Journalists have uncovered a Bermuda connection to sensational claims of political intrigue and suspicion involving a UK university — claims which invade the corridors of power in the People’s Republic of China.

In today’s edition, UK national newspaper The Telegraph is reporting that one of China’s most senior political families is bankrolling a professorship in Chinese development studies, despite Cambridge University’s denials of a link with China’s government.

What Cambridge has confirmed is that a Bermuda registered trust provided the £3.7?million used to fund the endowment.

The fund, and/or the charity, is run by family members of China’s former prime minister, Wen Jiabao.

The Telegraph said the donation from the Chong Hua Foundation in January 2012 raises serious questions over whether Beijing is buying influence at one of Britain’s most important universities, with one academic accusing it of allowing the Chinese government “to appoint a professor at Cambridge”.

The article states: “Cambridge University had previously denied that Chong Hua had links to the Chinese government, but new information recently received by The Telegraph indicates that the foundation is controlled by Wen Ruchun, the daughter of China’s former prime minister.

“Ms Wen is a senior member of one of China’s most powerful ‘Red Families’, which is estimated to have amassed $2.3 billion (£1.6?billion) through its access to China’s economy and banking system since the 1980s.”

And after a Freedom of Information request, The Telegraph was told by Cambridge: “The Chong Hua Educational Foundation is a Bermudan (sic) registered educational trust. The trustee and agent of the Foundation is Codan Trust Company Limited and the registered address of both the Foundation and its trustee is Richmond House, 12 Par-la-Ville Road, PO Box HM 666, Hamilton, HM CX, BERMUDA.”

The Telegraph said Bermuda law does not require details of a trust to be disclosed publicly and Chong Hua has no website or official listing anywhere in Britain or China.

Journalists were told by Cambridge that the trust had been created by “two wealthy individuals who wish to remain private”.

The article added that “the Bermuda Monetary Authority said that ‘we do not supervise individual trusts’, adding that trusts were subject to international tax and money-laundering regulations.

“Such responses are unlikely to satisfy academics who raised concerns over the donation and its implications for academic independence at Cambridge.”

Ms Wen holds a senior position at the Chinese government agency responsible for regulating the country’s vast foreign exchange reserves and is also a former student of Prof Peter Nolan, the Cambridge academic who was the inaugural appointee to the Chong Hua chair.

Unsettling as it was to several Cambridge academics, the university said it had scrutinised the donation and concluded that there was “no link between this private foundation and the Chinese government”.

Questions over that denial were raised when The Telegraph’s reports of the donation were expunged by government censors from the Chinese internet.

Cambridge has continued to deny that Chong Hua has links to the Chinese government and confirms only that it is registered to a trust in Bermuda.

“It would seem that a foreign government appointed a professor of politics at Cambridge,” the newspaper quoted one academic.

“How, if the foundation’s money came from the family of the head of government of the People’s Republic of China for over a decade, and if the foundation was able to name the first occupant of the chair, can Cambridge demonstrate academic independence?”

The issue of China buying soft-power influence at increasingly cash-strapped British universities is to be discussed today at a meeting of the London-based think tank, Henry Jackson Society.

The Telegraph further states: “Prof Nolan, an international expert whose most recent book Is China Buying the World? accuses western commentators of scaremongering over China’s rise and failing to make a “balanced presentation” on China’s role in the world economy.

“Cambridge has not revealed his salary as Chong Hua professor.

“Prof Nolan’s links to the Wen family were established when he co-authored a book with Ms Wen’s husband, Liu Chunhang.

“Mr Liu is now the director of statistics at China’s banking regulator, forming a financial power couple with Ms Wen, who works at the State Administration for Foreign Exchange.

“Ms Wen, who is understood to have been tutored by Prof Nolan, was reported to have earned £1.1?million in consultant fees from JP Morgan, the investment bank, between 2006 and 2008.”

Calls to Conyers Dill & Pearman global head of trusts and private clients Alec Anderson, who is also director and president of the law firm’s controlled affiliate Codan Trust Company, were not returned by press time.