Chinese military links inside University of Technology Sydney

A scientist feted at a Chinese ­university designated ‘high-risk’ is a senior academic at one of Australia’s top universities.

UTS Professor Jay Guo at Xidian University, in China, in May last year.

A scientist feted at a Chinese ­university designated “high-risk” for its level of defence research and secret-level security credentials is a senior academic at one of Australia’s top universities.

And another senior UTS figure, Leo Mian Liu — vice-president of global partnerships and deputy vice-chancellor of UTS International — was previously a senior official at the Chinese consulate in Sydney. He was vice-consul for protocol, and had previously worked at China’s Ministry of Foreign ­Affairs.

The Weekend Australian can reveal the founding director of the UTS’s Global Big Data Technologies Centre, Jay Guo, has had a long and ongoing affiliation with Xidian University, which Australian Strategic Policy Institute analyst Alex Joske says has partnered with the People’s Liberation Army’s signal intelligence organisation and “appears to be an important training ground for Chinese military hackers”.

The University of Technology Sydney said Professor Guo was not on salary at Xidian but it paid his travel costs when he attended a workshop there last year — on the same weekend it named a ­laboratory after him. Professor Guo currently ­supervises three dual-degree PhD students from Xidian ­enrolled at UTS.

During an investigation by The Weekend Australian into foreign interference in Australian universities, concerns were ­repeatedly raised about ties to the Chinese Communist Party ­involving UTS academics, ­although there is no suggestion Professor Guo or Mr Liu has ­engaged in wrongdoing or misused their positions.

The Weekend Australian has revealed several universities are effectively turning a blind eye to employees’ secondary employment at Chinese institutions, ­including when research and ­inventions are patented or used in China, where there is the potential for them to be misused for ­defence purposes under President Xi Jinping’s civil-military ­fusion.

Spy agency ASIO has repeatedly warned universities about potential risks associated with ­academics’ links to foreign organisations, and the need for disclosure, while US authorities have arrested several China-linked ­researchers accused of failing to disclose their affiliations.

At UTS Mr Liu created the Australia-China Relations ­Institute, which was funded in partnership with the Yuhu Group, founded by exiled ­billionaire Huang Xiangmo, a property developer whose ­permanent residency was ­revoked by the Australian government in 2019. In interviews, Mr Liu has said the “ultimate goal of professional learning should be to focus on the needs of the motherland”.

Professor Guo’s public profile on the UTS website outlines his extensive academic record in Australia.

In May last year, Xidian University named a laboratory after its alumnus and there was a formal unveiling ceremony for the lab, which is understood to specialise in electromagnetic space sensing technology.

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s China Defence University Tracker, run by Mr Joske, has classified Xidian University as “very high risk for its high level of defence research and close relationship with China’s defence industry and military”.

Mr Joske’s site states Xidian has five major defence laboratories and 11 designated defence research areas”.

“The university is closely tied to China’s defence industry and the PLA,” the tracker states.

“It partners with the PLA’s signals intelligence organisation. Xidian appears to be an important training ground for Chinese military hackers. According to Xidian’s party secretary, the university has had an ‘unbreakable bond with secret intelligence work since its beginning’. It also holds secret-level security credentials that allow it to work on classified weapons projects.”

A formal report about the laboratory named after Professor Guo on the Shaanxi Provincial Education Department website quotes Xidian University’s CCP secretary, Cha Xianyou, as saying it hopes Professor Guo will “give more guidance to Xidian in the reform of talent training programs, innovation in teaching methods etc and play a leading role in the construction of large projects, the output of large achievements and the introduction and agglomeration of high-level talents”.

The report states that in Professor Guo’s reply speech, he said: “He hopes to use the platform of the academician studio to revive this glory and continue this brilliance.

“He expressed that he will do his best to do the work of the academician studio and make his own contribution to the realisation of the Chinese dream and the Xidian dream.”

A UTS spokesman said Xidian had, “in keeping with their practice of naming facilities after successful alumni”, invited Professor Guo, a British and Australian citizen, to visit the university for the laboratory’s naming.

“This was purely an honorary initiative,” the spokesman said. “It is not his lab. He has no ­office there, or staff. He does not travel to Xidian to work or ­research.

“They do not pay him a salary or any other entitlement. He does not receive any research funding from Xidian University.

“He does not hold an academic title at Xidian University … Professor Guo conducts his academic activities with full transparency. The ­majority of the activities described do not require special disclosure. Where they do, Professor Guo has made such disclosure.”

Professor Guo is one of the three presidents of the Xidian University Alumni Association of Australia and New Zealand. One of the other presidents is Yang Yintang, who is a vice-president of Xidian University. Professor Yang has also served as deputy head of the ­Experts Group on Electronic Components used by the General Armaments ­Department of the PLA. There is no suggestion Professor Yang engaged in any wrongdoing.

According to a report on Xidian University’s website about the Xidian University Military Training School 2019, Professor Yang is the “leader of the military training group”.

In another senior position at UTS is Mr Liu, who has forged relationships with the Beijing Institute of Technology, designated high-risk by ASPI for its defence research. Chen Yonglin, a Chinese diplomat who defected to Australia in 2005, said he remembered working alongside Mr Liu at the consulate-general.

“He worked at the translators and interpreters office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs before posting at the Chinese consulate-general in Sydney as consul for protocol affairs,” Mr Chen said.

Mr Chen said Mr Liu established the PR United Front group, Beijing Foreign Studies Univer­sity Alumni Association of Australia, and was appointed its president in April 2017.

Clive Hamilton, in his book ­Silent Invasion, writes that “Liu has maintained deep links with the PRC and United Front organisations in Australia, not least as an adviser” to the United Front group of the Australian Council for the Promotion of Peaceful Reunification of China.

Mr Liu did not respond to a request for comment.