Nothing to see here:
University of Sydney vice-chancellor Michael Spence said he was baffled by a recent federal government probe into his university’s Confucius Institute, while giving evidence at the NSW government inquiry into the future of the state’s tertiary education sector on Monday.
…Mr Latham said Australian universities had been forced to respond to both the coronavirus pandemic and a “remarkable deterioration” in the Australia-Chinese diplomatic relationship, including “very clear suggestions of [Chinese] political interference in our nation”.
…”There is no single instance that has been brought to our attention by the intelligence services of there being a problem with the university’s engagement with China,” Dr Spence said. “If there were, then the university would deal with it. And it would deal with it as an Australian institution with the interests of our own country first.”
He told the inquiry that the Confucius Institute was a “community education activity”, which teaches no University of Sydney students and makes no financial contribution to the university.
“The inquiry from the Attorney-General’s department is baffling. And we’ll reply to it, saying it’s kind of baffling,” he said.
“We are not absolutely perfect … Mr Latham pointed out a particular situation in which we failed,” UNSW vice-chancellor Ian Jacobs told the inquiry, referring to the university’s handling of the online posts. “We acknowledge that and learn the lessons from that and we move on.
“But we will protect freedom of speech and academic freedom absolutely, in our university and on our campus.”
…Dr Spence said universities had been “excessively reliant on international student fees as a system, to keep our research infrastructure going”. But he “utterly repudiated” claims that teachers were pressured to pass Chinese students to retain their business or that cheating had been allowed to flourish in universities.
So!
- No Pavlou Affair at UQ.
- No Chau Chak Wing Affair at USYD.
- No Huang Affair at UBS.
- No Shroder-Turk Affair at Murdoch.
- No free speech controversy at UNSW.
- No research for the CCP oppression machine at UTS.
- No poaching of research by the PLA.
- No Confucious Institute propaganda.
- No systemic cheating.
- No pressure on academics to pass.
- No erosion of pedagogical standards.
- No corrupting of university politics.
It’s all just made up. Doubtless by racists. And the millions for VCs, as well as billions for kowtowing unis is purely a coincidence.
We can all move on and leave them to it then.
