Andrew Bolt: Australian universities selling their souls to China
Australian Universities seem to be queuing up to take Chinese money, but is this collaboration between our educational institutes and a hostile dictatorship healthy, asks Andrew Bolt.
Andrew Bolt
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Australia’s universities have sold their souls for Chinese gold. It is extraordinary how they have kowtowed to evil.
To liken China to pre-war Nazi Germany is an exaggeration, but no longer a big one.
First, China is aggressive. The world’s second-biggest military power has stolen the South China Sea, threatened to invade Taiwan and tried to strip Hong Kong of its freedoms.
China is also totalitarian. It arrests human rights activists and bans free speech and democracy. It oppresses Christian and Falun Gong believers, and has put up to a million Muslim Uighars into “re-education centres”.
Yet this is the regime that many of our universities have crawled to — even surrendered to.
Consider this partial list of examples:
A Centre for Independent Studies report says our universities are now dangerously dependent on Chinese money, with 10 per cent of all students now coming from China. Sydney University, for instance, now earns $500 million a year from Chinese students, a fifth of its revenue.
Coincidence? Sydney University in 2013 refused to host a speech by the Dalai Lama, a Tibetan leader that China opposes.
Fourteen universities also accept Chinese money to host Confucius Institutes, teaching Chinese language and culture. The centres are controlled by a Chinese government organisation which has a constitution that bans “any activity conducted under the name of the Confucius Institutes without permission or authorization from the Confucius Institute Headquarters”.
A US Senate subcommittee investigation in March concluded these institutes are tightly controlled arms of the Chinese Government.
Queensland University has appointed the Chinese consul general in Queensland as a visiting professor. He then praised Chinese students who physically attacked students defending the freedoms of Hong Kong.
One Chinese student at Queensland University who protested for Hong Kong says their parents in China then rang to say an official had visited them and warned of the consequences of dissent.
The University of Technology Sydney had a $10 million partnership with the state-owned China Electronics Technology Company, which produces military surveillance technology said to be used to track Muslim Uighurs.
A University of NSW computer science professor co-authored research with Chinese generals linked to China’s nuclear weapons program and also supervised PhD students from China’s top military academy.
Wake up. Is this collaboration between our universities and a hostile dictatorship healthy?
Originally published as Andrew Bolt: Australian universities selling their souls to China