March 25, 2022
Australian universities that host Confucius Institutes should publicly disclose how they are funded and retain control over what students are taught, but a parliamentary review into national security risks has stopped short of calling for the controversial Chinese cultural centres to be closed.
In a wide-ranging report into the university sector, the federal parliament’s powerful intelligence and security committee recommended that contracts underpinning Confucius Institutes ensure that universities have control over staff appointments, curriculum content and include academic freedom clauses.
The report’s 27 findings were unanimously agreed to by Coalition and Labor members, with a number of recommendations directed at Chinese government talent recruitment programs, including that government department employees be prohibited from participating in the schemes.
In public hearings last year, ASIO boss Mike Burgess gave evidence that the scale of foreign interference at universities was higher than at any time since the Cold War, noting that “one country in particular is highly active” but declined to name the country.
In its findings, the committee directly linked international students with universities facing heightened foreign interference risks after hearing evidence from Human Rights Watch about students and academics being harassed by pro-Beijing groups on campuses. It recommended the federal government assist universities “in diversifying international student populations”.
It urged the University Foreign Interference Taskforce – a collaboration between the sector and Australian security agencies – to provide “as a matter of urgency... clear guidance to universities on implementing penalties for foreign interference activities on campus, including reporting on fellow students to foreign governments.”
Group of Eight chief executive Vicki Thomson said its member universities had already implemented many of the report’s recommendations and questioned the focus on talent programs.
“We note with concern the particular focus on membership of a foreign talent program, given comments made by Mr Burgess in October 2020, that ‘being a member of the Thousand Talents Program of itself is no problem… for me or Australia in general’,” Ms Thomson said.
“We also note the recommendation around Confucius Institutes and will continue to liaise with our members on the implications of this.”
At least 12 universities – including Sydney and Melbourne universities – host Confucius Institutes, which teach mostly non-degree courses on Chinese culture and language and sometimes hold public events on political, social and economic issues. As Australia-China relations have deteriorated, the institutes have come under increasing scrutiny from the federal government amid concerns they function as a plank of the Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda effort. RMIT University committed last year to closing its institute.
The committee, chaired by Liberal Senator James Paterson, who has been highly critical of the operation of the institutes, noted it had decided against recommending the centres be closed and instead recommended measures to “increase transparency” around the centres. But the report also included a statement supporting action by the Foreign Minister to force the closure of the centres by using the “veto power” to cancel Confucius Institute contracts struck between Australian and Chinese universities.
Several universities renegotiated contracts with their Chinese partners after The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age revealed in 2019 that some had agreed to share or cede decision-making authority over the teaching content to Beijing’s Confucius Institute headquarters. The University of Sydney already discloses its contract with Fudan University for its institute on its website.
Human Rights Watch researcher Sophie McNeill welcomed the report’s findings, saying: “new efforts to ensure universities have clear policies in place to counter state-backed harassment and intimidation and the resulting self-censorship are long overdue.”
Universities Australia Chief Executive Catriona Jackson said the sector was “very alive to the risks of foreign interference” and had proactively partnered with the government and security agencies to tackle the issues.
