Nottingham City Council has confirmed that its controversial relationship with the city of Ningbo has been heavily diluted after campaigners raised concerns about ‘Chinese influence’. Yet the Labour-run authority says the main twinning relationship with Ningbo remains in place after the University of Nottingham said scrapping it could cost the institution more than £70 million a year. The Nottingham Stands with Hong Kong group organised a petition in 2022, signed by more than 1,500 people, which called on the city council to end its twinning relationship with Ningbo in light of human rights concerns about the actions of the Chinese state in Hong Kong and Xinjiang. The campaign group said after a council meeting addressed the issue on March 2 that the council had agreed to end the twinning relationship, but the authority has actually confirmed it remains in place. A five-year agreement for “friendly exchanges and co-operation” has instead come to a close and will not be renewed, whilst Nottingham City Council also says it has not carried out any joint work with Ningbo for “a prolonged period of time”. Ray Wong, the chair of the European Hong Kong Diaspora Alliance’s Advocacy Committee, said: “The decision reflects the potential risk of such subnational diplomatic relationship with Chinese cities. “These relationships are often exploited by Chinese entities as a conduit to expand Chinese influence at local level.” Nottingham’s relationship with Ningbo began when the University of Nottingham opened a 14-acre campus there in 2004, the first foreign independent university campus to be established in China. Opened by then-deputy prime minister John Prescott, the Ningbo Campus includes a lake and its own version of the University of Nottingham’s Trent Building at University Park. The relationship with Ningbo has continued to grow since the formal twinning arrangements were established in 2005. The extension of Nottingham’s tram network led to the steel bridge spanning the city’s ring road named the Ningbo Friendship Bridge in 2014. The city council first rejected the idea of ending the Ningbo twinning after the 2022 petition and, confirming the latest position, a spokesperson for the authority said: “Nottingham is a welcoming city that embraces and celebrates its diverse heritage. “Nottingham was officially twinned with Ningbo in September 2005 and, as part of this agreement, a five-year plan for friendly exchanges and co-operation between the two cities was signed in 2021. “It [concluded] in December 2025 and, whilst the twinning arrangement remains in place, there are no immediate plans to renew the plan at this stage. “Whilst the overall twinning arrangement remains in place, the council has significantly reduced its capacity to manage international affairs and hasn’t carried out any joint initiatives for a prolonged period of time.” The University of Nottingham previously claimed it could have lost more than £70 million a year if the Ningbo relationship had come to an end. Nottingham’s two universities both called for the city council to urgently seek Foreign Office advice on ending its relationship with Ningbo at the time of the 2022 petition, saying the decision would cause ’embarrassment’ and ‘insult’. Both universities claimed the decision would create a “hostile environment” for Chinese students, visitors and businesses. Figures show that across both Nottingham universities, 4,237 of its students came from China during the 2021/22 academic year.