Beijing sending covert influencers to harass university campus nationals in Australia, report finds
Australian universities have been warned their students are being tailed and monitored by Beijing proxies, particularly during protests.
National
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Universities needed to do more to protect Chinese students with evidence classroom debates were being hijacked, lectures self-censored, students photographed, and their backgrounds detailed by fellow students in the interest of the Chinese government.
That’s the finding of a Human Rights Watch report into Australian university campuses which it found were being compromised by Beijing’s agents of influence with students and their families threatened and harassed.
And while the Federal Government has taken steps to establish a foreign interference task force, more was needed to safeguard academic freedom and student safety.
This appears to be backed by a recent ASIO review which flagged “covert influencers” operating on soft target campuses to identify students and staff with talent or access to emerging technologies who could be recruited but also to expose expat students who were dissenters to Beijing thinking.
The domestic spy group has now found the ongoing crisis that has gripped Hong Kong for more than six months – it began in July as a protest against a security bill but broadened into a democracy debate – has boosted the foreign intelligence targeting of students and their recruitment as “agents” here in Australia.
News Corp videoed the moment NSW Police had to be called during one Hong Kong protest in Sydney with students suspecting a woman working for the government was taking headshot photographs of them.
The woman told police she was media but had no identification on her.
Human Rights Watch Australia Director Elaine Pearson has written to universities across the country warning chancellors their students were being tailed and monitored by Beijing proxies, particularly during protests.
Ms Pearson, herself an adjunct professor at the University of NSW and a former UN consultant, has detailed eight areas of Chinese government “pressure or interference”, based on research with academics and students across Australia, which needed to be addressed.
“What we have found with Australian universities particularly with Chinese agents and their proxies, efforts to surveil and monitor students, sometimes harass family members back home, monitor what they do in the class room to even self-censoring certain sensitive topics or discussion in classrooms,” she told News Corp Australia.
“We know this is happening on Australian campuses … we’ve written to universities outlining ways they can safeguard academic freedom and protect these students.
“These measures would include setting up and monitoring investigative complaints mechanisms, having something like an ombudsman person, providing more protection for students to report anonymously or make complaints and ensuring students feel welcome and don’t have to rely on existing structures set up by the Chinese government to provide student support.”
Ms Pearson attempted to have a meeting with Sydney University vice chancellor Michael Spence but he said the university’s mechanisms were working fine, the Federal Government’s ‘model code’ was being implemented and he declined the invitation to meet to discuss.
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One Sydney University student, who asked to only be identified as Leo, said he was fearful for his and the safety of his family in Hong Kong and he had friends on campus in Adelaide and Perth who were also being harassed.
“They are working in groups, I would say around three or four people, and they follow you … it’s not something that should happen in Australia,” he said.
“They just try to (scare) us, and they hope that we are not working on HK issues any more because we harm China’s international image.”
In 2018 Federal Education Minister Dan Tehan ordered an independent inquiry into freedom of speech in higher education, led by former High Court Chief Justice Robert French, from which a model code was created to ensure universities understood their duty to protect staff and students from discrimination, threats and humiliation.
Mr Tehan yesterday urged universities to sign on to the code.
“I am committed to working with the sector to achieve 100 per cent adoption of the Code this year and we will benchmark all responses against the Code,” he said.