Linda Jakobson spoke at the National Security Summit hosted by the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age on 22 October 2020 on the issue of foreign interference in Australian education and society.
I will address the session’s first question: When does influence become interference? and then make a few points specifically addressing the issue of foreign interference in education and society.
The Attorney General’s Department’s (AGD) guidelines are explicit: Influence becomes interference when “covert, deceptive and coercive activities intended to affect an Australian political or governmental process are undertaken by (or on behalf of) foreign actors to advance their interests”.
This is distinctly different from political influence, which is the routine work of diplomats and foreign government officials among others. According to the AGD, political influence, “when conducted in an open, lawful and transparent manner, contributes to democracy by ensuring that decision makers and the public are exposed to diverse opinions from all sectors of society”.
This distinction might sound quite clear cut, but it is not. There are also vast grey areas in between influence and interference. I urge the Australian government to exert much more effort to explain these terms to ordinary citizens and, when possible, provide examples of the grey areas. The lines are often blurred, especially in the Australian media.
Moving on to the issue of foreign interference in education and society specifically, let me start with education. Media reports have pointed to foreign interference attempts within university classrooms, where citizens of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), reportedly acting on instructions of PRC Consulate officials or their proxies, object to remarks made by a teacher or fellow student – or both – to ensure that these remarks do not contradict what is acceptable in the PRC.
I, too, have heard first-hand anecdotal evidence about PRC students feeling peer pressure from their over-zealous countrymen to either be silent or toe the line, especially on sensitive issues. But, in the view of each of my interlocutors, these bullying students have not been following directives from government officials. Rather, they are assertive young adults with nationalistic views, and, on their own accord, independently, pounce upon anything they hear which they perceive to be an attack on China or going against the PRC’s interests.
They have grown up with a somewhat one-dimensional view of the world, one sanctioned by the Communist Party of China (CPC) and strengthened by intensely nationalistic messaging over the past eight or so years. This is a genuine problem for academic freedom within universities in Australia and an immense challenge for university lecturers, but unless coercive tactics are applied, it should not be considered foreign interference. We should call it what it is: pressure by a small number of vocal assertive nationalists.
Freedom of speech means that nationalists, too, have the right to express their views, as long as they do not infringe on the rights of others. I am not belittling the problem that some of these nationalistic students pose for our universities, but it is important not to label this as foreign interference.
My second point also touches on freedom of speech but also addresses a myth about Australia’s multicultural society. When he was prime minister Malcolm Turnbull often said, “Australia is the most successful multicultural society in the world.” One could debate whether it was an accurate description three or four years ago when he said it, but today it certainly is not.
Time and time again over the past six to 12 months, countless Australians of Chinese heritage, from all walks of life, have said that they fear speaking in public about China, because if they say anything positive about the PRC they will be called Communist sympathisers or outright stooges of the Communist Party. Many of the PRC’s actions have been appalling, and these actions should be called out as such. But surely, in a democracy, we cannot accept the use of the very tactics that we so abhor in the PRC, in other words, the silencing of individuals and the suppression of free speech.
A year ago, some commentators in Australia spoke of creeping McCarthyism. Today it is no longer creeping, it is rampant. We saw this during last week’s Senate hearing at which Senator Eric Abetz demanded that three Australians of Chinese heritage, invited to make remarks about issues facing diaspora communities in Australia, condemn the CPC. Reading the Senate hearing transcript brought vividly to mind the televised McCarthy hearings in the United States in 1954. This is just one case of McCarthyism in Australia. There have been many others over the past months.
In August of this year Jiang Yun, one of the three witnesses at last week’s Senate hearings, wrote an insightful China Matters policy brief, titled, “What should Australia do about PRC nationalists?”. She wrote that some in the diaspora perceived that freedom of speech is only protected for those who speak out against the CPC. Freedom of speech must also include the right to agree with the CPC or agree with actions by the PRC government.
Those Australians who voice concern about the PRC government’s covert interference activities in Australian society say that foreign interference did not receive the attention it should have in the years leading up to the passing of Australia’s new foreign interference legislation in 2018. I return to my first point: although some details cannot be shared in public to safeguard national security, the Australian government needs to do a better job at providing the public with evidence and examples of some of the threats that foreign interference poses.
We have plenty of evidence that the pendulum has swung way too far in the other direction and we are witness to behaviour, which is contrary to the principles of a democratic society, taking place in the name of rebutting foreign interference. Overzealous Australians are undermining the pillars and credibility of a democratic and multicultural society.
Linda Jakobson is the founding Director and Deputy Chair of China Matters, an independent Australian policy institute that aims to advance sound China policy and inject realism into discussions about the rise of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Australia-China relations.
Ms Jakobson was the Beijing-based Director of the Program for China and Global Security for the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute; Director of the East Asia Program at the Lowy Institute; and a visiting professor at Sydney University. A Mandarin speaker, she has lived and worked in China for 22 years. She is the author of five books about China and East Asia and has advised governments on China policy in seven countries.
Comments
11 responses to “McCarthyism is now rampant in Australia”
McCarthyism in Australia is a clone of the 1954 version of the US oppressive and suppressive action against communism used domestically as illustrated in the Quora article “Was the McCarthyism that the USA had or a similar ideology prevalent in the UK, Canada, Australia or New Zealand?”It is not unexpected that it blossomed in Australia as we follow US foreign policy in China containment. What is surprising is the speed that it emerged and in such a pretisgous place as our national parliament.
Linda,
I believe the reality is that the United States, the Russian Federation and the Peoples Republic of China or more accurately the CCP, are all engaged in actively pushing their influence on Australian society and local,state and federal politicians to toe the respective ‘party line’, although for different reasons .The U.S. has had a powerful influence on Australian foreign policy ever since PM Curtin appealed to the Americans in the depths of World War II.
During the Cold War, the Soviets and more recently Putin, saw/sees Australia as a way to ‘get at’ the U.S. and the West in general. The CCP sees Australia as a way to further its influence in the Indo-Pacific region as the U.S.A. tends towards irrelevance, as it self destructs. There is ample evidence that the Chinese Communist Party sees allegiance to the ‘motherland’ by overseas Chinese as a requirement of their ethnicity than allegiance to the country they live in and are citizens of.
The biggest risk in this policy , as seen historically here in Australia in the 1800’s as well as in Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines, is the rise of anti Chinese feeling leading to anti Chinese strife approaching the epic proportions of the past. I am certainly old enough to recall the violent and murderous anti Chinese riots in Malaya, Indonesia and the Philippines last century.
Resentment of the Chinese business ‘infiltration’ of economic life simmer below the surface in all these countries.One spark (miscalculation) by the CCP cadres in any of these countries would be enough to set off the powder keg again.
Gavin, good points. If I may humbly point out: It’s CPC, not CCP. Communist Party of China. Not Chinese Communist Party.
Almost all western MSM chose to use CCP even though it is wrong. Westerners, whether by deliberate design or ignorance, have largely refused to call the CPC by its correct name. What is in a name, one might ask? Like school yard bullies name-calling is calculated to show non-recognition, disrespect, and intimidation of the person – the essence of bullying. It gives the bully power over the bullied.
Thanks Jeffa,
When at Uni my lecturer who actually lived in China and was forced to leave “under pressure”, used that label.I guess it has stuck with me for the last 40 years!
Western culture has always been aggressive. We are descended from the barbaric hordes that overran ancient civilisation in the Dark Ages. The Chinese are people who have successfully held onto the richest, contiguous region in the world for thousands of years. For all that time they have been on the defensive. And their defences bristle. They have gained in strength by cherry-picking from the West: opening up to science and engineering, and developing their own socialist-mitigated market economics. When Chinese students object to the habitual sneers of Australian “humanities” academics against their form of government, they are defending their culture against Western hubris. If civilisation survives the threats of nuclear holocaust and global heating, the Chinese will have the last laugh because the aggressors are being destroyed by fatal maladaptations of their own culture.
As Brian Toohey pointed out, the vastly outclassed French submarines we are wasting billions on can only have the electronics worked on by the US. We are not allowed to do it – it sounds like no foreign influence or breaches of sovereignty there. Compare that with the madness over Huawei. Australia is just a vassal state, the US already controls us.
There are only a handful (3?) US military bases in Australia yet Australia is a “vassal state”. Imagine Japan and South Korea with >120 and >80 military bases each in the respective countries. One must wonder if Japan and South Korea are merely, in name, sovereign, independent states, free from foreign interference? If they are indeed sovereign, independent, able and self-respecting states, why do need such massive foreign occupation forces on their soil? Has WW2 not ended?
What we saw with Senator Abetz recently was the most blatantly un-Australian action by a politician, who should know better, that we have seen in living memory. He has shamed the national parliament and shamed the nation.
The old Liberal idea that all opinions are equal is politically naive in my view.
It always was.
“All animals are equal except some are more equal than others”.
George Orwell.
That’s the Liberal Party’s position now, just replace ‘animals’ with ‘humans’.
And the other accompanying credo is reverse Robin Hood:
‘Take from the poor and give to the rich’. The rich are more equal than the poor, isn’t that obvious?