic failure of due diligence by Cambridge, which has one of the worst Beijing dependency problems of any UK university.”

This comes a week after it was reported by the Independent that over the past four years, Cambridge received between 12-£19 million in gifts, donations, research funding and grants from Chinese sources, including organisations linked to the CCP and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

Last year, Jesus College announced that its China Forum would close in the wake of criticism regarding funding arrangements and its avoidance of controversial subjects such as the treatment of Uyghurs.

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