What ever happened to China needs Australia more than Australia needs China????
Michael Wesley
Jul 2, 2023 – 10.00am
Amid rising geopolitical tensions and a serious downturn in Australia-China
relations, there have been voices calling for our .
Advocates of this position argue that such linkages facilitate the leakage of our intellectual property, promote China’s rise as a hostile technology power, and enable the staging of influence operations on Australian university campuses.
This is a view that is both limiting and misinformed.
There is no realistic future scenario in which China will not be one of the most significant countries affecting Australia’s future. This means , not less. In engaging with China’s universities, we are tapping into the most informed, critical, internationalist and liberal institutions in Chinese society.
Two-way academic exchanges and collaborations are the best way for our society to keep abreast of a rapidly changing society and its evolving government imperatives.
Australia’s universities are not naive or unaware of the importance of protecting sensitive research or preventing on their campuses. They have been compliant with Australia’s sanctions and export controls for over a decade, and since 2019 have worked closely with the government under the University Foreign Interference Taskforce to develop an unprecedented level of awareness and risk management governing universities’ international linkages, sensitive research areas, and engagement with particular countries of concern.
And the university-government collaboration continues.
Outside these sensitive and proprietary research areas, the standard academic practice is to publish the results of university research, allowing peers, globally, to assess and draw from one’s research is fundamental to the discovery of new knowledge.
Peer review ensures the veracity of knowledge claims, while broad awareness of new discoveries stimulates further breakthroughs. Chinese researchers don’t need collaborations to “steal” our intellectual property – all they need to do to access new Australian knowledge is to read the journals in which it is published.
Academic collaboration is not built on protecting knowledge; it ispredicated on an understanding that research will be freely published.
It is also mistaken to believe that ending collaboration with Australian universities will hamper China’s rise as a technology power. . Since the mid-1990s, China’s investment in basic research grew by an average of more than 20 per cent a year, to a point where it is now many multiples of Australia’s research spending.
Its nine leading universities are much better funded than any of Australia’s, or the world’s outside the elite American universities. According to recent studies referenced in the journal Science, Chinese researchers account for the highest proportion of the most cited scientific papers of any country in the world. Other studies also show Chinese research is rising fast in innovation and quality.
To completely disengage from this already significant and still ascending knowledge power would be an act of self-harm for Australia and its universities.
Universities depend on access to the best talent and best ideas and, of course, these are not concentrated in any particular segment of the world’s population. Closing off our knowledge sector from one-fifth of humanity, and a research system that is growing in resources and capability, would be a major mistake. As knowledge becomes ever more central to our economic success, maintaining the should be a priority for Australia.
As we take our first delegation to China since the pandemic, the University of Melbourne builds on strong connections and foundations, and a tradition of engaging in our interests and on our own terms. Our community has benefited greatly from collaborations with Chinese academics, particularly around issues of shared concern for both countries. These include nurturing healthy soils for food and environmental quality, the management of scarce water resources, and technologies to help people with disabilities augment their capabilities.
The university has been fortunate to have had the opportunity to help educate thousands of Chinese students for well over a century. Parents and their children in China aspire to an Australian education because of its quality, its international-mindedness and reputation, and because of the opportunities and experiences they can access while with us.
There will be those who accuse us of being only motivated by Chinese student revenue. Nothing could be further from the truth. Our partnerships with Chinese universities and academics are central to the academic mission and excellence of the University of Melbourne.
Our partnerships are also squarely in the national interest. As the Australia-China relationship starts to stabilise, deepening these sorts of knowledge partnerships, around converging rather than competing interests, is one of the most effective ways of building a stabilising ballast into what will be a complex bilateral relationship in the future.
A China that sees Australia as a pragmatic, co-operative knowledge partner on challenges that both countries face will be more likely to deal pragmatically and collaboratively with us in other domains as well.
Australia must engage with China, our future depends on it
Cynics say universities are only interested in China for their students’ dollars. The relationship is far more important, and complex, than that.Michael Wesley
Jul 2, 2023 – 10.00am
Amid rising geopolitical tensions and a serious downturn in Australia-China
relations, there have been voices calling for our .
Advocates of this position argue that such linkages facilitate the leakage of our intellectual property, promote China’s rise as a hostile technology power, and enable the staging of influence operations on Australian university campuses.
This is a view that is both limiting and misinformed.
There is no realistic future scenario in which China will not be one of the most significant countries affecting Australia’s future. This means , not less. In engaging with China’s universities, we are tapping into the most informed, critical, internationalist and liberal institutions in Chinese society.
Two-way academic exchanges and collaborations are the best way for our society to keep abreast of a rapidly changing society and its evolving government imperatives.
Australia’s universities are not naive or unaware of the importance of protecting sensitive research or preventing on their campuses. They have been compliant with Australia’s sanctions and export controls for over a decade, and since 2019 have worked closely with the government under the University Foreign Interference Taskforce to develop an unprecedented level of awareness and risk management governing universities’ international linkages, sensitive research areas, and engagement with particular countries of concern.
And the university-government collaboration continues.
Outside these sensitive and proprietary research areas, the standard academic practice is to publish the results of university research, allowing peers, globally, to assess and draw from one’s research is fundamental to the discovery of new knowledge.
Peer review ensures the veracity of knowledge claims, while broad awareness of new discoveries stimulates further breakthroughs. Chinese researchers don’t need collaborations to “steal” our intellectual property – all they need to do to access new Australian knowledge is to read the journals in which it is published.
Academic collaboration is not built on protecting knowledge; it ispredicated on an understanding that research will be freely published.
It is also mistaken to believe that ending collaboration with Australian universities will hamper China’s rise as a technology power. . Since the mid-1990s, China’s investment in basic research grew by an average of more than 20 per cent a year, to a point where it is now many multiples of Australia’s research spending.
Its nine leading universities are much better funded than any of Australia’s, or the world’s outside the elite American universities. According to recent studies referenced in the journal Science, Chinese researchers account for the highest proportion of the most cited scientific papers of any country in the world. Other studies also show Chinese research is rising fast in innovation and quality.
To completely disengage from this already significant and still ascending knowledge power would be an act of self-harm for Australia and its universities.
Universities depend on access to the best talent and best ideas and, of course, these are not concentrated in any particular segment of the world’s population. Closing off our knowledge sector from one-fifth of humanity, and a research system that is growing in resources and capability, would be a major mistake. As knowledge becomes ever more central to our economic success, maintaining the should be a priority for Australia.
As we take our first delegation to China since the pandemic, the University of Melbourne builds on strong connections and foundations, and a tradition of engaging in our interests and on our own terms. Our community has benefited greatly from collaborations with Chinese academics, particularly around issues of shared concern for both countries. These include nurturing healthy soils for food and environmental quality, the management of scarce water resources, and technologies to help people with disabilities augment their capabilities.
The university has been fortunate to have had the opportunity to help educate thousands of Chinese students for well over a century. Parents and their children in China aspire to an Australian education because of its quality, its international-mindedness and reputation, and because of the opportunities and experiences they can access while with us.
There will be those who accuse us of being only motivated by Chinese student revenue. Nothing could be further from the truth. Our partnerships with Chinese universities and academics are central to the academic mission and excellence of the University of Melbourne.
Our partnerships are also squarely in the national interest. As the Australia-China relationship starts to stabilise, deepening these sorts of knowledge partnerships, around converging rather than competing interests, is one of the most effective ways of building a stabilising ballast into what will be a complex bilateral relationship in the future.
A China that sees Australia as a pragmatic, co-operative knowledge partner on challenges that both countries face will be more likely to deal pragmatically and collaboratively with us in other domains as well.
