In an effort to prevent important research findings from falling into the hands of the Chinese Communist Party, the Australian federal government has rejected applications for research funding from some of the university’s top scientists on national security grounds. These scientists are believed to include members of the Chinese Communist Party’s “Thousand Talents Program” and personnel associated with the Communist Party’s military academies.
According to The Australian, 18 research funding applications from the Australian Research Council (ARC) received additional scrutiny from security agencies, and five of the applications were rejected, preventing the researchers from receiving up to A$500,000 a year in research funding. This is the first Time the Australian government has made such a decision.
Last December, then-Education minister Dan Tehan refused to approve the research funding applications. One of the rejected projects involved research on wireless transmission, radar and satellite systems for the Internet of Things (IoT).
The IoT is a system that somehow connects a number of devices to the Internet for operation and monitoring, and is a system of physical devices that can receive and transmit data over a wireless network without any human intervention.
Other rejected applications involve research on nanotechnology applications for self-driving cars and robotics, as well as high-tech lasers, next-generation power networks and cutting-edge fuel cell technology.
The current education minister, Alan Tudge, declined to say which specific researchers were involved in the projects whose funding was rejected. But The Australian said the researchers included those who were part of the Communist Party’s “Thousand Talents Program,” with at least one of them associated with a high-end Communist Party military academy.
The “Thousand Talents Program” was launched in 2008 to recruit top talent from overseas. But the program is seen as a key program for the CCP to steal important research and trade secrets from overseas.
Malcolm Davis, a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, believes the CCP is actively seeking ways to use civilian technology to support the modernization of the military.
While international research cooperation is important to Australia, Australia will not compromise on national security under any circumstances, Taghi said.
In an investigative report submitted to the Australian Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS) in January, China expert Alex Joske said the CCP has recruited 325 scientists in Australia over the past 20 years, some doing full-time research jobs in Australia while working part-time to train people for the CCP, an act that could involve $280 million worth of research funding fraud.
He said 59 researchers were working in China while receiving highly competitive research grants from the Australian Research Council. The agency awarding the research grants explicitly requires recipients to disclose conflicts of interest, and serving in a Chinese Communist Party talent recruitment program may have violated this rule.
The Australian revealed last August a list of 32 Australian scientists who are either members of the Thousand Talents Program or members of a talent recruitment program similar to the Thousand Talents Program.
In 2018, news of an FBI investigation into the Thousand Talents Program broke in the United States, and on Feb. 3 of this year, the U.S. Department of Justice announced the indictment of Lin Yang, a former University of Florida professor and researcher of Chinese descent. The charges include concealing his membership in the Thousand Talents Program and his receipt of funds from the Chinese Communist government, and fraudulently applying for U.S. research grants.
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