“In quite a short period of time, we have become sort of addicted to one source of income,” said Kerry Brown, a professor of Chinese studies at King’s College London. “If the worst case happens and Chinese students don’t want to come here in September, it’s potentially a kind of seismic change.”
In Britain, some Chinese students are fuming that universities did not act more decisively to move classes online and scrap major events like spring balls. In interviews, they said they were weighing the health benefits of wearing a surgical mask with their fear of being racially abused or even attacked, as a student from Singapore was last month in London.