Universities should be aware of the “red hot patriotism” Beijing is stirring up on Australian campuses and the national security risks posed by such fervour, a former adviser to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull says.
John Garnaut told The Australian Financial Review’s Higher Education Summit that the Communist Party wanted Chinese nationals to remain highly loyal even while studying overseas.
That meant following them wherever they go in the world, including to Australia, where 30 per cent of foreign students are Chinese.
Mr Garnaut said there had been several instances in recent months where Chinse students had mobilised against teachers who displayed what they perceived to be anti-China sentiment.
…”The challenge for [Australia] is, how do we cope with the fact that our single biggest customer is instructing students and teachers to have red hot patriotic sentiment when they are in Australia,” Mr Garnaut said.
“One of [Chinese president] Xi Jinping’s objectives has been to ensure that the party can project its interests into the world, including following Chinese people wherever they go.”
…Mr Garnaut, a former Fairfax China correspondent who later became an adviser in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, said President Xi relied on something called the United Front Work Department to exert influence abroad.
“It’s got a large presence in Australia which is not sufficiently understood,” he said.
“One of its objectives is to cultivate, to work the interests of Chinese scholars and students so that they can feel like they are free to come and go under the party’s terms in China – develop your knowledge base, bring it back to China and you will be treated well.”
Well said, Mr Garnaut.
As we know, this is the tip of the iceberg of Chinese soft power as it:
- favours local elites that fete it in intellectual discussion;
- pays for favourable press coverage in the mainstream press;
- deploys lobbying dollars to infiltrate parliaments;
- supports patriotic tertiary groups and attacks perceived enemies, and
- conducts all manner of commercial and strategic espionage activities.
None of this should be any surprise. It’s the same stuff that all major powers get up to and the US has been doing it for a very long time. Neither is the CCP’s claim over its Diaspora that unusual even if it more assertive about it than most.
The only issue with China doing it is that it has a political system that is openly and increasingly hostile to democracy. And, given the immense influence that regime already has over Australia economically, taking one third of our exports and occupying the marginal bid in the housing market – representing the two halves our economy – we have to ask ourselves what measures should be taken to keep ourselves from stumbling unwittingly into the embrace of an autocratic hegemon.
I have a few suggestions. Given the momentum in the economic relationship is so overwhelming, policy should lean against it. By that, I do not mean choose sides nor “contain” China. Not at all. What I mean is:
- ban all foreign donations in parliament;
- keep immigration levels manageable (say 100k per annum);
- properly police the foreign bid out of the housing market;
- work hard at keeping the US engaged in the region along with other “five eyes” allies, and
- ensure standards of independence are enforced in universities.
Some simple and pragmatic measures to keep the political economy on the straight and narrow.
