�����Ա��’s Macquarie University has rejected a newspaper’s claims that its joint institute with a “military-linked” Chinese institution will train “cyber warriors” for Beijing and could spawn “malicious insider risks” in Western security agencies.

The Daily Telegraph that Macquarie’s 13-year partnership with Nanjing Normal University (NNU) had raised “alarm bells” among security experts and prompted foreign affairs minister Penny Wong to order an “urgent” review.

The newspaper reported that the partner faculty, NNU’s computer, electronic information and artificial intelligence school, trained Chinese Communist Party officials and hosted “talent recruitment” sessions for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). It supplied “recruits” for Chinese defence companies that had been blacklisted by the US, and its deputy dean had won one of the PLA’s top scientific awards.

The joint institute’s curriculum, partly supplied by Macquarie, would “cultivate high-quality talents with devotion to the [Chinese] nation”. Graduates would be required to pass an “ideological and political character” test.

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Macquarie said the joint institute offered bachelor’s degrees in environmental science, data science and information technology, with no research involved. It had consulted the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency and the Australian embassy in Beijing, as well as internally, in undertaking “comprehensive” due diligence of governance, academic, legal, financial and national security considerations.

“These are foundational academic degrees focused on analytical, scientific and problem-solving skills,” the university said in a statement. “Any cybersecurity content is elementary, not of concern, does not include research activities, and does not contravene regulatory or national security obligations.”

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It said Canberra had explicitly encouraged university involvement in transnational education, including joint offerings.

Macquarie is one of eight Australian universities that have agreements with NNU registered on the Foreign Arrangement Scheme’s . Although the joint institute is yet to be registered, two other deals – a 2023 collaboration agreement on articulation and credit recognition, and a 2019 “letter of cooperation on academic and research collaboration” – involve the Nanjing institution.

NNU hosts a facility called the “Ministry of Public Security Key Laboratory for Police Geospatial Information Technology”, and a similar laboratory funded by Nanjing’s municipal government, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

“That key laboratory does research into tracking and identifying ethnic minorities in China using things like mobile phones, facial recognition cameras and big data repositories,” said Southern Cross University research security expert Brendan Walker-Munro. “The ministry has been involved in the harassment, detention and unlawful treatment of the Uyghurs and Kazakhs.

“If this was cooperation on courses in Chinese history, that would probably be less of an issue. But it’s a computer science interaction with an institution that has advanced capability in using information technology to suppress ethnic minorities. At some point China is going to take this information and use it for its military and surveillance purposes. To what level are we comfortable with that?”

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Walker-Munro said the arrangement could undermine Macquarie’s prospects of obtaining research grants from overseas. “There’s a reasonable suggestion that both the US and Canadian funding agencies will now look at Macquarie and say, ‘you’re collaborating with a known PLA-linked university so we are going to restrict your access to funding’.”

A Macquarie spokesman said the joint institute would have no involvement with the laboratories, and that its information technology curriculum had been vetted to ensure compliance with Australian standards. It “was reviewed and approved through all relevant Australian regulatory and national security processes”, he said.

James Laurenceson, director of the Australia-China Relations Institute at the University of Technology Sydney, said joint venture arrangements in China raised legitimate risks for Western institutions’ reputations, their relationships with other international partners and their ability to maintain “core values” such as academic freedom.

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But Laurenceson said it was natural for some Chinese graduates to move into jobs with the Chinese military, just as some Australian graduates worked for the Australian military. And it was “farcical” to suggest that a Chinese graduate could “just walk into a Western national security position without extensive screening”.

Laurenceson said university managements needed to weigh up the risks of Chinese collaborations. “Consulting with the Australian government should absolutely be part of that. But let’s not let that serious business development and due diligence get sidetracked by scaremongering.”

Wong’s office said the minister had requested an “expedited review” of the joint institute and “sought an explanation from Macquarie University”. A spokeswoman said the government was “taking action to strengthen, clarify and streamline the Foreign Arrangements Scheme.

“This includes sharpening the scheme’s focus on arrangements that pose higher foreign policy or national security risks. The minister…can terminate an agreement if it is inconsistent with Australia’s foreign policy.”

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john.ross@timeshighereducation.com