While I'm connected neither to UK academia nor to UK counter-intel - the article feels like a wall of blather, written by spies to dim to realize that China could spin up a hundred new front companies in the time it takes them to type "CGTRI". Let alone consider that on many sensitive topics, accepting Chinese research funding might be the least bad option still available to the "sun set long, long ago" British Empire.
Sounds less of a threat than their Nazi machete-wielding agents