Seven Chinese universities conducting military-related technical research related to the PLA have concluded academic and student exchange agreements with a total of 45 public and private universities in Japan. Nine of these universities have a joint research track record. The theft of intellectual property rights by China, which promotes “military-civilian integration” in which private research is used for weapons development, is considered problematic, and there are concerns about the leakage of frontline research results from Japan. Under such circumstances, more than 30% of the 16 universities that responded that it is possible to adjust the relevant agreements. The fact that universities that attach importance to the internationalization of academia have had to struggle to cope with the situation has come to the fore.
According to Kyodo News, 45 Japanese universities have signed agreements with Chinese military-related universities. The seven Chinese universities, including Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics and Northwestern Polytechnical University, are managed by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, which oversees the defense industry and is known as the “Seven Sons of National Defense,” the news agency said. Three of them are on the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry’s (METI) “foreign user list” for technology export licenses, and four are on the U.S. export ban. According to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, the risk of collaborative research with the seven defense schools is “very high.
Kyodo News said it interviewed 51 universities in Japan that have signed agreements as shown in the latest 2017 annual survey by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), and 49 of them responded. In addition to the six universities that have ended their agreements, among the 16 universities that said they might adjust their agreements in the future, Shibaura Institute of Technology stated that it “learned that (the Chinese university) is on the list of foreign users and is waiting for the end of the agreement period. Some universities also replied that they would adjust parts of several agreements, or that student-only exchanges would be maintained.
Chiba Institute of Technology, one of the nine universities with a common research track record, replied that it had “stopped”. Hokkaido University, in the field of nanotechnology, and Osaka University, in the field of atomic research, stated that they would conduct joint research based on thorough management. Kyoto University and seven other universities did not respond to the question of whether or not joint research exists as of the 28th of March.
According to Kyodo News, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) stated that it “did not draw special attention to the exchange of information with the seven Chinese defense schools. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said that conducting joint research with universities that are subject to U.S. restrictions “may be a hindrance,” but the current situation is that universities make decisions about how to manage exports.
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