The China Defence Universities Tracker Exploring the Military and Security Links of China’S Universities

The China Defence Universities Tracker Exploring the military and security links of China’s universities Alex Joske Policy brief Report No. 23/2019 About the author Alex Joske is an Analyst working with the International Cyber Policy Centre. Acknowledgements The author would like to thank Charlie Lyons Jones for his contributions. He would like to thank Fergus Hanson, Michael Shoebridge, Danielle Cave, Audrey Fritz, John Garnaut, Luca Biason and Jichang Lulu for their insights. He would also like to thank the analysts who helped build the China Defence Universities Tracker: Elsa Kania, Audrey Fritz, Charlie Lyons Jones, Samantha Hoffman and others. What is ASPI? The Australian Strategic Policy Institute was formed in 2001 as an independent, non‑partisan think tank. Its core aim is to provide the Australian Government with fresh ideas on Australia’s defence, security and strategic policy choices. ASPI is responsible for informing the public on a range of strategic issues, generating new thinking for government and harnessing strategic thinking internationally. ASPI International Cyber Policy Centre ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre (ICPC) is a leading voice in global debates on cyber and emerging technologies and their impact on broader strategic policy. The ICPC informs public debate and supports sound public policy by producing original empirical research, bringing together researchers with diverse expertise, often working together in teams. To develop capability in Australia and our region, the ICPC has a capacity building team that conducts workshops, training programs and large‑scale exercises both in Australia and overseas for both the public and private sectors. The ICPC enriches the national debate on cyber and strategic policy by running an international visits program that brings leading experts to Australia. 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ISSN 2209‑9689 (online), ISSN 2209‑9670 (print) Cover image: Illustration by Badiucao/https://www.badiucao.com The China Defence Universities Tracker Exploring the military and security links of China’s universities Alex Joske Policy brief Report No. 23/2019 Contents What’s the problem? 03 What’s the solution? 03 Introduction 04 China’s civilian defence universities 06 The Seven Sons of National Defence 06 Universities with national defence characteristics 08 Defence laboratories 09 Designated defence research areas 10 Security credentials 10 Case study: The University of Electronic Science and Technology of China 11 Espionage 12 Public and state security links 14 The overseas expansion of China’s nuclear weapons program and defence industry 15 Defence industry 16 Missile technology 17 Aviation technology 18 Military electronics 19 Nuclear weapons program 19 Areas for further research 21 Engaging with research partners in China 21 Recommendations for universities 22 Recommendations for the Australian Government 23 Appendix: Universities supervised by SASTIND 25 Notes 27 Acronyms and abbreviations 32 02 The China Defence Universities Tracker: exploring the military and security links of China’s universities This report accompanies the ASPI International Cyber Policy Centre’s China Defence Universities Tracker website. What’s the problem? The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is building links between China’s civilian universities, military and security agencies. Those efforts, carried out under a policy of leveraging the civilian sector to maximise military power (known as ‘military–civil fusion’), have accelerated in the past decade. Research for the China Defence Universities Tracker has determined that greater numbers of Chinese universities are engaged in defence research, training defence scientists, collaborating with the military and cooperating with defence industry conglomerates and are involved in classified research.1 At least 15 civilian universities have been implicated in cyberattacks, illegal exports or espionage. China’s defence industry conglomerates are supervising agencies of nine universities and have sent thousands of their employees to train abroad. This raises questions for governments, universities and companies that collaborate with partners in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). There’s a growing risk that collaboration with PRC universities can be leveraged by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) or security agencies for surveillance, human rights abuses or military purposes. Universities and governments remain unable to effectively manage risks that come with growing collaboration with PRC entities. There’s little accessible information on the military and security links of PRC universities. This knowledge gap limits the effectiveness of risk‑management efforts. What’s the solution? Efforts to manage the risks of engaging with PRC universities should involve close collaboration between governments and universities. Both share a concern for protecting national interests, ensuring the integrity of research, preventing engagement from being exploited by rival militaries or for human rights abuses, and increasing the transparency of research collaboration. The Australian Government should establish a national research integrity office and refine and enforce foreign interference and export controls legislation. It should use the China Defence Universities Tracker to improve the screening of visa applicants and inform decisions to award research funding. Universities should be proactive in their efforts to concretely improve how research collaboration is managed. The China Defence Universities Tracker is a tool to help universities and researchers understand institutions in China and avoid harmful collaborations. Universities can use the recently published Guidelines to counter foreign interference in the Australian university sector to help review their management of collaboration.2 They should introduce clauses into agreements with PRC entities to terminate those agreements in the case of specific ethical concerns or indications of research going towards a military end use. Universities could demonstrate their commitment to these initiatives by establishing independent research integrity offices that promote transparency and evaluate compliance with ethics, values and security interests, serving as administratively distinct bodies that avoid influence from internal university politics. 03 Introduction Military–civil fusion is the CCP’s policy of maximising linkages between the military and the civilian sector to build China’s economic and military strength.3 The policy was promoted by President Hu Jintao in 2007 but has been elevated to a national strategy by President Xi Jinping, who personally oversees the Central Commission for the Development of Military–Civil Fusion (中央军民融合发展委员会).4 It has its roots in efforts dating back to the PRC’s founding, including policies such as military– civil integration and ‘nestling the military in the civil’.5 Many countries seek to leverage private industry and universities to advance their militaries. However, as scholar Lorand Laskai writes, ‘civil–military fusion is more far‑reaching and ambitious in scale than the US equivalent, reflecting a large push to fuse the defense and commercial economies.’6 Military–civil fusion in China’s university sector has spurred efforts to increase academe’s integration with defence and security. In 2017, the Party Secretary of Beijing Institute of Technology, a leading university for defence research, wrote that universities should ‘stand at the front line of military– civil fusion’.7 ‘National defence technology research requires the participation of universities’, according to the Chinese government agency overseeing efforts to safeguard classified information at universities. The agency describes universities as one of three parts of the national defence science and technology innovation system. Alongside defence conglomerates, which are responsible for large‑scale projects and the commercialisation of defence equipment, and defence research organisations, which are institutes run by defence conglomerates or the military that are responsible for breaking

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