MCLC: Chinese spies in leading universities

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: Chinese spies in leading universities
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Source: Sydney Morning Post (4/21/14):
http://www.smh.com.au/national/chinese-spies-keep-eye-on-leading-universiti
es-20140420-36yww.html

Chinese spies keep eye on leading universities
By John Garnaut

China is building large covert spy networks inside Australia's leading
universities, prompting Australia to strengthen its counter-intelligence
capabilities.

Chinese intelligence officials have confirmed to Fairfax Media that they
are building informant networks to monitor Australia's ethnic Chinese
community to protect Beijing's "core interests".

Much of the monitoring work takes place in higher education institutions
(including Melbourne University and Sydney University), where more than
90,000 students from mainland China are potentially exposed to ideas and
activities not readily available at home.

"I was interrogated four times in China," said a senior lecturer at a
high-ranking Australian university. He said he was questioned by China's
main spy agency over comments he made at a seminar about democracy at the
University of NSW.

"They showed me the report," he said. "I can even name the lady who sent
the report."

Such networks are driving the Australian Security Intelligence
Organisation to build significant new counter-intelligence capabilities.

"They have more resources in Sydney University than we do," an Australian
official said.

The shift under way in Australian counter-intelligence priorities
potentially heralds the end of an era that has been overwhelmingly
dominated by counter-terrorism.

It illustrates the complexities of a rising China, whose leaders have
recently recommitted to economic reforms while also inoculating their
Leninist political system against change and Western influence.

China's electronic espionage capabilities are broadly known, with Chinese
servers being used to penetrate Australia's largest companies, most senior
politicians and even ASIO's new high-tech headquarters in Canberra, which
remains unopened as a result. But China's human intelligence and
"influence" networks have proven more difficult to identify and respond to.

At the overt level, education counsellors in diplomatic missions organise
Chinese-born students into associations through which they can provide
support services.

In part, they were providing assistance and a sense of community that many
Australian universities were failing to deliver, said John Fitzgerald, of
Swinburne University.

"Australian universities don't know what it means to host international
students properly," said Professor Fitzgerald, an expert on Chinese
communities in Australia. "It means that students from China feel they are
being hosted by the Chinese government in Australia."

The Chinese government-led student associations are also used to gather
intelligence and promote core political objectives in parallel with other
informant networks handled through the political sections of diplomatic
missions, according to Chinese officials, Australian officials and members
of Australia's Chinese community. Chen Yonglin, a Chinese diplomat who
defected to Australia in 2005, said on Sunday that students were an
important part of embassy and consular work.

Mr Chen, now a businessman in Sydney, confirmed that Chinese diplomats set
up Chinese student associations at each university, appointed their
leaders, and ensured they were well funded.

"The students are useful for welcoming leaders at airports and blocking
protest groups from sight, and also collecting information."

Separately, he said, Chinese state security officials in and outside
diplomatic missions ran student agents "to infiltrate dissident groups
especially [relating to] Tibet and Falun Gong".

Jocelyn Chey, a former senior diplomat in Beijing and Hong Kong who is a
fellow at the Institute of International Affairs and visiting professor at
the University of Sydney, said: "It's quite clear that a large part of the
business of Chinese diplomatic missions here is just keeping tabs on their
citizens."

Dr Chey said she had watched the networks become "increasingly complex"
since the Chinese embassy opened its doors in Canberra in 1973.

The on-campus informant networks are constraining the conversations and
actions of Chinese-born students, who constitute the largest international
market for Australian universities.

In one case, security officials told parents in China to constrain the
activities of their son, after informants reported he had seen the Dalai
Lama in Australia.