Thirteen Australian universities with Confucius Institutes tied to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) are under increasing pressure to register with the federal government’s Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme (FITS).
Continuing his commentary on Facebook, Paterson wrote on May 9 that he was deeply concerned by the university’s refusal to register with the scheme given they have been banned in Sweden and are being closed at some campuses in the United States.
Overseen by the Attorney-General’s department, FITS initially required organisations in Australia to register if they were lawfully acting on behalf of a foreign government or entity to complete activities for political influence.
However, Attorney-General Christian Porter signalled that FITS would be seeing some changes in the future.
Continuing Porter noted: “I’ve made some pretty substantial changes to the team and the way they operate and the way that they develop their briefs around who it is that they should be inquiring of as to why they haven’t registered.”
According to the newspaper, the new unit will focus on groups seeking to harm Australia’s critical infrastructure and look into community groups with ties to Beijing’s propaganda departments.
According to The Sydney Morning Herald, Porter said that universities need to be aware of who it is “that is seeking to influence their decision-making, their structure, their expenditure, their outcomes.”
Universities need to be mindful of “about who those people are working on behalf of,” Porter said.
Australia currently has Confucius Institutes at the Queensland University of Technology, Griffith University, the University of Queensland, the University of New South Wales, University of Newcastle, and the University of Sydney.
Charles Darwin University operates one in the Northern Territory, and there are institutes at the University of Adelaide, Victoria University, La Trobe University, RMIT, the University of Melbourne, and the University of Western Australia.