“This is exactly how dictatorships work” The CSC is run by China’s education ministry, and promotes international academic exchange with universities across the world – hundreds of Chinese students go through it every year to destinations in the USA, UK, Sweden and others.The Karolinska Institute, one of Sweden’s top research universities which regularly receives over 30 students a year through collaboration with the CSC – also picked up on the possibility of the existence of the letters.“There are uncertainties, for example what is meant by going against the interests of the Chinese state,” said Bob Harris, VC for research studies at the Karolinska Institute.“As a consequence, we have informed all hosts of CSC beneficiaries of the existence of the contract and its potential consequences for the individuals concerned, as well as the actions we are taking internally (negotiating with CSC),” Harris said.“We are in talks with Karolinska and CSC about these letters, but in all the years that we have had CSC students, we have never heard or received signals that students would have been harmed because of these letters,” he told DN when approached."