Mystery over Chinese student

A wide, potentially dangerous gap has opened up between authorities responsible for national security and a university. In the past week, associate editor Jamie Walker has reported on the case of Chinese researcher Xiaolong Zhu, 35, who is working on drone technology at the Queensland University of Technology. In 2020, the Department of Home Affairs rejected Mr Zhu’s application for a student visa on the grounds that his presence in Australia “may be directly or indirectly associated with the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction”. But he remains attached to QUT’s Centre for Robotics after four years of being supported by CSIRO scholarships and subsidised tuition at QUT while he completes his PhD.

He is challenging the Department of Home Affairs decision, arguing his work has no military application and would be used in Australia to help victims of natural disasters. It well may be useful in civil rescue operations, but that is not the point. What matters is that red flags are being ignored by the university, and why. In August 2020, The Australian revealed that the Chinese government was ­ recruiting dozens of Australian scientists, mainly with Chinese backgrounds, for a secretive program. The Thousand Talents Plan targeted academics around the world, offering lucrative salaries and perks. It required that their inventions be patented in China and that they abided by Chinese law. In the US, FBI director Christopher Wray described the plan as economic espionage and a national security threat. Some academics targeted worked in fields with military applications, sparking the risk China was misusing their work for military advancement.

Since then Australia’s strategic situation has worsened as China has pressed ahead with the largest military build-up in this region since World War II. The Australian is not suggesting Mr Zhu is part of Thousand Talents or that he is a spy, only that he is a Chinese national who was subject to an adverse determination concerning WMD proliferation. But China’s preparedness to misuse international research is clear.

Mr Zhu has a master’s degree in aeronautical engineering from China’s elite Beihang University. He arrived on a tourist visa in 2018 and was accepted into QUT’s PhD program. As opposition home affairs and cyber security spokesman James Paterson says, Mr Zhu’s work on navigation technology to fly drones into spaces lacking GPS coverage is a classic example of dual-use research, transferable to military use.

Details of the case emerged recently after a federal court judge dismissed Mr Zhu’s latest bid to remain in Australia. Not enough is known about what he was accused of doing in relation to WMD. Greater transparency and accountability are needed in the interests of national security.