What high-tech fields don't have potential for military applications? Credit:AP

There is another possible explanation – highly skilled Australian and Chinese researchers have forged productive and mutually beneficial partnerships, and then done what all academics do, which is publish or perish.

Such commentaries are also keen on stressing that collaboration is occurring in "high-tech fields like materials science, artificial intelligence and computer science", which are areas that have "many military applications". But no university is engaged in low-tech research. And what high-tech fields don't have potential for military applications? Does this mean we stop collaborating with the world's best on the technologies of the future?

And that's where we need to be really careful. In many areas China is well ahead of us. It has the world's most extensive high-speed rail network. Mobile payments technologies mean that in China you can go for months without ever needing to reach into your wallet. In 2016, China had 10 universities (12 if you include Hong Kong) in the world's top 50 for engineering/technology and computer science. Australia meanwhile? Just one – take a bow, University of NSW. Is it just a coincidence that the highest-ranked Australian university is also the one that has arguably been the most successful in forging China links?

China has had the world's fastest supercomputer since 2010. The latest Chinese machine to hold the title is built entirely with locally produced microprocessors. Over the past five years artificial intelligence patents lodged by China jumped by 186 per cent. On this measure China is now second only to the US, and well ahead of the EU and Japan. China has just launched the world's first quantum satellite. This is connected to the world's longest quantum communications link between the political capital of Beijing and the commercial capital of Shanghai.