The University of Leeds opened a centre offering language classes and lessons on Chinese culture in 2012

China is trying to influence public officials and manipulate the UK media through British universities, critics say.

A centre at the University of Leeds offering language classes and lessons on Chinese culture to local businesses secretly aims to foster close links with British bureaucrats, a newly released document suggests.

A media research centre at the University of Westminster with links to the Chinese government has provided training to more than 600 spokesmen from Chinese government departments on how to handle the British media. The centre is run by Hugo de Burgh, a British academic who boasted of having taken Boris Johnson on his first trip to China a decade ago.

Leeds University opened its Business Confucius Institute in December 2012 with money from Hanban, a