The University of Cambridge has come under scrutiny this week after it was revealed that university representatives travelled to Beijing in 2009 to secure millions of pounds of donations from then-prime minister Wen Jiabao’s daughter Wen Ruchun, who runs a charity and holds a senior position in the Chinese government.

The funds, totalling £3.7 million, were intended for the creation of a new post within the University, entitled Chair of Chinese Development Studies.

The inaugural appointee was Professor Peter Nolan, a former teacher of Wen Ruchun when she was a student in London.

Nolan spoke at the Cambridge Union on Monday. When asked about the implications of this donation, Nolan dismissed the concerns and told the questioner to “ask something serious”.

Allegations of financial links between Beijing and Cambridge were first launched in 2012 by the Telegraph. At the time the University denied “any link”, thus dismissing the suspicions over Chinese government financing.

A Chinese businesswoman in Beijing has claimed that the Chong Hua Foundation, a charity registered in Bermuda, is run by Wen Ruchun.

Vivien Wang, who runs a chain of kindergarten schools, worked closely with the Wen family, which counts itself amongst China’s richest. In a previously unpublished interview with a western journalist, she detailed the millions of pounds in shares that she donated to the charity, which made the grant to to the University.

According to the Telegraph, a Beijing source has also alleged that university officials visited the daughter of the ex-prime minister several times between 2009 and 2011 to discuss a donation via the Chong Hua Foundation.

A spokesman for the University of Cambridge has defended the donation with the following statement:

“The philanthropic donation from the Chong Hua Education Foundation was fully verified and approved by the University of Cambridge Advisory Committee on Benefactions.

“No more details will be released as the donors, as is common practice, have requested complete anonymity.

“It is wholly wrong and indeed invidious to suggest that any such donation could have any influence at all on our admissions policy or our employment practice.”

Bill Wang, an individual member of the Cambridge University China Development Society (CUCDS) said that the nature of the donations was “unclear”.

However he went on to say: “Although there exist rumours that the money is used to influence the university’s policies and the professors’ teaching, little evidence has been offered to back the speculation on the impact of the donation on [the] hiring-and-firing policy of the university.

Wang also pointed out that, “The University of Cambridge, as an autonomous entity, has the right to make its own decisions regarding donation acceptance.”