Chinese defence links disturbing

China has lifted its punitive tariffs on Australian barley, which is welcome. But amid the most challenging strategic circumstances since 1945, some of the joint ventures struck between Australian universities and their Chinese counterparts are disturbing. Some of the Chinese institutions have deep defence links, including to submarine and cyber warfare programs, with one college run by a senior Communist Party figure, Tasmania correspondent Matthew Denholm reports.

The Australian universities insist their activities comply with the nation’s foreign interference guidelines. Judging by the information uncovered by The Weekend Australian, the government has good reason to look closely at compliance and at the efficacy of the laws.

Joint ventures with Australian universities typically create colleges or joint degree programs in which Chinese students receive dual qualifications, studying half in Australia and half in joint-venture colleges attached to the Chinese partner university. A Joint Graduate School has been set up, for example, as a joint venture ­between Monash University and China’s Southeast University (SEU), Suzhou, offering studies including advanced materials and manufacturing and advanced computation. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute classes SEU as “high risk” due to its “high levels of ­defence research” and links to cyber-espionage attacks against the US. According to ASPI, SEU’s cyber science and engineering department has received funding from China’s civilian intelligence ­agency and has close ties to a company that trains, recruits and works with People’s Liberation Army cyber officers. A recent inquiry by the Australian parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security raised questions about alleged “close ties” between the president of Monash’s joint venture, pro vice-chancellor Aibing Yu, and CCP United Front organisations. In response, Monash told the inquiry it had sufficient safeguards in place to address any risk of complicity or foreign interference.

Three years ago, Sharri Markson revealed in this newspaper that under China’s “Thousand Talents Plan’’ Australian academics were giving the Chinese Communist Party ­access to their technology and inventions, when there was a risk they could be used for military or intelligence purposes. Recent estimates suggest about 150 joint ventures between Australian and Chinese universities are in place. China influence expert Clive Hamilton, author of Silent Invasion: China’s Influence in Australia, says “money speaks and it speaks Mandarin’’. Our universities are obliged to serve the national interest. If necessary, government must hold them to it.