The Australian media has recently revealed that the Eight Schools Coalition has made a submission to Parliament warning the federal government to properly handle foreign intervention measures, which experts analyze as a result of the Foreign Relations Bill passed by the Australian Parliament touching the interests of universities in cooperation with China.
Australia passed the Foreign Relations Act earlier this month, which gives the federal government the power to veto agreements signed by local governments and institutions with foreign countries. The eight Australian universities sent a submission to Congress asking the government not to compromise international cooperation by tightening its foreign policy, and specifically to clear the ground for the Chinese Communist Party’s “Thousand Talents Program. Former Australian lawmakers and academics have blasted the Eight Schools Alliance for ignoring national security and democratic liberal values for the sake of economic interests.
Australia’s Group of Eight made a detailed submission to Parliament on the risks to national security, saying that “risks must be managed effectively” but that this requires “care, prudence and balance” to ensure that no unnecessary harm is done to research partners.
The Foreign Relations Bill, which was introduced in Australia in August and passed quickly on Dec. 8, gives the federal government the power to veto agreements between local governments and Australian university institutions and foreign countries. Experts say the passage of the Foreign Relations Bill is expected to scrap plans like Victoria’s “One Belt, One Road” with China and the Confucius Institute, a partnership between universities and the Chinese government.
Hu Yuming, a former Australian local councilor, told the station that the submission from the Eight Schools Alliance is expected to be stimulated by the Foreign Relations Act passed by the Australian Parliament recently.
Hu said: “Universities are very much infiltrated by the Chinese Communist Party, and they know that the Foreign Relations Bill is very much aimed at them. Colleges and universities sign all kinds of cooperation agreements with China; because they are independent, under the original legal framework, it was very difficult for the federal government to interfere; now because of the new law, the federal government can tell them, “This is null and void! Universities are still waving the flag for the Chinese Communist Party, one because of their interests and the other because China may have gotten a hold of them.
According to Hu, these self-exposed opinions disprove the need for the Foreign Relations Act. He pointed out that the relevant bill has already been passed, and Australia’s determination to face the Chinese Communist Party’s infiltration countermeasures has been set, so these opinions will not be convincing.
Professor Feng Chongyi, a professor of political science at the University of Technology Sydney, criticized the Eight Schools Alliance for using slogans such as “academic freedom” and “international cooperation” to express hypocritical and ignorant opinions, placing monetary interests higher than national security and democratic values.
Feng Chongyi said: “I am not surprised that the Eight Schools Alliance wrote such a letter, they have been working very closely with the Chinese Communist regime. This school is very sick, and in order to make money, it can trample on long-term interests and liberal and democratic values, and what is even more sad is that it is very hypocritical to cooperate with the authoritarian regime under the guise of academic freedom and educational autonomy to do things that hurt liberal and democratic values and national interests.
The “Eight Schools Alliance” includes the University of Melbourne, Monash University, Australian National University, University of Sydney, University of Adelaide, University of Queensland, University of Western Australia, University of New South Wales and other prestigious universities. They enjoy nearly 70% of the government’s educational and academic resources.
One of the participating co-signatories, the University of Sydney, whose professor Edward Holmes cited the collaborative project involving Chinese universities and consortia in the first genome sequencing of the new crown outbreak, was unsuccessful due to Australia’s stricter policies, serving as an example of how it was affected by foreign policy.
Another example is intended to highlight the benefits of Australia-China cooperation. In a collaborative project with the international team of Peking University professor Ji Linong, Monash University professor Paul Zimmet AO found that older diabetics with new crowns had a much higher risk of death.
The submission notes that the Eight Schools Consortium has conducted more research collaborations with the European Union and European countries such as the United Kingdom, while China accounts for only 13 percent. The submission also urges the Australian authorities to exercise caution in regulating the Chinese Thousand Talents Program in order to “carefully address security risks to avoid unnecessary mistrust of individuals. The real issue with the Thousand Talents Program is not whether the program exists or has members within Australian universities, but whether there has been a properly declared association with the program, the paper says.
The “Thousand Talents Program,” which the Chinese Communist authorities use to set up research programs to recruit top scientific talent around the world on scholarships, is considered by the FBI to be a means of economic espionage. In September, at the request of the Morrison government, the Australian Intelligence and Security Committee launched an investigation into the program, naming 30 Australian academics involved in the program.
Australian academic Feng Chongyi criticized the Eight Schools Alliance for its particularly close ties to the Chinese Communist Party, and one of its members, the University of Queensland, hired Chinese Consul-General Xu Jie as a visiting professor in July 2019. Peter Hoj, president of the university, presented Xu Jie with a letter of appointment.
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