Foreign interference: a case study from Australia
2019.12.31
Views
137
By Natasha Kassam
"Terrorism has never been an existential threat to established states," said Duncan Lewis, the head of Australian Security Intelligence Organisation at the Lowy Institute on 5 September in a rare public address for Australia’s spymaster.
"The counter-espionage and foreign interference issue, however, is something which is ultimately an existential threat to the state, or it can be an existential threat to the state. It has the capacity to do that."[1]
This unprecedented statement from one of Australia’s leading public servants marks the elevation of foreign interference to new levels of public discourse. The debate has been murky: although Australian legislation has been careful to not point fingers at one country in particular, the majority of interference concerns, and statements by Australian political leaders, have been connected to Beijing. The heightened tensions around the China debate in Australia has also led to, unintentional or otherwise, blurring between legitimate means of influence and foreign interference. Finally, the language used by commentators around Chinese Communist Party interference has risked unfairly tarnishing the 1.2 million Australians that boast Chinese heritage.
This paper seeks to outline the shift in discussion around foreign interference and sharp power in Australia, discuss Australia’s response to increasing concern about foreign interference in the context of Confucius Institutes in Australia, and finally, analyse the operation of Australia’s Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme in the year since it was introduced.
Influence versus interference
The expression ‘sharp power’ has only been used since 2017, but reflects a longstanding practice. Sharp power refers to authoritarian regimes, for example China and Russia, investing in significant resources in media, academic, cultural, and think tank initiatives designed to shape public opinion and perceptions around the world.[2]
Liberal democracies have of course invested resources in the same way: these efforts have been traditionally thought of through the lens of ‘soft power’. Previously, soft power referred to all forms of influence that were not ‘hard’, i.e. military force or economic might[3]. But these forms of authoritarian influence could no longer be considered as ‘soft’, particularly in the context of younger democracies. The term ‘sharp power’ has tended to refer to these efforts to pierce or infiltrate the information and political environments in the targeted countries. Whereas soft power tends to be focused on winning ‘hearts and minds’, sharp power seeks to influence democracies by ‘manipulating or distorting the information that reaches target audiences’.[4]
But this distinction can be problematic when seeking to distinguish between legitimate expressions of public diplomacy and soft power, as opposed to illegitimate efforts to interfere or infiltrate. The 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper from the Australian government noted its concern about “growing attempts by foreign governments or their proxies to exert inappropriate influence on and to undermine Australia’s sovereign institutions and decision-making. Such attempts at foreign interference are part of a wider global trend that has affected other democracies. Foreign interference aims to shape the actions of decision-makers and public opinion to achieve an outcome favourable to foreign interests.[5]
What is particularly important in the definition offered by the Foreign Policy White paper is that the authors note all states seek to advance their interests through persuasion, as a central and legitimate task of diplomacy. But foreign interference is problematic because of the clandestine or deceptive nature of the influence, which affects political, governmental or even commercial processes to cause harm to Australian interests. This definition provides a guiding framework to ensure that we do not unnecessarily demonise or damage legitimate attempts to influence or shape Australian government policy.
The Australian case study
The last two years have seen Australia’s relationship with China shaken by allegations that the Chinese party-state is working to covertly manipulate the Australian political system. The claims started with the idea that political donors linked to Beijing were buying access and influence, and escalated to universities being considered as propaganda vehicles for the Communist Party. There have been revelations that Australian funded scientific research has directly supported the capabilities of to the People’s Liberation Army.
The story started with Sam Dastyari, a Labor Party senator who was found to have received a small amount of money from a Chinese businessman. He later repeated the Chinese Communist Party position on the South China Sea, contrary to his own party’s policy platform, and allegedly warned the same businessman that his calls may have been monitored by security services. This story ended with the Senator’s resignation.[6]
More recently, in late November 2019, news reports suggested that Chinese intelligence operatives offered $1 million to a Chinese Australian car dealer in Melbourne to run for federal parliament as the Liberal candidate for Chisholm. While there are serious questions of plausibility in this case, particularly as the practice of pre-selecting candidates in Australia makes directly placing somebody in the parliament nearly impossible.
The last two years have seen many other allegations of this nature. This paper will not consider the many cyberattacks that Australia has experienced during this period, many of which have been attributed in the media to China. This is because cyberattacks between countries could potentially be considered to be a traditional form of espionage, whereas this paper is considering new and revised forms of foreign interference.
Australia has taken a range of measures in response to this perceived threat, some of which were long overdue, such as banning political donations from foreign citizens. The Australian government has committed $38.8 million since 2018‑19 to counter foreign interference, including to establish a Foreign Interference Threat Assessment Centre in the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation and extra funding to support criminal prosecutions under new foreign interference offences.[7]
The most notable is the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme (FITS), which commenced on 10 December 2018. According to Australia’s Attorney General’s Department, the FITS is to provide the public and government decision-makers with visibility of the nature, level and extent of foreign influence on Australia’s government and political process.[8]
The scheme introduces registration obligations for persons and entities who have arrangements with, and undertake certain activities on behalf of, foreign principals. Whether a person or entity is required to register will depend on who the foreign principal is, the nature of the activities undertaken, the purpose for which the activities are undertaken, and in some cases, whether the person has held a senior public position in Australia. The scheme exempts parliamentarians from registration obligations, which has been controversial.
It is early to assess the effectiveness of the scheme, as it has only been in place for one year. There have been approximately 200 entities that have registered, including individuals that sit on foreign boards, thinktanks and research institutions that receive foreign funding and companies or organisations that have joint ventures with foreign entities[9].
The scheme has not captured many of the original examples that were touted as egregious levels of influence. The original donations from Huang Xiangmo to Sam Dastyari would now be prohibited as foreign donations are banned, but his conduct as a Senator would not be registrable under the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme – members of parliament are exempt. The Australia-China Relations Institute at the University of Technology Sydney, which was also founded by a donation from Huang Xiangmo, is also not registered on the scheme.
Where the scheme has worked, however, is to provide a deterrent effect on public institutions that have previously accepted funding from foreign sources. Public institutions that rely on donations can be seen to be interrogating funding sources in a previously unprecedented manner, with particular organisations taking decisions to not accept any funding from foreign governments. This is in part a useful consideration as to whether donations come with political strings attached, and in part adding to bureaucratic complications. In some cases, this level of scrutiny can be overdone: some research organisations have been careful about accepting offers of travel and accommodation costs to attend international conferences, which are part and parcel of being engaged in international relations or economic work.
Confucius Institutes
Confucius Institutes are another key example as to where there have been questions as to whether the scheme is working. Confucius Institutes are affiliated with China’s Ministry of Education, but are thought to have deep ties to the United Front Work Department of the Chinese Communist Party.[10] Confucius Institutes have two types of programs: embedded in universities and in primary schools.
The Australian state of New South Wales recently decided to terminate its arrangement with the Confucius Institutes from the end of the 2019.[11] This decision was based on the potential for the perception that the Confucius Institute is or could be facilitating inappropriate foreign influence in the department. The NSW Department of Education review found that this department was the only government department in the world that hosts a Confucius Institute, and that this arrangement placed Chinese government appointees inside a NSW government department.[12]
The Chinese Consulate-General in Sydney released a statement seeking clarification for the decision, noting that the NSW Department of Education found no evidence of actual political influence through its Confucius Institute program.[13]
The Institutes are empowered to teach Chinese language and culture, but there are allegations that they are ‘spreading China’s political agenda, suppressing academic debate and stealing vital academic research’.[14]
A key example of where public concerns have surfaced about a Confucius Institute is in relation to the University of Queensland, where the Vice-Chancellor Peter Hoj was also a consultant to Hanban, the organisation that administers the Confucius Institute.[15] The Confucius Institute, in addition to teaching Chinese language course, funds and designs a number of courses at the University of Queensland,. One such course was an Understanding China economics course that included a week on ‘China’s Legal Response to Terrorism’[16], which has referred in official Chinese statements to the detention of over one million Uighurs in Xinjiang. Australian universities hosting Confucius Institutes have signed agreements explicitly stating they must comply with Beijing’s decision-making authority over teaching at the facilities.[17]
The University of Queensland was also the site of a Hong Kong protest on 24 July which turned violent, with clashes between pro- and anti-Beijing students. The organisers were subsequently accused by China’s consul-general in Brisbane, Xu Jie, of being “separatists” and “anti-China activists”.[18] The public statement by the Chinese consul-general, which also praised the ‘spontaneous patriotism’ of the pro-Beijing students, generated significant criticism in Australia.
This is by no means a new issue. In 2013, the University of Sydney attempted to relocate an address by the Dalai Lama off-campus, but eventually backed down after critics claimed the university was seeking to appease the Chinese government.[19] The previous year, the Confucius Institute at Sydney University had hosted a public lecture by Zhang Yun, a staunch critic of the Dalai Lama.[20]
International students
The issue of Confucius Institutes is often conflated with that of international students in commentary about foreign interference. The concern about Confucius Institutes is based upon the suggestion that the Chinese government has the ability, in some courses, to shape educational standards and spread political propaganda to all students, international or otherwise. But international students have raised separate concerns: there are allegations that Beijing is monitoring its own citizens on overseas campuses and directing some of them to develop research in areas such as artificial intelligence and cyber security, for the benefit of the Chinese party-state on return.[21] Students and professors from Australian universities have developed and researched artificial intelligence, through the Australian taxpayer-funded Australian Research Council, which has then been used in for surveillance in China’s Xinjiang region.[22]
There are approximately 140,000 Chinese university students in Australia. Chinese university students make up approximately 23% of the total revenue at the University of Sydney, as an example. Australian universities have been described as overly reliant on international students. A study by the Centre for Independent Studies showed that the most successful American public universities would generally aim for approximately 10% of its student body to be international, to add diversity and expose students to their peers from around the world. The same study shows 15% is the maximum reasonable level, and 20% represents “internationalisation gone wild”. The average level of international students across the entire university system in Australia is 26.7%, far higher.[23]
The issue of international students and potential foreign interference in Australia is therefore also tied up in Australia’s economic interdependence with China. Foreign students contributed A$32bn to Australia’s economy in the year to the end of June 2018.[24] China is Australia’s largest trading partner.
Canberra’s focus on rooting out foreign interference, first in politics and now universities, has alarmed some elements of the Australian community, who warn it risks labelling all Chinese students as spies, promoting xenophobia and causing irreparable damage to bilateral relations with China, with two-way trade worth A$213bn last year. But critics counter that universities are turning a blind eye to Beijing’s alleged interference on campus because the sector has become dependent on Chinese money.
The Australian government has started to take steps in this arena. On 28 August 2019, the Minister for Education Dan Tehan announced the establishment of a University Foreign Interference Taskforce[25]. He also released a guiding framework for the development of best practice guidelines to counter foreign interference in the Australian university sector.[26] The guidelines were developed in partnership between the government and the university sector.
Enforcement
Governments around the world have looked to the Australian experience as an example of how to counter foreign interference. Some Chinese academics have commented that ‘Australia is the pioneer of a global anti-China campaign’[27].
But enforcement of Australia’s new scheme to manage foreign interference has been almost non-existent to date. The foreign influence transparency scheme allows for the Attorney General’s department to issue a transparency notice confirming that a person is a foreign government-related entity or foreign government-related individual, which then requires the persons undertaking registrable activities on behalf of the foreign principal to register.
According to public records, only one such transparency notice has been issued to date: to former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, prior to addressing a Conservative Political Action Conference. Mr Abbott declined to register, and there have been no known consequences of his failure to comply with the notice.[28]
The Attorney General’s Department has also been in discussions or correspondence with several other Australian organisations to determine whether they are required to register under the scheme. Education Minister Dan Tehan has said that “The attorney-general has asked his department to specifically examine the arrangements between Confucius Institutes and universities n order to ensure compliance with the [scheme]. The Australian government expects our universities to have robust mechanisms in place to ensure international education partnerships comply with Australian laws, education quality standards and academic freedoms.”[29]
It is an offence under the legislation to undertake registrable activities while not being registered, failure to fulfil responsibilities, providing false or misleading information or destroying records in connection with the scheme. The penalties can be as serious as five years imprisonment.[30]
Although the existing measures are yet to be enforced in a meaningful way, the government appears to be energised in its efforts to deter and detect instances of foreign interference. The Prime Minister announced on 2 December a new Counter Foreign Interference Taskforce, which will work with ASIO, Australian Federal Police, Australian Signals Directorate and AUSTRAC[31]. It is too early to understand how this body will operate, but the ongoing announcements and commitment of funding highlights the importance with which foreign interference is being treated by the highest levels of the Australian government.
Democracies likely cannot be entirely inoculated against actors that wish to interfere. But people can be educated, people can be made aware of the risks, and most importantly, people can question propaganda and distinguish between what is real and what is fake. Resilience and bolstering of our democratic values in open societies will be as important as the passage of legislation in countering foreign interference.
Natasha Kassam is a Research Fellow at the Lowy Institute in the Diplomacy and Public Opinion Program, directing the annual Lowy Institute Poll and researching China’s domestic politics, Taiwan, and Australia-China relations. Prior to this appointment, she was a diplomat in the Australian Embassy in Beijing, reporting on human rights, law reform, Xinjiang, and Tibet, and she was a law and justice advisor to the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI). During her time at Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, she was a member of the drafting team for the 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper.
[1]Duncan Lewis, ‘An Address by ASIO Director-General Duncan Lewis’, 5 September, Lowy Institute, https://soundcloud.com/lowyinstitute/an-address-by-asio-director-general-duncan-lewis
[2]National Endowment for Democracy, ‘Sharp power: rising authoritarian influence’, 5 December 2017, https://www.ned.org/sharp-power-rising-authoritarian-influence-forum-report/.
[3]Hideshi Tokuchi, ‘Countering Foreign Influence and Interference in Open Societies – A Japanese Perspective on Authoritarian Infiltration’, Japan Institute of International Affairs, 25 February 2019.
[4]National Endowment for Democracy, ibid.
[5]Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper, 27 November 2017, https://www.fpwhitepaper.gov.au/.
[6]Katharine Murphy, ‘Sam Dastyari: senator recorded contradicting Labor on South China Sea’, Guardian, 29 November 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/nov/29/sam-dastyari-senator-recorded-contradicting-labor-on-south-china-sea.
[7]Prime Minister, Minister for Home Affairs, Minister for Defence, ‘Stepping up Australia’s response against foreign interference’ 2 December 2019, https://www.pm.gov.au/media/stepping-australias-response-against-foreign-interference.
[8]Attorney General’s Department, Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme, https://www.ag.gov.au/Integrity/foreign-influence-transparency-scheme/Pages/default.aspx
[9]Ibid.
[10]Amy Searight, ‘Chinese Influence Activities with US allies and partners in Southeast Asia’, Testimony before the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, 5 April 2018, https://csis-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/publication/180406_Hearing_Amy%20Searight_Written_Statement_April%205%202018.pdf?u6.PMk9Xjxi7ojAhLXImnv_OciYnjHE3y.
[11]NSW Department of Education, https://education.nsw.gov.au/about-us/strategies-and-reports/our-reports-and-reviews/review-of-foreign-government-organisation-support-for-language-education/our-response-to-the-review-report
[12]NSW Department of Education, Review into foreign government / organisation support for language education in NSW government schools, https://education.nsw.gov.au/about-us/strategies-and-reports/media/documents/Report-with-attachments.pdf
[13]‘Remarks by the Spokesperson of the Chinese Consulate General in Sydney’, 23 August 2019, http://sydney.chineseconsulate.org/eng/xwdt/t1691262.htm.
[14]Searight, ‘Chinese influence activities’.
[15]Ben Packham, ‘University of Qld agreed to promote Chian Institute, didn’t disclose’, The Australian, 26 July 2019, https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/university-of-qld-agreed-to-promote-china-institute-didnt-disclose/news-story/7e21ed98ec95530842500370c4c44c25
[16]Drew Pavlou, 14 October 2019, https://twitter.com/DrewPavlou/status/1183498851010793475?s=20
[17]Fergus Hunter, ‘Universities must accept China's directives on Confucius Institutes, contracts reveal’, 25 July 2019, Sydney Morning Herald, https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/universities-must-accept-china-s-directives-on-confucius-institutes-contracts-reveal-20190724-p52ab9.html
[18]Jamie Smyth, ‘Australia: the campus fight over Beijing’s influence’, Financial Times, 12 November 2019, https://www.ft.com/content/f56fce50-ff13-11e9-b7bc-f3fa4e77dd47
[19]ABC News, University has change of heart on Dalai Lama visit, 23 April 2013, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-04-23/university-of-sydney-to-host-dalai-lama/4647110
[20]Jackson Kwok, Is there a problem with Confucius Institutes in Australia, China Matters, http://chinamatters.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/China-Matters-Explores-07-May-2018-Confucius-Institutes-with-Feedback.pdf
[21]Phillip Coorey, ASIO warns vice chancellors over Chinese spies on campus, Australian Financial Review, 18 October 2017, https://www.afr.com/politics/asio-warns-vice-chancellors-over-chinese-spies-on-campus-20171018-gz32ax
[22]Alex Joske, ‘The company with Aussie roots that’s helping build China’s surveillance state’, 26 Aug 2019 https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/the-company-with-aussie-roots-thats-helping-build-chinas-surveillance-state/
[23]Salvatore Babones, How many international students are too many, https://www.cis.org.au/commentary/articles/how-many-international-students-are-too-many/
[24]Smythe, ibid.
[25]Department of Education, ‘Establishment of a University Foreign Interference Taskforce’, https://www.education.gov.au/news/establishment-university-foreign-interference-taskforce
[26]Department of Education, ‘Development of University Foreign Interference Taskforce - guiding framework’ https://docs.education.gov.au/node/53040
[27]Eryk Bagshaw and Rob Harris, ‘China claims Australia the ‘pioneer’ of a global anti-China campaign’, Sydney Morning Herald, 24 September 2019, https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/china-claims-australia-the-pioneer-of-a-global-anti-china-campaign-20190924-p52ufk.html.
[28]AAP, ‘Tony Abbott says he was asked to register as a foreign influencer’, The Guardian, 2 November 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/nov/02/tony-abbott-says-he-was-asked-to-register-as-a-foreign-influencer-before-cpac.
[29]Paul Karp, ‘Government to assess regulation of Chinese influence at universities’, The Guardian, 25 July 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jul/25/government-to-assess-regulation-of-chinese-influence-at-universities.
[30]Attorney General’s Department, ‘Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme – Factsheet 17’, February 2019, https://www.ag.gov.au/Integrity/foreign-influence-transparency-scheme/Documents/fact-sheets/penalties-for-non-compliance-enforcement.pdf.
[31]Prime Minister et al, ibid.