by CLAIRE FIELD

Given there were university representatives in the audience at the recent Australian Financial Review Business Summit I have been surprised by the lack of discussion in the sector about the remarks made by the Director-General of National Intelligence, Andrew Shearer.

While his warning that China is now Australia’s key national security issue has been widely reported, his warnings for the higher education sector appear to have been overlooked.

He commented firstly that technology convergence meant universities were going to need to be more careful about the international students they enrol in technology-related courses and research programs.

Then in answer to a question about what the changing global landscape meant for universities, he said “… it’s incredibly important that we work as government officials closely with our higher education authorities… we want our students and our higher education institutions to have effective academic exchanges with other countries. But I think most of us would increasingly agree that a situation where Australian research is finding its way into capabilities to provide the (People’s Liberation Army) PLA or other advanced militaries with extremely damaging and dangerous capabilities is not an acceptable form of academic interchange. And that’s why the Taskforce that works between Commonwealth authorities and the higher education sector has an important role to play and why we… have to diversify our markets. And as the borders re-open and students start coming back you’d like to think that our higher education leaders have learned some of the lessons of that overly dependent past.”

His comments were in sharp contrast to those from Associate Professor Keyu Jin from the London School of Economics who advised Summit delegates that Australia must put contentious issues with China aside and instead look for areas of collaboration and mutual benefit. The two specific examples she gave were “knowledge exchange and university exchange”.

In other words the circumstances Shearer is warning the university sector against are precisely those a noted China expert suggests we need more of.

Shearer’s comments will strengthen the government’s resolve (and presumably the Labor Party’s too should they win the upcoming election) that universities need to diversify their international student cohorts.

The newly announced collaboration between Australia’s Genix Ventures and Holmes Institute with Tsinghua University in China and language training providers in India (supported by the Victorian government) provides an example of collaboration that strengthens and enhances geo-political and educational relationships without creating national security risks.

Let’s hope that as we navigate our changing geo-political relationships we see more of these kinds of partnerships.

 Claire Field has been engaged with the Chinese tertiary education sector for more than a decade. In 2019 she presented at the “For the Future: International Conference on VET Development” in Beijing at the invitation of the Chinese government