Australia’s scrapping of university deals with China prompts security debate

SYDNEY – Australia has forced two universities to end their collaborations with institutions in China due to potential security risks, sparking debate over how to handle sensitive research and educational projects involving Beijing.

The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Penny Wong, terminated on Aug 10 a nine-year-old agreement between the Australian National University (ANU) and Shandong University (SDU) that allowed undergraduate science students to study at both universities.

Wong also ordered the University of Queensland (UQ) to end its research collaboration with the Chinese Academy of Sciences on a project studying the use of proteins from the native Australian stinging tree for pain relief.

Wong did not give the reasons for the decisions, saying only that she had acted to “protect sensitive research, sovereign capability and national security”. The Straits Times understands that they were made for security reasons and were based on advice from intelligence agencies.

But the move – believed to be the first termination by the federal government of university arrangements with China – has prompted debate about Australia’s oversight of links with Chinese education institutions.

China is Australia’s largest trading partner and a major source of international students, but intelligence and security agencies have reportedly warned that Beijing has engaged in extensive espionage, foreign interference and cyberattacks targeting Australia.

An expert on research security, Brendan Walker-Munro from Southern Cross University, told ST the reasons for ending the ANU and UQ arrangements were unclear, but he backed moves to ensure research collaborations do not threaten Australia’s security.

He said the cancelled programme with SDU appeared to have been prompted by a decision in late July by the US to add the university to a list of “foreign institutions engaging in problematic activities”, which bars the US Department of War from funding collaborations with the institutions.

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute, a think-tank, has also reportedly warned that SDU has links to the Chinese Academy of Engineering Physics, which is responsible for Chinese nuclear weapons research, development and testing.

But he said the UQ decision was “a bit trickier” to understand and may have been prompted by concerns that the proteins being researched “could potentially be weaponised for crowd control or as a chemical warfare agent”.

‘Clear signal’

“They (the cancellations) signal that the government is starting to take research security much more seriously,” he said. “Our universities also need to start taking it more seriously. They need to start making these calls before the government does.”

Walker-Munro said the government and universities need to prevent taxpayer-funded research on projects that are military-focused or that involve sanctioned institutions and individuals in countries such as Iran, Russia or China.

But some analysts said targeting institutions in China – including institutions at the forefront of global scientific and technological research – risks damaging Australia’s research capability.

James Laurenceson, director of the Australia-China Relations Institute at the University of Technology Sydney, said the ANU and UQ deals were the first arrangements with Chinese institutions to be cancelled, though some research grants involving Chinese institutions are believed to have been previously vetoed.

“The government has been sending messages to universities to exercise more caution and due diligence around collaborations with China over the past three or four years, but we have never got this far where a collaboration agreement has been torn up,” he said.

“It is notable that the government is not at the same time plainly saying it still supports STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) research with China more broadly. The message being sent to universities is that research collaboration with China is problematic.”

ANU said in a statement that the cancellation would not affect any students currently enrolled.

The university, which was given until January 2027 to end the partnership, said it takes the risk of foreign interference and security seriously.

“As a global university operating in a complex geopolitical environment, ANU continually reviews its international relationships and activities to ensure they remain consistent with Australian law, government policy and the university’s responsibilities to its community,” it said.

UQ said in a statement that it was complying with the government’s decision and that it had notified the government about the project as required under law.

Both universities declined to comment beyond these statements.

Laurenceson said cracking down on Chinese collaborations could affect the quality of Australian research and would particularly affect academics and PhD researchers who collaborate with Chinese counterparts, rather than regular students.

Analysis by Laurenceson of the InCites database, a citation-based research tool, has found that 52 per cent of Australian publications that have appeared in the 10 per cent most-cited STEM papers since 2020 involved collaboration with researchers in China – three times more than collaborations with US researchers.

Government data released in February 2025 showed Australian universities and other institutions had more than 4,500 arrangements involving Chinese universities.

Analysis of InCites data from 2021 to 2025 found 96,215 research publications involved at least one author affiliated with an Australian and a Chinese institution.

‘A big grey area’

“Australia is a relatively small economy and the only way it can be connected with the global scientific frontier is through collaborations,” he said. “In 2026, more and more of the best science is being done in China. If we are steered away from those collaborations, the risk is that Australia loses connection to the global scientific frontier.”

Vicki Thomson, chief executive of the Group of Eight universities – a group of leading Australian universities – told the Australian Financial Review Higher Education Summit in August that Australia must not cut itself off from international research partners. She said identifying whether research projects posed a security risk was a “big grey area”.

“Anything can be a research security risk and have a dual use,” she said.

Brian Schmidt, a Nobel Prize winner for physics who was ANU’s vice-chancellor when the SDU deal was set up, told The Australian newspaper he had viewed the arrangement with SDU as low-risk but “obviously I’m wrong”. At the time, he said, he did not know SDU had any links to researchers working on nuclear weapons.

“I don’t think that would have been widely known, but I knew they would be connected to the Chinese military because every university is,” he said.

The government’s move to end the agreements came about two weeks before the passage of changes to Australia’s foreign interference legislation on Aug 20, which requires universities to assess whether research projects adversely affect the national interest or are inconsistent with Australia’s foreign policy.

That legislation followed growing concerns about Australian universities conducting research on sensitive technologies such as drones and cybersecurity with countries such as China, Iran, Russia and North Korea.

Wong, Australia’s Foreign Minister, said in a statement that the government supported international research collaboration, but universities needed to “play their role in managing risks”.

“These reforms will help keep Australia open to the world while appropriately managing risk and protecting our national interest,” she said.