Search

Such programmes should draw together: institutions' existing China expertise; external expert briefings, including advice from government; direct engagement and consultation with Chinese researchers and students; and institutional information-sharing mechanisms such as cross-departmental China strategy groups. However, such pressure also presents opportunities to enrich what have often been narrow, instrumentalist notions of China engagement - such as viewing government-to-government China engagement solely through the lens of relations with the PRC party-state, and "people-to-people" links as constituted by tourism and education exports. Institutional Support for China Researchers Surveys have found a significant minority of China researchers face risks of repression in the conduct of their study, and many do not feel they can obtain support from their institutions in dealing with the PRC government.[40] Universities should develop cross-institutional agreements facilitating collective representations on behalf of their academics to the PRC government. 3 Combining education on the PRC with education on China in the world reflects the concept of New Sinology, which advocates approaching the PRC as one aspect of a global "Sinophone world". [Extracted from the article]

Hastie has argued that, through its media discourse and legislative response, Australia is 'a helpful case study of a democracy that has taken action to protect itself' against threats from the PRC.[86] This chapter has indicated that other states would benefit from looking to Australia's response for cautionary as well as salutary lessons. Footnotes 1 Amy Searight, "Countering China's Influence Operations: Lessons from Australia", Center for Strategic and International Studies, 8 May 2020; Daniel Tobin, 'How Xi Jinping's "New Era" Should Have Ended U.S. Debate on Beijing's Ambitions', Testimony Before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, Hearing on 'A "China Model?" Greenpeace argued the new laws would 'have the effect of criminalising public participation in Australia's democracy'.[54] Legal experts were particularly concerned with the finalised EFI Law's expansion of the scope of "national security" to include Australia's "political, military or economic relations with another country". In fact, a criminal offence of "interference with political liberties" had already existed in Australia since 1914.[67] Since its passage through parliament, the Australian government has established a cross-departmental National Counter Foreign Interference Taskforce, under the National Counter Foreign Interference Coordinator (NCFIC), who is an officer from the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) seconded to the Department of Home Affairs. [Extracted from the article]

PRC overseas political activities may be carried out by the party-state (the CCP), or they may be spontaneous, self-directed or self-interested actions of its citizens or supporters legitimately exercising liberal-democratic freedoms. As a result, labelling problematic PRC overseas political activities as "Chinese" projects an unwarranted association between Chinese ethnicity and the CCP's political activities.[9] Even if those who use the term are attuned to these nuances, their audiences - including politicians, bureaucrats and frontline officials and the public - may not be. He also offered a tightly defined concept of "interference", designating the line between legitimate and illegitimate foreign political activity.[5] However, it is "Chinese influence", rather than CCP/PRC interference, that has defined the public discussion over PRC overseas political activities, as Figure 1 illustrates. In contrast to interference, the distinction between acceptable soft power and "malign" sharp power lies not in the nature of political activities in question, or their compatibility with the law or principles of liberal democracy, but in the authoritarian nature of the actor engaging in them.[24] PRC Overseas Political Activities Responding to the challenges presented by PRC overseas political activities requires consideration of the concepts that underpin them. [Extracted from the article]

Options for addressing the issues raised by PRC overseas political activities are at least as many as the issues themselves. In his 1937 essay, "On Contradiction", Mao Zedong wrote of two opposing "world outlooks".[1] One was the correct "materialist dialectical" view that takes all phenomena in the natural and social worlds to be the outcome of contradictions. It inflates the CCP's ability to control the domestic politics of liberal democracies, sharpening internal divisions and obscuring opportunities to address institutional shortcomings. [Extracted from the article]