Denial comes as Australian Strategic Policy Institute urges caution in collaboration between Australian and Chinese universities

This article is more than 9 months old

This article is more than 9 months old

The Chinese government has dismissed allegations of espionage in Australia – including plans to install a pro-Beijing plant in parliament – as “nothing but lies”, insisting “China doesn’t interfere in other countries’ internal affairs”.

But the denials came as a new report from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute warned the Chinese Communist party is using the country’s civilian universities to advance its military technology, and countries that collaborate with some institutions risk undermining their own national security.

In response to allegations, first published in Nine newspapers, of a complex Chinese espionage network in Australia, including a plan to plant 32-year-old Liberal party member Bo “Nick” Zhao in parliament as a pro-Beijing member, China’s foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said the claims were a fabrication.

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“Some Australian politicians, institutions and media have been highly tense on China-related issues. They seem to have reached a state of hysteria and extreme nervousness. Stories like ‘Chinese espionage’ or ‘China’s infiltration in Australia’, with however bizarre plots and eye-catching details, are nothing but lies,” Geng said.

“China doesn’t interfere in other countries’ internal affairs. We develop friendly cooperation with Australia and other countries based on mutual respect, equality and mutual benefit. We have not interfered and are never interested in interfering in other countries’ domestic affairs.”

Zhao died in a hotel room in March this year, weeks after telling Asio he’d been approached to run for parliament.

Geng said the alleged spy at the centre of the revelations, Wang Liqiang, who is claiming to defect and is seeking asylum in Australia, was a fugitive suspected of fraud and was travelling on forged documents.

“However, some Australian media and people are still clinging to their wrong position, quoting a person who is a criminal suspect and has zero credibility, hyping up so-called ‘China threat’ or ‘Chinese espionage’ and making smear campaigns that only turned out to be an unbelievably awkward farce.”

Wang denies all of the allegations made against him.

As China denied all foreign interference, the report from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute argued Chinese interference in other countries was significantly advanced.

Alex Joske, author of Aspi’s China Defence Universities Tracker, said the Chinese government’s strategy of “military-civil fusion” was designed to harness research innovation in Chinese universities to accelerate military development and maximise the country’s hard power – and created dilemmas for when other countries attempt research collaboration.

Aspi’s tracker, released Monday, is designed as a tool for governments, universities and other organisations around world to assess the risks of cooperating with Chinese institutions.

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Ninety-two institutions in the database, including 20 civilian universities, have been placed in the very high risk category.

Twenty-three civilian universities have been placed in the high risk category.

The tracker finds at least 15 civilian universities have been implicated in cyberattacks, illegal exports or espionage. China’s defence industry conglomerates are supervising agencies of nine universities and have sent thousands of their employees to train abroad.

“This is the result of a really high-level policy, personally supervised by president Xi Jinping, seeking to exploit civilian resources and to break down barriers between the military and civilian universities so that all of the research and innovation within the universities can be capitalised by the military,” Joske said.

Joske said many of the 160 defence-focused laboratories disguised their military ties but were funded and supervised by the People’s Liberation Army.

“Many of these defence labs obscure their defence links in official translations of their names. National defence science and technology key laboratories often simply call themselves ‘national key laboratories’.”

The release of the tracker comes less than a fortnight after the education minister Dan Tehan released new foreign interference guidelines for Australian universities, which include additional responsibilities around governance, due diligence towards research collaborations and staff appointments, and greater protections from cyberattack.

Joske said the guidelines were a “really valuable starting point”, but the sheer scale of China’s research investment, the opaque nature of the ultimate controlling body and the swiftness with which new centres were opening made assessing new collaborations difficult.

“There’s a growing risk that collaboration with PRC [People’s Republic of China] universities can be leveraged by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) or security agencies for surveillance, human rights abuses or military purposes.

“Universities and governments remain unable to effectively manage risks that come with growing collaboration with PRC entities. There’s little accessible information on the military and security links of PRC universities. This knowledge gap limits the effectiveness of risk-management efforts.”

Several Australian universities have been criticised for research agreements with Chinese organisations linked to military developments or human rights abuses.

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Monash University signed a $10m agreement with state-owned Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China, which has been linked to a global industrial espionage campaign. UTS formed a research collaboration with the China Electronics Technology Group Corporation (CETC) in 2017, working on artificial intelligence, quantum information and electronics. CETC have been involved in developing technology to surveil ethnic minority Uighurs in Xinjiang province. The collaboration is being reviewed.

Joske said the Australian government needed to reform the Defence Trade Controls Act, which makes it illegal to send certain military-sensitive equipment overseas, but places no restrictions on training a foreign scientist to build or operate such equipment.

He said the AFP and department of defence should more stringently enforce the Weapons of Mass Destruction (Prevention of Proliferation) Act, which restricts the provision of services to assist weapons of mass destruction programs.

The China Defence Universities Tracker has been supported by funding from the US Department of State’s Global Engagement Center.

