Things must be very frustrating for you at the moment?

Yes it is. The whole situation, China aside, the inaction by the Federal Govt really and passing to State Govts who can’t do anything either. The Chinese side is something that was looming in view pre Covid and it’s absolutely come to a head now and the agents in China have been approached informally by authorities to perhaps not promote Australia as a destination although the demand remains quite high and there’s a lot of Chinese students in the pipeline either trapped when the closure came or have since enrolled. That was one of the saviors for the G8’s – the enrollment in the online programs, pending clearance to come to Australia.

It appears things are at a complete stand-still? Is this the case?

Yep. Life goes on. The universities and other providers are still training and progressing students – the ones that were here – a lot of them have been retained, they’ve re-enrolled in other courses or doing other things, not necessarily wanting to go back to their homes or countries of origin. But in terms of projecting and trying to look forward, it’s very much at a standstill. We held a round table in Canberra on Monday and actually had all the peak bodies including ourselves so Universities Australia, English Australia and others and just looking at ways we can co-operate to get some sort of action, some sort of timetable out of the Federal Govt to acknowledge what’s happening and to keep it moving. There have been some very good plans presented and honestly nothing back from the Govt. They just don’t want to move on it.

In recent days I’ve noticed that the Dept of Prime Minster and Cabinet is now preparing a list of projects in the areas of emerging technologies and in that list, Australian Universities are not allowed to co-operate with foreign organizations or institutions in certain areas. The Dept of Prime Minister and Cabinet is currently working on the list of research and technology fields to protect foreign interest, are you across this?

Yeah, we keep up to date with the foreign interference stuff at the university level.

And emerging technologies is what they’ve pointed to. Tell me where you understand this is all at?

The whole China issue is that Australia has been extremely bolshie (Bolshevik) in confronting China, more than say UK, New Zealand, anyone else. We seem to be taking a very forward view on confronting China on a lot of different levels and in not taking anything nuanced really. There’s the kind of stuff too that you cannot cooperate with Chinese universities and in fact the whole foreign interference stuff is kind of taking the microscope to all the projects that are going on in the main universities. And there’s a lot  ..there’s a lot of research and stuff that was being done with China as well as universities wanting to open campuses or subsidiaries in China. Everything is on hold now. It’s just too much risk.

So, as you best understand it, in this area of research and technology – emerging technologies, what is the Australian Govt currently communicating to universities in terms of how they should handle this?

All I know is what I talk with colleagues at a university level and it’s definitely on a go-slow for anything to do with China. The risk from the Australian rhetoric alone – they’ve pretty much factored in that China is rapidly going to be a rapidly diminishing source of students and research in the future. So, they’re definitely looking at South Asia and other markets as ones to promote more heavily and to work with. ASEAN and South Asia are going to be the go-to places post Covid. The risks are very high now to do anything with China.

So how does a Govt specifically communicate that with a university? How does it work?

They don’t. You just read what goes on and the foreign interference stuff, the freedom of speech stuff that was brought down against Uni Qld. As I said, the rhetoric and the confrontation on China is way ahead of anything in Europe, even The States aren’t quite as bolshie as we are so that kind of thing, as a business, and University is a big business as well, they see a risk profile rising and they pull back so there’s nothing official, this is purely anecdotally talking. According to colleagues at universities, China is definitely – pull back. Maintain what we’ve got, hang in there, keep trying to recruit from there by all means. They’ll maintain their agent relationships and all that and if there’s demand, they’ll happily take the Chinese students but they’re factoring in that there’ll be a drop. And there was already a drop – pre-covid there was already a flattening of demand from China. The UK and others have made their offers a lot more attractive for Chinese students. For example, they have a one-year Masters program with a 2 year work visa following it so in Australia you have to do at least 2 -3 years of study before you get your 18 month or 2 year work right so our competitor countries are not sleeping, so Canada and the UK are putting out a very positive message towards China and to other markets and Australia is this kind of dead space at the moment. We’re just locked up.

In terms of the area of foreign research collaboration, where is that at? It would appear that Universities are being sent a very clear message –that seems to be – don’t get involved in the area of emerging technologies -research, collaboration, make deals or do projects with China. Is this the case?

Mmmm. What you can see from the Govt in terms of foreign interference (China) is that your life is going to be difficult if you start to go down that track. Already there has been naming and shaming of universities that have had people attached to the people’s liberation army and things like that so it’s definitely there that you’ve gotta be very very careful on what kind of research you enter into. If it’s say, agricultural science, it’s probably ok but anything else, they don’t want you to touch it.

As far as you’re aware then, is there a specific list of technologies that are subject to restrictions?

No, I have no idea about that.

Do you think there would be?

I don’t know. Anything to do with that high end quantum computing or whatever– I’m sure there’s areas where they’re just going to say, China just doesn’t play by the rules with these technologies so, no way.

So, the clear signal I’m picking up here and I guess the universities are as well is, be very careful about doing anything with China.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think from the business perspective, from the research perspective and others, it’s just step back at the moment and don’t move ahead. Even pre-covid this was happening and with the comments from the PM on Covid and China, things have definitely got very, very frosty so the agent perspective, and that’s from where I speak, the education agent perspective, it started in more sort of regional areas where local officials were talking to agent officers about not promoting Australia. So, it wasn’t you can’t. And they haven’t moved to the stage of taking providers off the approved provider list that China has, but it’s got to the stage where it’s not overt yet but they’re definitely saying to agents in the cities and the regions, do not promote Australia.

My understanding is that the PMC (Dept of Prime Minister and Cabinet) is currently working on a list of specific technologies for which they’re going to issue instructions. From what you’re telling me it’s quite likely that that list is going to be quite expansive and long?

Yep. We’ll wait and see. I think that Australia has made its position very clear – much clearer than our competitor nations and that will be the consequences. The drops in students, we’ve figured that’s going to happen in any case, and with the research co-operation and others – everything is definitely step back and wait.

So what are the universities doing about this?

Looking elsewhere. You can’t ignore China, it’s the second biggest economy in the world and really China makes it very clear, you play by our rules or you don’t work with us. So they’ve laid that out.

Are the universities lobbying our Govt to take a different approach or are they just resigned to the situation?

You’re resigned to it. What can you say? Let’s allow foreign interference or let’s put up with China’s position. In terms of the optics of it, you can’t really protest against that.

Well, the list is going to be sent around to the universities. When they get it, that’s going to make it difficult for current projects and for universities to continue to co-operate with other countries in the fields that are listed, at the very least, isn’t it?

Yes it will be. I don’t know what the restrictions are going to be but yes it is, of course it is. And it already has been. As I said, they’ve pulled out and named different projects that they weren’t happy with and if it means that people have to stop midway through research, it’s a huge blow. It will be very difficult for a lot of people. A lot of academics.

The Aust govt wants to ensure the commercialization of some of these fields clearly, that’s why they’re working on them. How exactly, as far as you know, does the Aust govt plan to co-operate with the universities going forward?

They’ve given them a research boost, they’ve put more money into research because of the drop in income from international students, there was a $1 billion package that was sent out that was gratefully accepted by the universities – it still doesn’t match what they’ve lost but at least it could keep some of the research moving along. I think Australia has been reliant on international education far too heavily compared to other countries as well. You know, both sides of Govt were very happy to scale back on funding, take up on more internationals. I think if they want to commercialize, if they want to have good research done and taken through to commercialization, they’ve got to fund it and that’ll be the compromise because if they cut off students and make it difficult for students to come, which is certainly the case at the moment, and they cut off co-operation with places like China then they’ve got to step up with more direct funding of research.

The UTS is considered a leading Aust university, that’s had problems already hasn’t it with Chinese institutions and scientists?

Yep. The academics in China that were already associated with the party or the army or the PLA or whatever, it’s difficult in China to get anywhere because to get anywhere you have to have some affiliation with the Communist Party. That’s what you need to do to get funding or to get things done in China so it’s really difficult to untangle it. So for universities, it’s easy to draw a line between particular academics and the party or whatever, you’re stuck.

You’re not aware of the specific problems that UTS encountered?

No, only whatever’s been published already. There were some academics that were attached to the army.

Is that what they’re looking for, any association with The Party?

Yeah, on face recognition and stuff because there was surveillance in there and it really doesn’t look very good at all if you’re assisting state surveillance in China. So you might start out with a fairly innocuous innocent project and then the lines can be drawn and you’re in trouble. It’s all those sorts of technologies in that area that they’ll be coming down on.

As I understand it, in China, the Party is involved in everything, that’s the way the system operates. So if the measure for not working with the Chinese Party is that they have an association with The Party, there’s not going to be many left?

Very difficult, as I said, to untangle anything. It’s Huawei and all the others as well, the line can be drawn back or the laws say that you have to hand over information to the Govt if they request it, so Tik Tok, Huawei -everyone – there’s lines that can be drawn back so you can’t escape it. That’s what happens in a one state country.

So, is what we’re looking at here, the end of research co-operation with China across the board?

I don’t think it’s across the board. I do think there will be areas where there’ll be social research and other research areas where it will still be allowed but the kind of hard science area, I think, that will be more problematic and visa versa. Probably China’s govt will say no co-operation with Australian universities also. The way things are heading it’s pretty toxic.