US to put the screws on our hi-tech China collaborations

A US push to protect the American technological advantage over China is set to up-end Australia’s already struggling R&D funding model.

Chinese President Xi Jinping. Picture: AP

Australia will face growing pressure from the US to halt science and technology co-operation with China in critical fields, ­including artificial intelligence, robotics and quantum computing, to maintain access to the American technology ecosystem, a new report warns.

The bipartisan US push to protect the American technological advantage over China is set to up-end Australia’s already struggling R&D funding model, with huge consequences for universities, ­scientists and entrepreneurs.

The United States Studies Centre says to satisfy new US requirements, Australia is likely to have to adopt tougher export controls on critical technologies with potential military applications, and introduce laws barring Chinese access to sensitive research.

The USSC report, by research fellow Brendan Thomas-Noone, says US-led regulatory changes will transform global technology supply chains and even the ­Australia-US alliance.

“America’s policies are aimed at its strategic rival, but they will nonetheless have long-term global implications for close allies like Australia,” it says.

“The likely result will be a further step in the transformation of the alliance from a purely geo­political ­arrangement to a geoeconomic one as well.”

The warning comes as Beijing ramps up its economic retaliation against Australia over the Morrison government’s push for an independent coronavirus inquiry, and its intolerance of Chinese foreign interference. It will feed into growing political concern in Australia over ­research collaborations with Chi­nese scientists, and the co-opting of Australian-based ethnic Chinese scholars through President Xi Jinping’s “Thousand Talents” program.

The US has put technology at the heart of its battle for strategic supremacy over China, slapping export controls over entire fields of technology and reforming foreign investment rules.

Australia is yet to be exempted by the US from the new export controls, and may have to introduce parallel changes to maintain access to key US technologies.

Legislation before the US congress would have significant ­implications for Australian universities that collaborate with China while simultaneously receiving US research funding.

These include Monash University, which has a $10m agreement with China’s state-owned aerospace company COMAC involving research in robotics, ­advanced manufacturing, AI and big data. Monash received $7.7m in 2018 from the US National Institutes of Health and the US Defence Department — funds that would be likely to disappear under the proposed changes.

Universities, reeling from a COVID-related slump in foreign student numbers, will need to seek new sources of funding, while the government should ­implement a new R&D strategy to build the nation’s technological “weight”, the report says. The US is also putting in new immigration controls, making it harder for foreign students to undertake science and technology courses, and is ramping up prosecutions for intellectual property theft and disclosure law breaches.

In February, the FBI report­edly had about 1000 investigations under way into attempted theft of US IP, and had made 19 arrests.

The report warns “the largely open and laissez faire way” that Australia has invested in science, technology and innovation for decades will need to change.