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Government boosts scrutiny over Chinese targeting of university sector

Source: theconversation.com - Tuesday, August 27, 2019
The Morrison government is setting up a University Foreign Interference Taskforce, as it grapples with encroachments by China into Australia’s higher education sector. The taskforce, to be announced in a Wednesday National Press Club address by Education Minister Dan Tehan, will have members from universities, national security agencies and the federal education department. Representation will be on a fifty fifty basis between the university sector and the government. Tehan says in his speech, extracts of which were released ahead of delivery, that this will provide “a perspective of the sector’s unique position partnered with frank advice from our government”. There has been mounting concern over a range of foreign interference issues affecting the sector. These include China targeting sensitive research for non-transparent transfer of technology; the apparent inability of some universities to be fully aware of the nature of the Chinese institutions they are dealing with; the Chinese government’s grooming of some Australian student organisations; the use of Chinese money for soft propaganda; and the cyber penetration of university systems to obtain research intellectual property and as well as personal details. Read more: University China centres are vulnerable to vested interests because of a lack of funding The taskforce will have a wide remit, with Tehan outlining its work in four key areas. A cyber security working group “w
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