Crackdown on Chinese infiltration of universities
Australia has acted to counter Chinese infiltration of its universities by introducing measures to expose all donations and foreign-financed research.
There have been warnings that China is using academic establishments to advance its strategic goals, stealing intellectual property or using universities’ expertise to develop security and defence technologies.
Peter Dutton, the home affairs minister, said that China was targeting Australian universities by orchestrating hacking attacks.
At least one university has worked with China to develop highly sophisticated facial recognition technology being used by Beijing against ethnic Uighurs, which contravenes Australia’s human rights obligations. Under a new government code, universities will have to share any intelligence they have with the security agencies.
About a third of the 400,000 foreign students at Australian universities are Chinese and they are worth an estimated A$35 billion (NZ$37b) a year to the sector.
A massive cyberattack on the Australian National University last year is suspected to have been orchestrated by Beijing, and a Chinese-Australian professor has been accused of co-authoring a paper helpful to China’s nuclear weapons programme. There have also been other sophisticated hackings of higher education centres.
Outlining the countermeasures, Dan Tehan, the education minister, said that ‘‘foreign actors’’ were sometimes using commercial research contracts to exert their influence on universities.
‘‘The foreign interference threat is at unprecedented levels,’’ he said. The guidelines would ‘‘ensure universities understand the risks and know what steps to take to protect themselves’’.
All higher education establishments will have to review whether foreign military organisations might benefit from any of their intellectual property or research. The measures were recommended by a task force set up in August comprising intelligence officials and university chiefs.
The Australian intelligence services are also believed to be investigating whether China was responsible for a cyberattack on parliament and the three largest political parties before the general election in May.