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October 18, 2023
ANDY PARK: Well, there's been some quite frank discussions at the spy summit in Silicon Valley overnight, with the ASIO boss revealing, a Chinese national was removed from Australia after a foiled attempt to infiltrate a prestigious research institution. In the first ever public gathering of the Five Eyes intelligence partners, Mike Burgess revealed the spying plot was against an unnamed Australian organisation and it was disrupted last month before any damage was done. During this meeting, Mike Burgess also accused the Chinese government of an unprecedented level of intellectual property theft. Take a listen.
MIKE BURGESS: [CLIP] China has developed a ruthless business model aimed at seizing commercial advantage. Stealing intellectual property is the first step. Then they use talent programs, joint ventures and acquisitions to harvest the expertise to exploit the intellectual property. Sometimes that technology is put to military use, our discussions here will raise awareness of these threats and improve our collective defences.
PARK: Joining me now is the Liberal Senator James Paterson. He's the Shadow Home Affairs and Cyber Security Minister. Welcome to you.
JAMES PATERSON: Thanks for having me.
PARK: Are you surprised at either the fact that this is happening or the fact that Mike Burgess is so open about it happening?
PATERSON: I'm not in any way surprised about what Mike Burgess has said. It has been commonly understood in national security circles for some time that China is the number one source of espionage, foreign interference, cyber attacks and industrial intellectual property theft for Australia. But it is unusually frank and direct for him to say so and in a public forum with his Five Eyes partners who have expressed similar sentiments is, I think, a really significant development and an appropriate and welcome one, in my view. It's vital that those who have this information share it in an appropriate way with the public so that we can be informed, we can prepare and we can take steps to protect ourselves.
PARK: What can you tell me about this particular case involving a Chinese academic?
PATERSON: There's very little that I can say about that specific case. But what I can say more generally about these issues is it is often the case that people who have a ostensibly legitimate reason to be here to visit, to do business, to do study, to do joint ventures, to do travel, may also have ulterior motives and other purposes. They may be an agent of the Ministry of State Security or other arms of the Chinese intelligence apparatus, and they may be here for the purpose of engaging in foreign interference or espionage that's against our national interest. And when ASIO and the law enforcement partners become aware of that, then they take steps to disrupt that. And that can involve directly interviewing a person and telling them that they know who they are. It could include arresting them, it could include deporting them, it could include cancelling their visa.
PARK: I understand in this case the Chinese academic allegedly set his Australian PhD students research assignments in line with a shopping list of requirements given to the academic by Chinese intelligence. We know that this is a pattern that has existed in other overseas universities, particularly in the States and Canada as well. What was the extent of the security risk here? Because if we're talking about PhD students, they're not going to have access to highly classified information, will they?
PATERSON: When I led the intelligence committee in the previous parliament, we conducted an inquiry into the national security risks facing higher education and what we found was that higher education was uniquely vulnerable to attempts to steal intellectual property and to engage in espionage and foreign interference, because by its very nature, it is open. It is open to people of all backgrounds, of all nationalities. If you meet the qualifications for the degree you can enrol in it, and not everything which is sensitive to our country is necessarily classified in nature. In fact, one of the greatest risk areas are so-called dual use technologies that have both civilian applications and military applications. And there have been instances in the past, for example, the study of drones that could appear to be purely commercial in nature but could have military applications. And Xi Jinping has a very clearly articulated public philosophy of civil-military fusion. And what he means by that is innovations that are obtained in the commercial or civilian space should be turned to China's military and strategic advantage and so we have to be wise to that and awake to that.
PARK: You recently voiced concerns about the possibility of foreign interference at Parliament House. I mean, what do you see as the current vulnerabilities in that building? Is it the cameras or is it the cyber systems? Something else?
PATERSON: I'm not most concerned about personal individual vulnerabilities that we have. Human intelligence is a very rich area of intelligence collection, and all of our intelligence adversaries engage in it, not just China. We've seen in the United Kingdom allegations that someone who was very close to members of parliament working on national security issues was in fact compromised and an agent of the Chinese Communist Party. Now, that's yet to be proven, but if it were the case, we face exactly the same risk because the vast majority of staff who work in Parliament House for members of Parliament are not security vetted or cleared in any way. It's only if you're a ministerial staff member that you are cleared. And so even if you're a member of the intelligence committee like I am, my staff not only aren't cleared, but it's not even an option for me to seek for them to be cleared. And I think that's got to change.
PARK: If you've just joined me, James Paterson is the Victorian Liberal Senator. He's also the shadow Minister for Home Affairs and Cyber Security on our RN Driver talking about this Five Eyes intelligence meeting in Silicon Valley. Talk to me about the timing of this meeting. It happens at a time when there's extraordinary bipartisanship in the United States politically about the threat that China poses, unlike the kind of Obama era mantra that the rise of China is good for the United States. Why is this meeting happening now?
PATERSON: It's perhaps the only issue today which remains bipartisan in the United States Congress and in the US political system, where Democrats and Republicans are almost equally hawkish about the challenges posed by the Chinese Communist Party. And that's in response to the events of the recent years, whether it's Xinjiang, whether it's Tibet, whether it's Hong Kong, whether it's Taiwan. It's very clear how muscular the Chinese Communist Party is in its approach to the region and the world. And its objectives, I think, are very clear. The summit came about because it was a recognition that technology is a critical area of the contest, the geopolitical contest of the 21st century. And those nations which first and most successfully develop the next generation and emerging technologies like quantum and artificial intelligence, will not just accrue an economic or commercial advantage, they'll accrue a military and strategic advantage. And if our best and brightest talents and secrets and innovations are being stolen by intellectual property theft on an industrial scale by a sophisticated state, well then we could lose that contest. And the ramifications for our society will be very profound.
PARK: If we are seeing a global decline in, I don't know, the rules based order or at least the kind of rules of engagement when it comes to war crimes and human rights. Isn't it also true that any country will also seek an advantage any way it can? And does Australia also engage in this practice? What has ASIO revealed during intelligence and security committee hearings on this?
PATERSON: That's a good question. I mean, certainly all nations pursue their national interest, as they should, but we're also a rule of law democracy, and unlike some of our competitors or our potential adversaries in this area, our intelligence agencies are restrained by the rule of law and the oversight of the courts and the parliaments of a democratically elected government.
PARK: What about Five Eyes more broadly, though?
PATERSON: Well, I think that applies to all Five Eyes countries. There are things which we are not willing to do, which our adversaries are willing to do, and in some respects in some theatres of the world, that puts us behind the eight ball in the contest and that makes competing with them more difficult. But the only way we could compete with them in some instances is to change who we are. And I don't think we should do that. I think we should stick to our principles and our values.
PARK: Just turning to the latest out of Gaza. There's been a massive explosion at a hospital in Gaza City, killing hundreds of people. Both sides are blaming each other. How should Australia respond if Israel is found to have attacked this hospital? And that is obviously an allegation that is made by Hamas?
PATERSON: Well, it's a deeply distressing loss of human life and a tragedy, whoever is responsible, whether it is a Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket that has misfired or whether it is Israel which has accidentally hit a hospital. I would be extraordinarily surprised if Israel had targeted the hospital, even though we do know that Hamas often stores its weapons and its fighters in and around hospitals and in fact runs command centres from hospitals because they're using those people in those hospitals as human shields against the IDF. But despite that, the IDF always exercises great restraint in this area. And I believe if this has happened and if Israel is responsible, it's much more likely to be inadvertent and a mistake rather than deliberate. It would be unconscionable if it was deliberately targeted.
PARK: Victorian Liberal Senator James Paterson, the Shadow Minister for Home Affairs and Cyber Security. Very good afternoon to you.
PATERSON: Thank you.
ENDS
