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Australian universities¡¯ ¡°underweighted¡± appreciation of security threats has given way to a simplistic ¡°culture of caution¡± that risks squandering their most productive research relationships, a forthcoming book chapter argues.

Before 2019, the risks of research collaboration with China tended to be?¡°discounted in an excessive pursuit of opportunities¡±, according to James Laurenceson, who heads the Australia-China Relations Institute at the University of Technology Sydney. Now the opportunities ¡°are in danger of being excessively circumscribed¡±, he warns in a paper to be published in the Routledge International Handbook on Research Security.

¡°Research collaboration with China comes with potential security risks that might threaten Australia¡¯s interests and values. [That] is not in dispute. What is contested is the scale of these risks and the effectiveness of mitigation measures introduced in response.

¡°Crude policy recommendations do not amount to protecting Australia¡¯s interests [but they could] contribute to cutting Australia off from Chinese partners that are pushing forward the knowledge creation frontier globally.¡±

The paper says China contributes to 60 per cent or more of Australia¡¯s publications in eight of its 10 top research fields for globally cited articles. And of the 12 disciplines considered most important to Australia¡¯s Aukus defence pact with the US and the UK, China now outperforms the US in 10 of them.

¡°Talk of intellectual property theft¡­only makes sense if China still lags Australia in scientific prowess,¡± the paper says. ¡°This is demonstrably no longer the case.¡± In any case, Chinese interests do not need to ¡°steal¡± Australian knowledge ¡°because they can just read about it in publicly available academic journals¡±.

Such nuances are lost amid worries that Australian research is contributing to Chinese human rights abuses or military might, the paper says. Yet regulatory regimes to counter such threats have claimed few scalps. No universities have been found in breach of Defence Trade Controls legislation or ¡°strict¡± foreign interference laws introduced in 2018.

An Australian Research Council (ARC) investigation of 32 local academics, impugned for espionage and grant fraud after signing up with China¡¯s Thousand Talents Programme, found no evidence of intellectual property theft or national security issues. Yet collaboration with Chinese partners on ARC-funded research had collapsed, and joint projects had been shelved following vague allegations that they could contribute to Chinese surveillance or submarining capabilities.

Laurenceson told Times Higher Education that Australia had become too ¡°hung up¡± on partner institutions rather than the specifics of the collaborations. ¡°You don¡¯t rule out a university just because it¡¯s got some facility that¡¯s engaged in defence activities. First and foremost, you¡¯ve got to be asking, what is it that we are actually doing with this university?¡±

Such questions became ¡°even more essential¡± as the US began ¡°¡±, he said. ¡°The US and China are the two global hubs of knowledge creation. We should try and maintain maximum connections to both, to the extent that our national interest allows.¡±

Laurenceson said Australian researchers had been warned against collaborating with top Chinese universities?linked with defence research. Commensurate action by China would be ridiculed for ignoring the nature of research conducted in Australian universities, he said.

¡°It would be naive to imagine that China does not have its own anxieties around international research collaboration,¡± the paper says. ¡°China¡¯s three largest international research partners [the US, the UK and Australia] are not only amongst its fiercest geopolitical rivals, but also allied with each other.¡±

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com