Confucius Institutes are China's Trojan Horse in Australian Academia
Confucius Institutes are China's Trojan Horse in Australian Academia
How Beijing's educational outreach programs raise concerns over intellectual property theft, academic freedom, and national security in Australia and beyond.
Confucius, the ancient Chinese philosopher, profoundly influenced Asian culture and society with his emphasis on human-centered virtues and the pursuit of a peaceful life, principles that continue to resonate today.
He’s also attributed with saying “It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop". This is exactly what the Chinese Communist Party has done, and continues to do, as it advances its aspirations while tightening its grip on virtually every political portfolio in Australia.
ASIO (the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation) has a different perspective on the philosophical program of Confucius Institutes and Classrooms, and their malign implications, it also has concerns about another Chinese program, the Thousand Talents plan. The parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security (PJCIS) confirmed these suspicions, with the release of its report in 2022.
Increasing revelations about Chinese involvement in cyber-crime, and the use of spying techniques, have focused attention on Huawei telecoms, Hikvision security cameras and now the TikTok social media platform.
The Confucius Institute’s role in information gathering, has also long been a cause of concern to intelligence services; it has been using funding pressure on universities to resist investigation, with universities financial over-reliance on Chinese students as another lever. Academia cries loss of freedom when the government disagrees with their business model; the role of national interest has been ignored in the search for money.
Confucius Institutes were set up in various parts of the world under the auspices of the Chinese Government, funded by the Ministry of Education, ostensibly with the purpose of encouraging the use of Chinese languages, the study of Chinese culture and promotion of exchanges.
In reality there has been a sinister purpose, with dissemination of propaganda, influencing of local events, undermining of academic freedom and infiltration of educational systems to illegally obtain intellectual property rights. The Institute’s head is a vice president of the Communist party with other members from the Finance, Education Ministries and the Office of Overseas Propaganda; they operate as an extension of the Chinese Government.
Starting in 2004, there were by 2014 an estimated 480 Institutes in over 140 countries, with a plan to expand to 1,000 by the year 2020. There was also an extension into primary and secondary schooling with Confucius Classrooms. From early 2019 the rate of expansion had fallen off, reaching 548 institutes and 568 classrooms, with lecturers imported from the mainland, at an estimated cost of $10 billion annually.
At its maximum, the US had around 200 Institutes in colleges and universities, that number had fallen to around 90 by 2019 and by April 2022, there were 18 left; the UK had around 30, now down to 18, with plans to close them all. As controversy has surrounded their role, a wave of closures has also occurred in Japan, Canada, France, US, Germany, Holland and Sweden. Disturbingly, despite their apparent closure, they are re-appearing in a new form as Chinese Partnership programs.
Over 1.2 million identified as having Chinese ancestry at the last Australian census, with an estimated over half million China-born residents, half living in NSW. China provided the second largest immigration intake in 2018 census, with numbers rising dramatically from 4,000 in the year 2000, to 12,000 by 2005, 50,000 by 2017, overtaking the number coming from UK.
There are concerns that, as well as university students, this general population is also being monitored and its views influenced by the Institutes; in universities there has been censorship of topics unacceptable to China, such as Tiananmen Square, Tibet, Taiwan and recently Hong Kong. The Confucius school Classrooms, also funded by a grant incentive, have been closed in NSW and NT, with concerns of indoctrination; 8 persist in Victoria. Political influence on the local Chinese population prompted the Attorney General to issue a warning about potential foreign interference and suggest these Institutes needed to be registered under the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme.
There have been numerous examples of interference with academic freedom, yet no contracts have been cancelled here, and there is a reluctance to even discuss the issue. An Academic view is that this is a McCarthy-like witch hunt, but the lack of transparency and attempts at curriculum control alone, should raise warning flags; we may now have to worry not about “Reds under the beds”, but “Reds in the beds”.
Another big area of concern is the Chinese theft of intellectual property, in the US this has been estimated to cost between $200 and $600 billion annually. Much of this theft occurs at company level and there remain significant concerns about the use of Huawei systems leading to cyber theft. University research in cutting edge technology has also been stolen both by Chinese students and academics, Beijing is believed to foster economic espionage by students in return for paying for their tuition. Areas of particular interest include: computer systems, self- drive cars, smart phones, food technology such as genetic engineering, energy technology including solar, wind turbines and nuclear power.
In particular, military secrets, such as the stealth bomber technology, have been targeted. A recent report has China now leading the world in 37 of the 44 critical technology fields, with researchers in 25% of those fields having had post-graduate training in Five Eyes countries. With closure of the institutes, the number of US and China co-funded academic papers has fallen; figures show there were 2,632 in 2008, rising steadily to 8,877 in 2012, 24,185 in 2015, peaking at 43,459 in 2019, falling in 2020 and 2021, the lates figure being 34,206.
The original university contracts, with 14 Australian universities, had to comply with China’s decisions about the teaching curriculum; disturbingly, this limitation of intellectual control produced no academic backlash; there were also initially 67 Classrooms.
Examples of potential conflict of interest occurred in Brega in Portugal in 2014, when the Institute caused cancellation of a university presentation by Taiwan; in July 2019 there were clashes between UQ students and pro-China students. Many of the Universities have renegotiated their contracts with the Institute, with the number now reduced to 11; they were due to be registered under the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme but, following a change in the Institutes governance, this is been ruled no longer necessary.
Many countries have banned this institution, it is time Australia did the same.
The comparison with academia’s opposition to the introduction of courses from the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation could not be more telling. These courses are fully funded, do not limit intellectual enquiry, do not influence the population at large, and will not steal trade secrets: yet their introduction produced a storm of protest from academia, solely on an ideological basis.
The Australian National University and University of Sydney both rejected setting up a course, with the latter stating it was “at odds with the University’s commitment to diversity and inclusiveness”. In 2018, the University of Wollongong agreed to run the course although this “proved a shock” to the humanities department. In 2019 the University of Queensland also signed up, despite student protests about its “racist” content; the Australian Catholic University is the only other provider.
Revelations about the Thousand Talents Program have reinforced other the concerns about infiltration of institutions to steal technology advances. Described by the US FBI director as “economic espionage”, the program was introduced in 2008; it funded Chinese experts to study in Western Universities, and allowed their Western colleagues, without reference to their employing institutions, to visit Chinese Universities.
Although given generous research packages, conditions of employment include the requirement to share technology developments only with their Chinese host, not their original employer. The end result has been yet more theft of intellectual property and fraud, the program is still running.
Forty thousand Chinese students have so far applied to return to Australia this year — this compares with around 200,000 pre-COVID. The March 2022 PJCIS report confirmed the threat of both the Confucius Institutes and Thousand Talents programs, and advised wide ranging changes.
ASIO has also pointed out the threats these organisations pose, and encouraged Universities to focus less on profits they produce, and more on security; the training of overseas students in cyber technology is particularly concerning. The Australian Government and its Western allies are belatedly addressing this, less than benign, side of Chinese diplomacy.
This education hijack is just a one part of the spread of Chinese influence. The international Belt and Road initiative has spread control, as debt diplomacy overtakes national sovereignty, the latest examples being consequences in Sri Lanka and The Solomons. The World Trade Organisation, bizarrely, still considers China to be a developing country, with its associated trade advantages, it also still has climate change concessions.
The United Nations international role is steadily undermined by the Chinese support from small countries: the organisation now has 193 members, many with an easily bribed vote to distort voting outcomes.
Four of the 15 specialised agencies, The Food and Agriculture Organisation, The International Telecommunications Organisation, The International Civil Aviation Organisation and The Industrial Development Organisation are now run by Chinese Nationals.
The COVID pandemic has confirmed the country’s undue influence on the World Health organisation, with still no thorough investigation of the virus origin. The United Nations has ignored China’s illegal expansion in the South China Sea; its Human Rights Commission has also been compromised, with the UN ignoring human rights abuses reported by its own investigation.
As the threat to Taiwan increases, the faint sounds of the drums of war are becoming audible. The AUKUS agreement and submarine deal are an overdue recognition of risk, as is the Quad agreement with Japan and India, the US and Australia. There are well recognised stages of this progression:
Stage 1: cooperation, Stage 2: co-existence, Stage 3: competition
We are now approaching Stage 4: confrontation, and a need to take action.
Stage 5 is conflict and Stage 6 is either compromise or capitulation.
As Confucius said, “Only the wisest and stupidest of men never change.”
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