China calls for ‘new paradigm’ in educational ties Down Under

China’s ambassador to Australia has chastised Canberra for impeding the “free flow” of scholars between the two countries, saying visa uncertainty is hampering a “promising” educational relationship.

Ambassador Xiao Qian said his country wanted to “open a new chapter” in people-to-people exchanges and “cultivate an even more flourishing tree of friendship”.

“We should facilitate the mobility of young academics and researchers…to enhance mutual understanding,” Xiao told the Universities Australia conference on 25 February. “Our two countries should jointly support programmes for youth exchange to allow more young Australians to see and experience the real China.

“To this end, I hope that the Australian federal government will consider providing more visa facilitation for Chinese students and scholars on short-term exchange programmes to Australia, and offer policy support for the free flow of people [between] our two countries.”

Xiao’s comments come amid signs of softening demand for Australian education in the world’s second most populous country. Chinese applications for visas to undertake higher education in Australia are at their lowest level since the coronavirus pandemic.

Meanwhile, Australia has increased China’s immigration risk rating. Chinese applicants have roughly a one-in-three chance of securing visas for vocational training and one-in-four for standalone English language study, although grant rates for higher education visas remain at well over 90 per cent.

Xiao said educational ties were also being held back by Australia’s “continued restrictions on research cooperation in certain advanced technology fields”. But the conference heard that restrictions were warranted. Mike Pezzullo, a former secretary of the Department of Home Affairs, said China’s appetite for foreign research intelligence was “voracious”.

“We just have to face the fact that any relationship with Chinese scholars and Chinese institutions is going to have…the Chinese state sitting behind it,” Pezzullo said, in a panel discussion about national security. “If we don’t accept that, we’re flying in the face of what we know from the open record about the very tight controls that the Chinese state exerts over all facets of their society.”

Rachel Noble, a former director-general of the Australian Signals Directorate, said the People’s Liberation Army and Chinese Ministry of State Security had last year used state-owned enterprises and private companies “as a front” to infiltrate Australia’s telecommunications network. This had given them the ability to access people’s communications and potentially track their movements, “right through to being able to control the routers within those networks.

“That means that they could move the traffic wherever they wanted to, but also potentially turn those routers off. This is real. This happened recently.”

Educational relations between the two countries have improved since the end of last decade, when China warned its citizens of safety risks in studying Down Under, and the two countries took tit-for-tat actions to ban each other’s scholars.

Xiao said the warming educational scene reflected a “full turnaround” in bilateral governmental relations. He said China was now Australia’s second biggest research partner, accounting for 25 per cent of the island nation’s total international research collaboration and contributing to 80 per cent of its high impact journal articles in mathematics.

“In general terms, China-Australia educational engagement is in a good shape. The momentum is…good and the future prospects are promising.”

He said the two countries should “engage in pragmatic cooperation” to “forge a new paradigm for educational cooperation”. Joint institutes and programmes, where foreign and local institutions form partnerships to deliver courses on Chinese soil, should become a “key institutional pillar” of this cooperation.

Xiao said there were now 118 joint institutes and programmes at undergraduate level and above, including 11 approved last year. China’s expansion of joint ventures has raised concerns over potential impacts on the foreign partners’ institutional autonomy and academic standards.

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com