You can find the template of this report online by just Googling "出国留学人员学习/研修情况报告", it has English translation and appears to have a "Professor's Evaluation" section to be filled and signed by the foreign advisor.

There might be something else but this looks like a progress evaluation form and is hardly concerning.

> There might be something else but this looks like a progress evaluation form and is hardly concerning.

There is indeed something else

> An online announcement from January 2019 by the Chinese consulate in Belfast even suggests recipients should report important papers published, patents obtained, and inventions made by those they work with at British universities.

I was unable to load the url for this, but it's not looking good. A certain line is crossed when you have to start reporting on ip that isn't yours.

If you presume innocence, this requirement can also be interpreted in a harmless way as the funder asking the student to report his/her achievement for an evaluation of the progress.

The level of detail and the scope would matter a lot. It's very different whether the student is required to show that he coauthored 2x Science, 1x Nature Photonics and have a patent about something pending, or he need to furnish detailed information about an on-going/unpublished work.

I would also expect these dodgy reporting to be done in a more delicate way if they do exist then what's shown on this PDF. Citing the report in my first reply suggests that PDF is simply not a good source.

Published papers and patents are public information.

then why not look it up?

sending someone abroad to compile information on other people just seems off, even if some of that is public.

These are supposed to be students.

"then why not look it up?"

Why do people write literature reviews? You write about what you think is significant.