There is widespread awareness of and concern about the dependance of universities on fee income from Chinese students, and the vulnerability of this to the regime turning off the tap if relations deteriorate. There is also concern about the Confucius Institutes, which some CCP figures have openly identified as part of the regime's global propaganda apparatus.
But possibly a far more significant source of leverage are the research partnerships between Australian and Chinese universities in fields like quantum computing, artificial intelligence, and the hard sciences more generally. Babones argues these partnerships are key to the "group of eight" most prestigious universities moving up the international research pecking order in recent times, a crucial aspect of institutional prestige.
The impact of this is more pernicious than the few cases of crude censorship of teachers and students. Babones argues the more significant impact is the research not done, the courses not held, if they are likely to tread on sensitive topics likely to offend the CCP.
It is true that many Australian universities (especially, but not exclusively, Group of Eight universities) are indeed highly dependent on Chinese international student fee revenue, some of them for as much as one-quarter of their total revenues from all sources. But this revenue stream is, under ordinary circumstances, not directly influenced by relations between individual universities and the Chinese government. In fact, China has never previously “weaponised” student flows as a tool of international relations, despite many threats to do so. There is even less evidence to suggest that it has ever steered students away from individual universities in an attempt to influence their behaviour. This may have happened, or (more likely) universities might fear that it could happen, but it is not a major factor in universities” relationships with China.
Universities’ research relationships with China, by contrast, are much more thoroughly politicised. For example, the US Ivy League’s Cornell University was forced to suspend research collaboration with a Chinese counterpart in 2015 due to Chinese government harassment. The program involved sensitive research into workers rights in China. Few Australian universities are so courageous. Research sponsored by the ANU’s Centre on China in the World sponsors research in five areas that range from the uncontroversial (“Sustainable Urbanisation” and “Energy Transition”) to the celebratory (a “Politics, Policy and Society” program that will investigate the “adaptations in public policy [that] are driving China’s re-emergence as a world power”). Until recently, the University of Sydney’s China Studies Centre focused on “climate change, health services, cultural heritage and new technologies”. The Australia-China Relations Institute (ACRI) at UTS focuses on trade and investment. Late to the game, in 2018 UNSW opened a research centre in China “dedicated to environmental protection”.
Unlike Cornell’s research into working conditions in China, none of these Australian initiatives is likely to make waves. Individual scholars at each of these universities, and even some who are associated with their respective China studies centres, may conduct research that is critical of China. That research may even, in some cases, be funded by the centres—though it is unlikely to be foregrounded on their websites. Contrary to some public perceptions, Australian universities do not systematically suppress research that is critical of China, and academic freedom is alive and well in Australia. The China threat to Australian research autonomy is much more subtle than the media portrays. Despite a handful of ham-fisted attempts to quash criticism, it consists mainly of initiatives not pursued, academics not hired, and research not funded. The strategic research initiatives of Australian universities are just that—strategic. No Australian university is likely to consider it strategic to use discretionary funds to support research that is highly critical of China.