Queensland University of Technology employs Chinese researcher implicated in weapons of mass destruction proliferation
A Chinese researcher working on sensitive drone technology at a top Australian university was denied permission to stay in the country after being implicated in the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
A Chinese researcher working on sensitive drone technology at a top Australian university was denied permission to stay in the country after being implicated in the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
Despite the devastating 2020 government finding against him, 35-year-old PhD candidate Xiaolong Zhu remains attached to the Queensland University of Technology’s internationally recognised Centre for Robotics, having been supported by CSIRO scholarships and subsidised tuition for the past four years.
He is challenging the Department of Home Affairs decision to reject his application for a student visa, arguing that his work has no military application and would be used here “in the national interest” to help victims of natural disasters.
Mr Zhu professes to be at a loss as to why he was found to be a person “whose presence in Australia may be directly or indirectly associated with the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction”.
QUT insists the Chinese-born researcher is “currently a lawful non-citizen of Australia” with study rights, entitled to press on with his research at the university’s school of electrical engineering and robotics.
But his black-listing by the federal government will intensify concern about research security at Australian universities as evidence mounts that foreign intelligence services are targeting them in sophisticated espionage raids.
National security experts polled by The Weekend Australian say Mr Zhu’s profile fits broadly with that of a person who might be used, willingly or not, to infiltrate a key research program by a foreign power.
This masthead is not suggesting Mr Zhu is a spy, only that he is a Chinese national who has been subject to an adverse determination concerning WMD proliferation by the Foreign Minister.
The holder of a master’s degree in aeronautical engineering from China’s elite Beihang University, he arrived in Australia in 2018 on a tourist visa before being accepted into the QUT PhD program to investigate the use of drones in civil rescue operations.
He subsequently secured scholarships from the CSIRO’s Data61 division worth at least $75,192 over two years, and additional funding for his course fees from the Brisbane university.
But a June 8, 2020 notice from the Department of Home Affairs to Mr Zhu revealed he had been red-flagged as a national security threat. The advice read: “As you are determined by the Foreign Minister, or a delegate authorised by the Foreign Minister, to be a person whose presence in Australia may be directly or indirectly associated with the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, this means that you have failed to meet Public Interest Criterion 4003(b).
“The Migration Act 1958 requires that your application be refused if the minister (or delegate) is not satisfied that you meet all of the criteria for the visa.
“The Department of Home Affairs is unable to provide any further information in relation to the above determination, including the reasons for it.”
Details of the extraordinary case only emerged after a federal judge in Brisbane last Friday dismissed Mr Zhu’s latest bid to remain in Australia. Mr Zhu did not respond to The Weekend Australian’s repeated requests for further information.
His lawyer, Dan Jebsen, of DJ Law Group, said they are still reviewing the decision and considering an appeal.
“It takes time,” Ms Jebsen said. “You need sufficient time to prepare and consult.”
A spokesman for the Department of Home Affairs did not respond to questions from The Weekend Australian by publication.
Judge Gregory Egan of the Federal Circuit and Family Court was told the department had issued two nondisclosure certificates under the Migration Act covering Mr Zhu’s possible involvement in WMD proliferation.
The first affirmed that the release of “specified documents” from the departmental file would be contrary to the public interest because “lawful methods for preventing, detecting and investigating” breaches of Australian law could be exposed.
The second nondisclosure certificate protected “the existence or identity of a confidential source” of information.
Judge Egan noted that the Administrative Appeals Tribunal had earlier found both suppression orders were valid. “Further to this the tribunal explained to the applicant (Mr Zhu) that information in the certificated documents shed no light on why DFAT had assessed the applicant to be a person whose presence in Australia may be directly or indirectly associated with the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, merely that the determination had been made,” the judge said in his May 3 decision, referring to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
In a 2022 affidavit tendered to the AAT, Mr Zhu’s lawyer said the young man could not understand how his PhD research at QUT had been conflated with WMD proliferation. Judge Egan defined this as the development, production, trafficking, acquisition or stockpiling of “(a) weapons that may be capable of causing mass destruction; or (b) missiles or other devices that may be capable of delivering such weapons”.
The United Nations says the term “weapons of mass destruction” takes in nuclear explosives, radioactive material devices, lethal chemical or biological weapons and others “developed in the future, which might have characteristics comparable to the destructive effect to those of the atomic bomb”.
The affidavit sworn by Mr Zhu’s lawyer said of his QUT drone research: “In response to questions put to him at the hearing he indicated that he does not agree with the determination that he is a person who should be associated with weapons of mass destruction.
“His PhD research is not applicable to military purposes, rather it is for use in disasters, such as bushfires or earthquakes, where buildings may have collapsed, or it is otherwise dangerous for people to search for victims or evaluate damage.
“He gave evidence that whilst he is researching the use of linked drones, it involves only groups of two or four small drones, weighing less than 2kg each, with cameras mounted on them. The small drones have very limited lifting capacity and both they and the small cameras mounted on them are the sort of technology that is in the public domain.
“He said the focus of his research includes how the drones can fly through GPS-denied environments. The applicant gave evidence that the research is supported by both the Australian disaster organisation and QUT and has occurred in collaboration with the CSIRO.”
QUT and CSIRO’s Data61 division each failed to answer detailed questions on what steps they took, if any, to investigate the WMD finding against Mr Zhu.
It is not known whether any approach was made by either organisation to the federal government to clarify what the researcher had been accused of, or how the case should be handled.
The university said in a statement: “The student is currently a lawful non-citizen of Australia with study rights and is continuing their PhD project. Visa matters are handled by the Department of Home Affairs.”
A spokesperson for the national science agency’s flagship data and digital arm said: “CSIRO works closely with security and policy agencies to manage the risk of foreign interference. We are in lock-step with the broader Australian government approach on international collaboration, complying with all government policies.”
However, CSIRO Data61 was “unable to comment on individual student or scholarship arrangements”.
Prior to his arrival in Australia, Mr Zhu published on cutting-edge technology such as “deep space exploration satellite formation kinetic control algorithm research”. His alma mater in China, Beihang University, is one of the so-called “Seven Sons of National Defence” institutes underpinning Beijing’s military research and intelligence apparatus, according to think tank the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
“One Chinese study of military-civil fusion in the university sector estimated that more than half the academics at the Seven Sons have been involved in defence projects,” ASPI reported in its China Defence Universities Tracker.
“All seven have been accredited at the institutional level to participate in research into and the production of top-secret weapons and defence equipment.”
Academic Brendan Walker-Munro of Southern Cross University, formerly a senior research fellow with the University of Queensland’s Law and the Future of War Research Group, said it could take a “a proper research security scandal” for Australia to catch up with what the sector was doing in the US and Canada to protect itself. Asked if the Zhu case was it, he said: “This may be a crystallisation of those same principles in Australia.”
He had “no confidence” that QUT or CSIRO had conducted a risk assessment of the potential national implications of Mr Zhu’s research following the adverse finding against him. “The question is, whose job is it to make those sorts of determinations?” he said. “So, you know, how much information does the university have and what were they able to do about it? How much did the government have and could have disclosed to the university?”
Andrew Norton, Australian National University Professor in the Practice of Higher Education Policy, said the sector was in a bind to attract the best and brightest in internationally competitive fields such as robotics, AI and supercomputing.
“The fact is a lot of the talent in these fields is from China,” he said. “That is obviously a dilemma they are trying to deal with.”
Dr Walker-Munro argued that Australia lags the US, Britain and European states including The Netherlands on research security. “A parliamentary inquiry in 2022 heard stories of coercion, suppression and foreign interference on almost every Australian campus,” he said. “Two years on, almost none of the inquiry’s recommendations has been completely adopted.”
Defending Mr Zhu when the Home Affairs Department came at him in 2020, QUT’s then pro vice-chancellor of graduate research and development, Helen Klaebe, was adamant his research with drone systems would help rescue teams to “precisely and quickly locate a person needing help inside a building in critical situations such as earthquakes and fires, without risking the life of a rescue team and reducing the time needed to find an injured person”.
Now in a new role at the University of Queensland, Professor Klaebe failed to respond to The Weekend Australian’s requests to be interviewed about Mr Zhu, as did his PhD supervisor and another published research collaborator at QUT.
Additional reporting: Mackenzie Scott
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