Strengthen science council to keep pace with military tech, China expert John Lee warns

Australia’s peak science and technology council, chaired by the PM, needs to stay abreast of development sparked by the US-China clash.

China expert John Lee. Picture: Supplied

Australia’s peak science and technology council — chaired by Scott Morrison — should include national security officials to strengthen it, amid an explosion in advanced technology development, a China expert has declared.

In a report by think tank China Matters, John Lee wrote it was critical for Australia to integrate innovation and economic considerations with those of espionage and national defence in combating China’s use of military technologies for mass surveillance and coercion.

He said the National Science and Technology Council should be mandated to give advice on all cabinet submissions relating to technology issues, including during discussions by cabinet’s national security committee.

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Mr Lee wrote that the council should include representatives from “at least” the departments of Defence, Home Affairs, Trade, Treasury, Education and the Office of National Intelligence.

He wrote Australia needed a more holistic approach to technology issues as links between China and the US are curtailed, which will make the world’s technological landscape “increasingly fractured”.

“As a relatively small economy heavily integrated with both the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the US, Australia is particularly exposed,” Mr Lee wrote.

“We will face increasingly hard choices to maintain our present level of prosperity and security.

“Australia needs a new approach to technology policy, one which goes beyond existing interagency processes.”

Mr Lee, who has worked at the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Department of Defence, urged Australia to stop being reactive and piecemeal in its technology policies.

“Australia can no longer treat science and technology issues separately from consideration of espionage, defence technology, diplomacy and economic security,” Mr Lee wrote.

“Australian policymakers must consider the security implications of the PRC as a technologically capable military power, which employs new technologies for mass surveillance and coercion in ways antithetical to Australian values and international human rights law. “Australia will also have to manage US expectations of support for policies designed to slow PRC progress in advanced technologies and contain the global expansion of PRC technology firms.”

Australia this week formalised a deal with the US to develop our critical minerals sector, an industry which had been monopolised by Beijing.

Liberal MPs Andrew Hastie and James Paterson were last week blocked from a “study tour” to China, being organised by China Matters.

Scott Morrison slammed Beijing’s decision to block the MPs over their criticisms of the Communist Party of China.

Labor MP Ed Husic on Thursday said the Morrison government should be more outspoken of human rights violations in China.

“Andrew Hastie likened China to Nazi Germany, then he wonders why him and James Paterson aren’t getting a welcome mat or having the red carpet rolled out for them to visit China,” Mr Husic told Sky News.

“The Liberal Party for quite some time has been at the forefront of saying we should not manage our relationship with China primarily at the starting point through a human rights prism.

“We only care about human rights when the human rights of two Liberal MPs have been affected by China, when really as a nation we have watered down looking at those issues and arguing on those issues because we said the nation needs to be broader than that.

“We do need to put a focus on human rights in China for also the people living in China.”