Mapping more of China’s tech giants: AI and surveillance

This second report accompanies the Mapping China’s Technology Giants website.

Several report are now available on this topic;

Executive summary

ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre has updated the public database that maps the global expansion of key Chinese technology companies. This update adds a further 11 companies and organisations: iFlytek, Megvii, ByteDance (which owns TikTok), SenseTime, YITU, CloudWalk, DJI, Meiya Pico, Dahua, Uniview and BeiDou.

Our public database now maps 23 companies and organisations and is visualised through our interactive website, Mapping China’s Technology Giants. The website seeks to give policymakers, academics, journalists, government officials and other interested readers a more holistic picture of the increasingly global reach of China’s tech giants. The response to phase 1 of this project—it quickly became one of ASPI’s most read products—suggests that the current lack of transparency about some of these companies’ operations and governance arrangements has created a gap this database is helping to fill.

This update adds companies working mainly in the artificial intelligence (AI) and surveillance tech sectors. SenseTime, for example, is one of the world’s most valuable AI start-ups. iFlytek is a partially state-owned speech recognition company. Meiya Pico is a digital forensics and security company that created media headlines in 2019 because of its monitoring mobile app MFSocket.1 In addition, we’ve added DJI, which specialises in drone technologies, and BeiDou, which isn’t a company but the Chinese Government’s satellite navigation system.

We also added ByteDance—an internet technology company perhaps best known internationally for its video app, TikTok, which is popular with teenagers around the world. TikTok is also attracting public and media scrutiny in the US over national security implications, the use of US citizens’ data and allegations of censorship, including shadow banning (the down-ranking of particular topics via the app’s algorithm so users don’t see certain topics in their feed).

Company overviews now include a summary of their activities in Xinjiang.2 For some companies, including ByteDance and Huawei, we are including evidence of their work in Xinjiang that has not being reported publicly before. For most of these companies, the surveillance technologies and techniques being rolled out abroad—often funded by loans from the Export–Import Bank of China (China Eximbank)3—have long been used on Chinese citizens, and especially on the Uyghur and other minority populations in Xinjiang, where an estimated 1.5 million people are being arbitrarily held in detention centres.4 Some of these companies have actively and repeatedly obscured their work in Xinjiang, including in hearings with foreign parliamentary committees. This project now includes evidence and analysis of those activities in order to foster greater transparency about their engagement in human rights abuses or ethically questionable activities in the same way Western firms are held to account by Western media and civil society actors, as they should be.

In this report, we include a number of case studies in which we delve deeper into parts of the dataset. This includes case studies on TikTok as a vector for censorship and surveillance, BeiDou’s satellite and space race and CloudWalk’s various AI, biometric data and facial recognition partnerships with the Zimbabwean Government. We also include a case study on Meiya Pico’s work with China’s Public Security Ministry on Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) aid projects in Southeast Asia and Central Asia.

Those projects include the construction of digital forensics labs and cyber capacity training, including for police forces across Asia.

We have also investigated the role that foreign investment plays in the global expansion of some of these companies, particularly in China’s surveillance and public security sector.
 

The updated database

Our public database now maps out 23 companies and organisations. On the Mapping China’s Technology Giants website you’ll find a dataset that geo-codes and analyses major points of overseas presence, including 5G relationships; ‘smart cities’ and ‘public security’ solutions; surveillance relationships; research and university partnerships; submarine cables; terrestrial cables; significant telecommunications and ICT projects; and foreign investment. The website does not map out products and services, such as equipment sales.

Previously, in April 2019, we mapped companies working across the internet, telecommunications and biotech sectors, including Huawei, Tencent, Alibaba, Baidu, Hikvision, China Electronics Technology Group (CETC), ZTE, China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom, Wuxi AppTec Group and BGI. This dataset has also been updated, and new data points have been added for those companies, including on 5G relationships, smart cities, R&D labs and data centres.

At the time of release this updated research project now maps and tracks: 

  • 26,000+ data points that have helped to geo-locate 2,500+ points of overseas presence for the 23 companies
  • 447 university and research partnerships, including 195+ Huawei Seeds for the Future university partnerships
  • 115 smart city or public security solution projects, most of which are in Europe, South America and Africa
  • 88 5G relationships in 45 countries
  • 295 surveillance relationships in 96 countries
  • 145 R&D labs, the greatest concentration of which is in Europe
  • 63 undersea cables, 20 leased cables and 49 terrestrial cables
  • 208 data centres and 342 telecommunications and ICT projects spread across the world.

Other updates have also been made to the website, often in response to valuable feedback from policymakers, researchers and journalists. Updates have been made to the following:

  • The landing ‘splash page’5
  • How to use this tool6
  • Glossary.7

Terrestrial cables have now been added and can be searched through the filter bar (via ‘Overseas presence’)

The original report that accompanied the launch of the project was translated into Mandarin in August 2019.

In addition to this dataset, each company has its own web page, which includes an overview of the company and a summary of its activities with the Chinese party-state. The overviews now include a summary of each company’s activities in Xinjiang. This research was added for a number of reasons.

First, we needed to compile the information in one place for journalists, civil society groups and governments. Second, these companies aren’t held to account by China’s media and civil society groups, and it’s clear that many have obscured their activities in Xinjiang. Some have even provided incorrect information in response to direct questions from foreign governments. For example, a Huawei executive told the UK House of Commons Science and Technology Committee on 10 June 2019 that Huawei’s activities in Xinjiang occurred only via ‘third parties:’8

Chair Sir Norman Lamb: But do you have products and services in Xinjiang Province in terms of some sort of contractual relationship with the provincial government?

Huawei Executive: Our contracts are with the third parties. It is not something we do directly.

That’s not correct. Huawei works directly with the Chinese Government’s Public Security Bureau in Xinjiang on a range of projects. Evidence for this—and similar—work can now be found via each company’s dedicated Mapping China’s Technology Giants web page and is also analysed below.

Methodology

ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre began this research project due to a lack of publicly available quantitative and qualitative data, especially in English, on the overseas activities of these key technology companies. Some of the companies disclose little in the way of policies that affect data, security, privacy, freedom of expression and censorship. What information is available is spread across a wide range of sources and hasn’t been compiled in one location. In-depth analysis of the available sources also requires Chinese-language capabilities and an understanding of other issues, such as the relationships the companies have with the state and how Chinese state financing structures work.

For example, some of the companies, especially Huawei, conduct a lot of their work in developing countries through China Eximbank loans. Importantly, the use of internet and other archiving services is vital, as Chinese web pages are often moved, altered or deleted.

This research relied on open-source data collection that took place primarily in English and Chinese. Data sources included company websites, corporate information, tenders, media reporting, databases and other public sources.

The following companies—which work across the telecommunications, technology, internet, surveillance, AI and biotech sectors—are now present on the Mapping China’s Technology Giants website (new additions are bold):

  • Alibaba
  • Baidu
  • BeiDou
  • BGI
  • ByteDance
  • China Electronics Technology Group (CETC)
  • China Mobile
  • China Telecom
  • China Unicom
  • CloudWalk
  • Dahua
  • DJI
  • Hikvision (a subsidiary of CETC)
  • Huawei
  • iFlytek
  • Megvii
  • Meiya Pico
  • SenseTime
  • Tencent
  • Uniview
  • WuXi AppTec Group
  • YITU
  • ZTE.

The size and complexity of these companies, and the speed at which they’re expanding, mean that this dataset will inevitably be incomplete. For that reason, we encourage researchers, journalists, experts and members of the public to continue to contribute and submit data via the online platform in order to help make the dataset more complete over time.

For tips on how to get the most out of the map, navigate to ‘How to use this tool’ on the website. When you’re first presented with the map, all data points are displayed. Click the coloured icons and cables for more information. To navigate to the list of companies, click ‘View companies’ in the left blue panel.

There’s a filter bar at the bottom of the screen. Click the items to select. To reset your search selection, click ‘Reset’ in the filter bar.

The yellow triangle icons on the map are data points of particular interest in which we invested additional research resources.
 

These companies differ in their size, scope and global presence

They may not be household names in the West, but the market size of many of the Chinese companies outlined in this report is larger than many of their more well-known counterparts outside China. iFlytek, a voice recognition tech company established in 1999, isn’t yet a household name outside China but has 70% of the Chinese voice recognition market and a market capitalisation of Ұ63 billion (US$9.2 billion). Newcomer ByteDance, an internet technology company with a focus on machine-learning-enabled content platforms, was established only in 2012 but is already valued at around US$78 billion, making it the world’s most valuable start-up.

Many of the companies outlined in this report have skyrocketed in value by capitalising on China’s surge in security spending in Xinjiang and elsewhere as a large, sprawling surveillance apparatus is constructed. Some have been, in effect, conscripted into spearheading the development of AI in the country—a goal of particular strategic importance to the party-state.

Other companies we examine in this report, such as Dahua Technology, Megvii and Uniview, aren’t well known but have significant global footprints. Dahua, for example, is one of the world’s largest security camera manufacturers. Between them Hikvision9 and Dahua supply around one-third of the global market for security cameras and related goods, such as digital video recorders.10

All Chinese tech companies have deep ties to the Chinese state security apparatus, but, perhaps more than the others, the companies in this report occupy a space in which the lines between the commercial imperatives of private companies (and some state-backed companies) and the strategic imperatives of the party-state are blurred.

Several of the companies we examine—including iFlytek, SenseTime, Megvii and Yitu—have been designated as official ‘AI Champions’ by the party-state, alongside Huawei, Hikvision and the ‘BATs’ (Baidu,11 Alibaba12 and Tencent;13) which were featured in our previous report. These ‘champions’, having been identified as possessing “core technologies”, have been selected to spearhead AI development in the country, with the aim of overtaking the US in AI by 2030.14

Gregory C Allen, writing for the Center for a New American Security, cited SenseTime executives as saying the title:

… gave the companies privileged positions for national technical standards-setting and also was intended to give the companies confidence that they would not be threatened with competition from state-owned enterprises.15

Speaking in December 2018, SenseTime co-founder Xu Bing alluded to the uniqueness of this privileged position:

We are very lucky to be a private company working at a technology that will be critical for the next two decades. Historically, governments would dominate nuclear, rocket, and comparable technologies and not trust private companies.16

Historically, the party-state drew on the power of a few state-owned enterprises to help it achieve its strategic goals. But in order to become a world leader in AI by 2025—an express aim of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)— the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has demonstrated its ability to move away from those cumbersome organisations in favour of smaller, more agile companies not wholly owned by the state. This has proven to be a highly successful—and mutually beneficial—model.

Chinese AI and surveillance companies benefit from a highly favourable regulatory environment in which concerns over the potential use of invasive systems of surveillance to erode civil liberties are largely and substantively ignored by design, although they’re sometimes discussed in the Chinese media.17

Companies that we examine in this report, such as YITU, CloudWalk, iFlytek and SenseTime, have access to enormous customer databases that are generating huge amounts of proprietary data—the essential ingredient for improving AI and machine-learning algorithms.

AI giant SenseTime has access to a database of more than 2 billion images, at least some of which, SenseTime CEO Xu Li told Quartz,18 come from various government agencies, giving the company a distinct advantage over its foreign competitors.

The global expansion of these companies—from research partnerships with foreign universities through to the development of operational ‘smart city’ or ‘public security’ projects—raises important questions about the geostrategic, political and human rights implications of their work.

Users of the website will now find more than 26,000 datapoints that have helped to geo-locate 2,500+ points of overseas presence for the 23 companies and organisations. But it’s important to note that the presence of the companies’ products in overseas markets is far larger than the map can indicate.

Many of the companies’ relationships are business to business, and their products are integrated as part of other companies’ solutions. For example, iFlytek’s speech recognition software is used in the voice assistant in Huawei smartphones, and YITU provides its facial recognition and traffic monitoring software to Huawei’s smart cities solutions. So, while Huawei’s smart city solutions are mapped, the companies that provide certain technologies and component parts for smart cities can’t always be captured.

This illustrates a complex problem associated with data and privacy protection in ‘internet of things’ devices that is tackled in Dr Samantha Hoffman’s ASPI report Engineering global consent: the Chinese Communist Party’s data-driven power expansion.19 Companies can claim that they don’t misuse the data that their products collect, but those claims don’t always take into account how component-part manufacturers whose technologies are integrated into smart cities and public security services, for example, collect and use citizens’ data.

TikTok as a vector for censorship and surveillance

Unlike China’s first generation of social media tech giants, which stumbled in their international expansion,20 second-generation start-ups such as ByteDance are proving to be much more sure-footed. TikTok, a short-video app, is the company’s most successful foreign export, having grown a global audience of more than 700 million in just a few years.21 ByteDance achieved that meteoric growth, ironically enough, by ploughing US$1 billion into ads on the social platforms of its Western rivals Facebook, Facebook-owned Instagram and Snapchat.22

The app has managed to maintain its ‘stickiness’ for users—mostly teens—by virtue of the AI-powered advanced algorithm undergirding it. The remarkable success of the app enabled ByteDance to become the world’s most valuable start-up in October 2018 after it secured a US$3 billion investment round that gave it a jaw-dropping valuation of US$75 billion.23

TikTok has already attracted the ire of regulators around the world, including in Indonesia, India, the UK and the US, where the company made a $US5.7 million settlement with the Federal Trade Commission for violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.

But beyond the expected regulatory missteps of a fast-growing social media platform, ByteDance is uniquely susceptible to other problems that come with its closeness to the censorship and surveillance apparatus of the CCP-led state. Beijing has demonstrated a propensity for controlling and shaping overseas Chinese-language media. The meteoric growth of TikTok now puts the CCP in a position where it can attempt to do the same on a largely non-Chinese speaking platform—with the help of an advanced AI-powered algorithm.

In September 2019, The Guardian revealed clear evidence of how ByteDance has been advancing Chinese foreign policy aims abroad through the app via censorship. The newspaper reported on leaked guidelines from TikTok laying out the company’s approach to content moderation.

The documents showed that TikTok moderators were instructed to ‘censor videos that mention Tiananmen Square, Tibetan independence, or the banned religious group Falun Gong.’24

Unlike Western social media platforms, which have traditionally taken a conservative approach to content moderation and tended to favour as much free speech as possible, TikTok has been heavy-handed, projecting Beijing’s political neuroses onto the politics of other countries. In the guidelines, as described by The Guardian, the app banned ‘criticism/attack towards policies, social rules of any country, such as constitutional monarchy, monarchy, parliamentary system, separation of powers, socialism system, etc.’ Many historical events in foreign countries were also swept up in the scope of the guidelines. In addition to a ban on mentioning the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, the May 1998 riots in Indonesia and the genocide in Cambodia were also deemed verboten.

TikTok has even barred criticism of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, as well as depictions of ‘non-Islamic gods’ and images of alcohol consumption and same-sex relationships—neither of which is in fact illegal in Turkey. Also prohibited is criticism of a list of ‘foreign leaders or sensitive figures’, including the past and present leaders of North Korea, US President Donald Trump, former South Korean President Park Geun-hye and Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

Despite this heavy-handed approach, a number of bad actors have been able to use the app to promote their agendas. On 23 October 2019, the Wall Street Journal reported that Islamic State has been using the app to share propaganda videos and has even uploaded clips of beheadings of prisoners.25 Motherboard also uncovered violent white supremacy and Nazism on the app in late 2018.26

ByteDance confirmed The Guardian’s report and the authenticity of the leaked content-moderation guidelines but said the guidelines were outdated and that it had updated its moderation policies.

Unconvinced, senior US lawmakers went on to request an investigation into TikTok on national security grounds.

In late October 2019, US Senator Marco Rubio appealed to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to launch an investigation by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US into TikTok’s acquisition of US video-sharing platform Musical.ly,27 citing reports of censorship on the app, including a 15 September Washington Post article that provided evidence of TikTok’s censorship of reports on the Hong Kong protests.28

ByteDance said that the Chinese Government doesn’t order it to censor content on TikTok: ‘To be clear: we do not remove videos based on the presence of Hong Kong protest content,’ said a ByteDance spokesman cited by the New York Times.29 But a former content moderator for TikTok also told the Times that ‘managers in the United States had instructed moderators to hide videos that included any political messages or themes, not just those related to China’.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, the former content moderator said that the policy was to, in the newspaper’s words, ‘allow such political posts to remain on users’ profile pages but to prevent them from being shared more widely in TikTok’s main video feed’—a practice known as ‘shadow banning’.

The concerns of other US Congress members extend from the app’s use of censorship to curate and shape information flows and export CCP media narratives to data privacy and the potential for the app to be used as a tool of surveillance in the service of the Chinese party-state. On 24 October, senators Chuck Schumer and Tom Cotton penned a letter asking Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire to determine whether TikTok’s data collection practices pose a national security risk.30

David Carroll, an associate professor of media design at Parsons School of Design, discovered that TikTok’s privacy policy in late 2018 indicated that user data could be shared ‘with any member or affiliate of [its] group’ in China. TikTok confirmed to him that ‘data from TikTok users who joined the service before February 2019 may have been processed in China.’31

In November, regulators took action. Reuters reported that the US Government had launched a national security review of ByteDance’s US$1 billion acquisition of Musical.ly.32

Meiya Pico: from mobile data extraction to the Belt and Road’s ‘safety’ and security corridor

Inside China and at its borders, people are being asked to hand over their phones for police inspections. Within minutes, police can connect, extract and analyse phone and personal user data on the phone. In online chatter on Chinese platforms about the matter, people mostly express their fears of police discovering applications for ‘jumping the Great Firewall’, but police can extract more than just a list of installed applications. They can extract and access call and message logs; contact lists and calendars; location information; audio, video and documents; and application data.

In June 2019, Asia Society ChinaFile editor Muyi Xiao noticed multiple online reports on Chinese social media sites of Beijing and Shanghai police spot-checking people’s phones and installing a mobile app called ‘MFSocket’.33 She investigated further and found similar reports from Guangdong and Xinjiang from as early as 2016. One citizen reported that their employer had asked them and other colleagues to report to a police station, where, after they had their ID cards inspected and their photos and fingerprints taken, MFSocket was installed on their phones. In this particular case, the citizen had Google’s suite of apps installed (Google is available only outside China), and he was questioned about that.34 It isn’t clear whether these users were under suspicion for criminal activity, but one affected individual was reportedly going to the police station to update their ID, and another was riding their scooter and was stopped by police.35 Muyi Xiao’s investigations led her to the app’s developer—Meiya Pico, a prominent player in China’s digital forensics sector.

The MFSocket phone app is the client application for Meiya Pico’s mobile phone forensics suite.36

Once a person’s mobile phone is connected to the forensics terminal, the MFSocket app is pushed to the phone. When it’s installed, the operator is able to extract phone and personal user data from the phone, including contacts, messages, calendar events, call record data, location information, video, audio, a list of apps, system logs37 and almost 100 software applications.38

The functionality of MFSocket is neither unique nor suspicious; nor is it unusual for a digital forensics company to sell such software. What is of concern is the seemingly arbitrary nature of its use by police in China. It’s also not the only mobile data extraction app used in China. The Fengcai or BXAQ app,39 also known as ‘MobileHunter’,40 for example, has been installed onto the phones of foreign journalists crossing from Kyrgyzstan into Xinjiang. Similarly to MFSocket, it collects personal and phone data.41

Beyond China’s borders, Meiya Pico has provided training to Interpol42 and sells its forensics and mobile hacking equipment to the Russian military.43 Through financial support provided by China’s Ministry of Public Security, Meiya Pico also has a unique role in BRI projects. A report on Chinese information controls by the Open Technology Fund suggests that this could be part of a ‘safety corridor’ between China and Europe,44 linking safety and security products and services with foreign aid projects.45

Since 2013, Meiya Pico has been working with the Ministry of Public Security on BRI-focused foreign aid projects,46 constructing digital forensics laboratories in Central Asia and Southeast Asia,47 including in Vietnam48 and Sri Lanka.49 Meiya Pico claims to have provided, under the instruction of the ministry,50 more than 50 training courses to police forces in 30 countries51 as part of the BRI (Figure 1).52 For these projects, Meiya Pico reportedly sends professional and technical personnel to each location to conduct in-depth technical communication and exchanges.53 Chinese state media have reported that these projects enhance a country’s ability to fight cybercrime through technical and equipment assistance and support.54

Figure 1: Meiya Pico and BRI projects

Source: Meiya Pico, Belt and Road.

CloudWalk and data colonialism in Zimbabwe

The draconian techno-surveillance system that China is perfecting in Xinjiang and steadily expanding to the rest of the country is increasingly seen as an alternative model by non-democratic regimes around the world. In the first Mapping China’s tech giants report, we examined how Chinese technology companies are closely entwined with the CCP’s support for Zimbabwe’s authoritarian regime. From the country’s telco infrastructure through to social media and cybercrime laws, the PRC’s influence is pervasive.

In March 2018, the Zimbabwean Government took this approach to a new level when it signed an agreement with CloudWalk Technology to build a national facial recognition database and monitoring system as part of China’s BRI program of international infrastructure deals.55 The agreement was reached between a ‘special adviser to Zimbabwe’s Presidential Office’, the Minister of Science and Technology in Nansha district of Guangzhou and CloudWalk executives, according to a Science Daily (科技日报) report.56 Under the deal, Zimbabwe will send biometric data on millions of its citizens to China to assist in the development of facial recognition algorithms that work with different ethnicities and will therefore expand the export market for China’s product—an arrangement that had no input from ordinary Zimbabwean citizens. In exchange, Zimbabwe’s authoritarian government will get access to CloudWalk’s technology and the opportunity to copy China’s digitally enabled authoritarian system.

Former Zimbabwean Ambassador to China Christopher Mutsvangwa told The Herald, a Zimbabwean newspaper, that CloudWalk had donated facial recognition terminals to the country and that the terminals are already being installed at every border post and point of entry around the southern African nation: ‘China has proved to be our all-weather friend and this time around, we have approached them to spearhead our AI revolution in Zimbabwe.’ 57

The arrangement is paradigmatic of a new form of colonialism called ‘data colonialism’, in which raw information is harvested from developing countries for the commercial and strategic benefit of richer, more powerful nations that hold AI supremacy.58 Writing in the New York Times, Kai-Fu Lee, the former Google China head and doyen of China’s AI industry, outlined how these kinds of colonial arrangements are set to ‘reshape today’s geopolitical alliances’:59

[I]f most countries will not be able to tax ultra-profitable AI companies to subsidize their workers, what options will they have? I foresee only one: Unless they wish to plunge their people into poverty, they will be forced to negotiate with whichever country supplies most of their AI software—China or the United States—to essentially become that country’s economic dependent, taking in welfare subsidies in exchange for letting the ‘parent’ nation’s AI companies continue to profit from the dependent country’s users. Such economic arrangements would reshape today’s geopolitical alliances.

The CloudWalk–Zimbabwe deal, Science Daily notes, is a first for the Chinese AI industry in Africa  and serves a clear geostrategic aim: ‘[It] will enable China’s artificial intelligence technology to serve the economic development of countries along the “belt and road initiative” route.

The arrangement will not only help bring the Zimbabwean regime’s authoritarian practices further into the digital age, but will also enable the PRC—through state-backed and other nominally private companies—to export those means for other countries to use to surveil, repress and manipulate their populations.

Facial recognition technology is notoriously bad at detecting people with dark skin, making the data that the Zimbabwean Government is trading with CloudWalk highly prized.60 By improving its facial recognition systems for people with dark skin, CloudWalk is effectively opening up whole new markets around the world for its technology, while Zimbabwe perceives CloudWalk as ‘donating’ its technology to the country.

In exchange for the private biometric details of the Zimbabwean citizenry, CloudWalk’s technology will be deployed in the country’s financial industry, airports, bus stations, railway stations and, as the Science Daily puts it, ‘any other locations requiring face recognition to effectively maintain public security’.

According to The Herald, Zimbabwe signed another agreement with CloudWalk in April 2019, under which the Chinese firm will provide facial recognition for smart financial service networks, as well as intelligent security applications at airports and railway and bus stations. The new deal, according to the paper, was reached during a visit to China by Zimbabwean President Mnangagwa and forms part of China’s BRI in Africa.61

‘The Zimbabwean Government did not come to Guangzhou purely for AI or facial recognition technologies; rather it had a comprehensive package plan for such areas as infrastructure, technology and biology,’ CloudWalk CEO Yao Zhiqiang said at the time, according to the paper. 

BeiDou: China’s satellite and space race

Unlike other entities featured in this report, the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BeiDou) isn’t a company; rather, it’s a centrally controlled satellite constellation and associated service that provides positioning, navigation and timing information. It also presents itself as a completely functional and improved alternative to the US-controlled Global Positioning System (GPS).

The development of BeiDou began after the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis of 1996, when missile tests by the Chinese military were ineffective due to suspected US-directed disruption of the GPS. After that failure, the ‘Chinese military decided, no matter how much it would cost, [that China] had to build its own independent satellite navigation system.’62

The first generation of the system consisted of three satellites that provided rudimentary positioning services to users in China. However, in 2013, China reached its first agreements to export the service to other countries. Since then, BeiDou has upped the tempo of its global expansion and engagement.

For increased accuracy, positional satellites such as the BeiDou constellations need to precisely determine their orbital position. At this fine scale, satellite orbits aren’t regular across the globe, and modelling them within the millisecond relies on a global network of reference stations and onboard atomic clocks. The reference stations share data containing information on how long signals take to reach the receiver from the satellite, and then precise orbital determination can be more accurately modelled by trilaterating (similar to triangulating – using distances rather than angles) those signals (Figure 2). A wide geographical spread of reference stations allows the orbit to be precisely determined over a larger area.63 By having stations or receivers overseas, including in Australia, for example, BeiDou is able to more precisely determine post-processing adjustments over Australia, and thereby provide more precise positional data to an end user.

Figure 2: An infographic explaining how base stations can improve GNSS positional accuracy

Source: An introduction to GNSS, Hexagon.

In 2013, BeiDou signed an agreement with Brunei to supply the country with the technology for military and civilian use at a heavily subsidised price.64 Following Chinese Premier Li Keqiang’s 2013 visit to Islamabad, Pakistan became the first country in the world to sign an official cooperation agreement with the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System in both the military and civilian sectors.

Pakistan was granted access to the system’s post-processed data service, which provides far more precise location services and accompanying encryption services.65 These additional features allow for more precise guidance for missiles, ships and aircraft.66 In recent years agreements have also been reached with other countries including the United States and Russia to establish interoperability between different GNSS satellite constellations.

In the run-up to the 3rd generation of BeiDou’s satellite constellation, the service began to more aggressively pursue internationalisation. Agreements with countries in South and Southeast Asia were signed, providing access to BeiDou services and allowing BeiDou to construct permanent reference stations across the region and increase its positional accuracy outside China’s borders. In 2014, it was announced that China was planning to construct 220 reference stations in Thailand and a network of 1,000 across Southeast Asia.67 These newer stations improve the precise post-processing accuracy of the satellite signals, which in turn increases the precision of signals received by end users.68

In 2014, China Satellite Navigation System Management Office and Geoscience Australia established a similar agreement, but on a smaller scale. They met in Beijing with representatives of Wuhan University. The two sides reportedly agreed to establish a formal cooperation mechanism.69

Wuhan University was to provide Geoscience Australia with three continuously operating reference stations equipped with satellite signal receivers constructed by China Electronic Technology Group (CETC). CETC is one of China’s largest state-owned defence companies and was covered in the original dataset of Mapping China’s Technology Giants.70 By using CETC-constructed receivers, GA was provided access to additional signals that were unavailable to commercial off-the-shelf receivers. GA manages the communications of these sites, and also receives access to the global Wuhan University’s network of overseas tracking data.71

BeiDou’s presence in Australia has previously attracted academic and media scrutiny. Professor Anne-Marie Brady has been critical of Australia’s engagement with BeiDou because of its role in guiding China’s military technologies:72

Australia is playing a small part in helping China to get a GPS system as effective as the US system. China is aiming to have a better one than the US has by 2020, and so is Russia. They need ground stations to coordinate their satellites and they need them in the Pacific. Their first ground station in the Pacific region was built in Perth.

The three BeiDou ground facilities in Australia are at Yarragadee Station (Western Australia; the first one built), Mount Stromlo (Australian Capital Territory) and Katherine (Northern Territory) and are operated by Geoscience Australia. They were built in 2016 and have been operating for over three years.73 No data is sent directly from these (or any) receivers back to the BeiDou satellites, and detailed positional and signal data is provided publicly. These data streams are widely used by industry and civilian end-users.

The stations are a small part of Australia’s GNSS network, which then publicly provides precise positional and signal data. But it’s worth noting that Wuhan University has close links to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and has been previously accused by the US and Taiwanese Governments of carrying out cyberattacks.74

Foreign investment

The detention of an estimated 1.5 million members of ethnic minority groups,75 chiefly Uyghur, in so-called re-education camps in China’s far western region of Xinjiang is a human rights violation on a massive scale.76 For Chinese security companies, however, it is a win.

Many of the AI and surveillance companies added to our Mapping China’s Technology Giants project have capitalised on China’s surge in security spending, particularly in Xinjiang, in recent years.

Spending on security-related construction in Xinjiang tripled in 2017, according to an analysis of government expenditure by Adrian Zenz for the Jamestown Foundation.77

For Chinese security, AI and surveillance companies, Xinjiang has become, as Charles Rollet put it in Foreign Policy, ‘both a lucrative market and a laboratory to test the latest gadgetry’.78 The projects there, he notes, ‘include not only security cameras but also video analytics hubs, intelligent monitoring systems, big data centres, police checkpoints, and even drones.’

But China’s burgeoning surveillance state isn’t limited to Xinjiang. The Ministry of Public Security has ploughed billions of dollars into two government plans, called Skynet project (天网工程)79 and Sharp Eyes project (雪亮工程),80 that aim to comprehensively surveil China’s 1.4 billion people by 2020 through a video camera network using facial recognition technology.

China will add 400 million security cameras through 2020, according to Morgan Stanley, making investing in companies such as Hikvision and Dahua—which have received government contracts totalling more than US$1 billion81—extremely enticing for investors seeking high returns. Crucially, the gold rush hasn’t been limited to Chinese firms and investors.

Foreign investors, either passively or actively, are also profiting from China’s domestic security and surveillance spending binge. Investment funds controlling around US$1.9 trillion that measure their performance against MSCI’s benchmark Emerging Markets Index funnel capital into companies such as Hikvision82, Dahua83 and iFlytek,84 which have profited from the development of Xinjiang detention camps.

The market valuation of SenseTime, one of a few companies handpicked by the party-state to lead the way in China’s AI development, soared in 2018 on the back of increased government funding for its national facial recognition surveillance system.

Those massive government contracts have helped SenseTime attract top venture capital and private equity firms as well as strategic investors around the world, including Japanese tech conglomerate Softbank Group’s Saudi-backed Vision Fund. US venture fund IDG Capital supplied ‘tens of millions of dollars’ in initial funding to the company in August 2014.85

Other major shareholders include e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, London-based Fidelity International (a subsidiary of Boston-based Fidelity Investments), Singaporean state investment firm Temasek Holdings, US private equity firms Silver Lake Partners and Tiger Global Management, and the venture capital arm of US telco Qualcomm.

More than 17 US universities and public pension plans have put money into vehicles run by some of these venture capital funds, according to an Australian Financial Review report citing historical PitchBook data.86

SenseTime rival, Megvii Technology, has also benefited from foreign investment, including from a Macquarie Group fund that sunk $US30 million ($44 million) into the facial recognition start-up.87

Macquarie declined to comment when questioned about the investment by the Australian Financial Review. Other firms such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc, have stated they’re reviewing their involvement in Megvii’s planned initial public offering after the U.S. government placed it on the US Entity List for alleged complicity in Beijing’s human rights abuses in China.88

Two of America’s biggest public pension funds—the California State Teachers’ Retirement System and the New York State Teachers’ Retirement System—own stakes in Hikvision, as the Financial Times reported in March 2019.89 Since at least 2018, Meiya Pico shares have been included in the FTSE  Russell Global Equity Index.90

Even if these companies aren’t listed on foreign bourses or are receiving money from foreign venture capital funds, they might still be getting investments from companies such as the BATs—Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent—that are traded on US stock exchanges.91

But, more often than not, the investments are made directly and wittingly by active funds that are seeking to maximise profits off the back of the boom in surveillance technologies used across China. To put it plainly, Western capital markets have funded mass detentions and an increasingly sophisticated repressive apparatus in China.

Some funds that have done their human rights and national security due diligence have started to divest themselves of some of these companies. At least seven US equity funds have divested from Hikvision, for instance.92 But many have not.

‘A lot of investors talk about ethical investing but when it comes to Hikvision and Xinjiang they are happy to fill their boots,’ one fund manager who sold out of Hikvision told the Financial Times in March 2019. ‘It is pretty hypocritical.’93
 

All roads lead to Xinjiang

In November 2019, internal Communist Party documents—obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ)—provided documentary evidence of how authorities in Xinjiang are using data and artificial intelligence to pioneer a new form of social control.94 The documents showed how authorities are using a data management system called the Integrated Joint Operation Platform (IJOP)—previously reported on by Human Rights Watch—to predictively identify those suspected of harbouring extremist views and criminal intent.95 Among the documents, a bulletin published on 25 June 2017, reveals how the IJOP system detected about 24,412 “suspicious” people in southern Xinjiang during one particular week. Of those people, 15,683 were sent to “education and training” — a euphemism for detention camps—and 706 were “criminally detained”.96

A month before this leak, in October 2019, the US Government added many of the AI and surveillance companies in this dataset—including Dahua Technology, iFlytek, Megvii Technology, SenseTime, Xiamen Meiya Pico Information Co. Ltd, Yitu Technologies and Hikvision97—to the US Entity List because of their roles in human rights violations in Xinjiang.98

However, Chinese tech companies’ activities in Xinjiang go beyond surveillance and extend to areas like propaganda and other coercive measures.

For example, we have found that TikTok’s parent company ByteDance—which is not on the US entity list for human rights violations in Xinjiang—collaborates with public security bureaus across China, including in Xinjiang where it plays an active role in disseminating the party-state’s propaganda on Xinjiang.

Xinjiang Internet Police reportedly “arrived” on Douyin—a ByteDance and video-sharing app—and built a “new public security and Internet social governance model” in 2018.99 In April 2019, the Ministry of Public Security’s Press and Publicity Bureau signed a strategic cooperation agreement with ByteDance to promote the “influence and credibility” of police departments nationwide.100 Under the agreement, all levels and divisions of police units from the Ministry of Public Security to county-level traffic police would have their own Douyin account to disseminate propaganda. The agreement also reportedly says ByteDance would increase its offline cooperation with the police department, however it is unclear what this offline cooperation is.

Tech companies have been piling into Xinjiang since the early 2010s. Huawei has been working for the Karamay Police Department on cloud computing projects since 2011,101 despite its debunked claims to work only with third parties.102 ZTE held its first Smart Cities Forum in Urumqi in 2013,103 and its ‘safe city’ solution has been largely used in surveilance and policing.104 In 2010, iFlytek set up a subsidiary in Xinjiang and a laboratory to develop speech recognition technology,105 especially in minority languages—technologies that are now used by the Xinjiang Government to track and identify minority populations.106

A surveillance industry boom was born out of the central government’s 2015 policy to prioritise ‘stability’ in Xinjiang107 and the national implementation of the Sharp Eyes surveillance project from 2015 to 2020.108 As of late 2017, 1,013 local security companies were working in Xinjiang;109 that figure excludes some of the largest companies operating in the region, such as Dahua and Hikvision, which had already won multimillion-dollar bids to build systems to surveil streets and mosques.110

Also in 2017, even with the central government halting some of the popular ‘PPP’ projects (public– private partnerships that channel private money into public infrastructure projects) that were debt hazards111 and tech companies becoming more cautious about investing in those projects, Xinjiang was an exception for about a year. Tech companies continued to hunt for opportunities in Xinjiang because funding for surveillance-related PPP projects in Xinjiang comes directly from defence and counterterrorism expenditure.112 However, in 2018, the debt crackdown eventually reached Xinjiang and a number of PPP projects there were also suspended. 113

A significant policy that encourages technology companies to profit from the situation in Xinjiang is the renewed ‘Xinjiang Aid’ scheme (援疆政策). Dating from the 1980s, these policies channel funds from other provincial governments to Xinjiang. Since the mass detentions in 2017 this scheme has encouraged companies in other provinces to open subsidiaries or factories in Xinjiang—factories that former detainees are forced to work in.114

A company can contribute to the Xinjiang Aid program, and the broader situation in the region, in many different ways. In 2014, for example, Alibaba began to provide cloud computing technologies for the Xinjiang Government in areas of policing and counterterrorism.115 In 2018, as part of Zhejiang Province’s Xinjiang Aid efforts, Alibaba was set to open large numbers of e-commerce service stations in Xinjiang, selling clothes and electronics.116 There’s no direct evidence that suggests Alibaba sells products sourced from forced labour. But clothing companies that have recently opened up factories in Xinjiang, because of favourable polices and an abundance of local labour—which can include forced labour117—have relied on Alibaba’s platforms to sell clothes to China, North America, Europe and the Middle East.118

Most of ByteDance’s activities in Xinjiang fall under the “Xinjiang Aid” initiative and the company’s cooperation with Xinjiang authorities is focused on Hotan, a part of Xinjiang that has been the target of some of the most severe repression. The area is referred to by the party-state as the most “backward and resistant”.119 According to satellite imagery analysis conducted by ASPI, there are approximately a dozen suspected detention facilities in the outskirts of Hotan.120 The city has seen an aggressive campaign of cemetery, mosque and traditional housing demolition since November 2018, which continues today.

In November 2019, Beijing Radio and Television Bureau announced its “Xinjiang Aid” measures in Hotan, to “propagate and showcase Hotan’s new image”—after more than two years of mass detention and close surveillance of ethnic minorities had taken place there. These measures include guiding and helping local Xinjiang authorities and media outlets to use ByteDance’s news aggregation app for Jinri Toutiao (Today’s Headlines) and video-sharing app Douyin to gain traction online.121 A Tianjin Daily article reported this April that after listening to talks by representatives from ByteDance’s Jinri Toutiao division, Hotan Propaganda Bureau official Zhou Nengwen (周能文) said he was excited to use the Douyin platform to promote Hotan’s products and image.122

Technology companies actively support state projects, even when those projects have nothing to do with tech. Also under the Xinjiang Aid umbrella, telecom companies such as China Unicom send their ‘most politically reliable’ employees to Xinjiang123 and deploy fanghuiju (访惠聚) units to villages in Xinjiang. ‘Fanghuiju’ is a government initiative that sends cadres from government agencies, state-owned enterprises and public institutions to regularly visit and surveil people.124

The China Unicom fanghuiju units were reportedly tasked with changing the villages, including villagers’ thoughts that are religious or go against CCP doctrines.125 Adding some of China’s more well-known technology and surveillance companies to the US Entity List was largely symbolic—after Huawei, Dahua and Hikvision were blacklisted in the US, Uniview’s president told reporters that, at a time when ‘leading Chinese technology companies are facing tough scrutiny overseas’, companies such as Uniview had the opportunity to grow and pursue their overseas strategies.126

Unfortunately, it’s extremely difficult for international authorities to sanction the circa 1,000 homegrown local Xinjiang security companies. However, as companies such as Huawei seek to expand overseas, foreign governments can play a more active role in rejecting those that participate in the Chinese Government’s repressive Xinjiang policies.

For example, the timeline of Huawei’s Xinjiang activities should be taken into consideration during debates about Huawei and 5G technologies. Huawei’s work in Xinjiang is extensive and includes working directly with the Chinese Government’s public security bureaus in the region. The announcement of one Huawei public security project in Xinjiang—made in 2018 through a government website in Urumqi127—quoted a Huawei director as saying, ‘Together with the Public Security Bureau, Huawei will unlock a new era of smart policing and help build a safer, smarter society.’128 In fact, some of Huawei’s promoted ‘success cases’ are Public Security Bureau projects in Xinjiang, such as the Modular Data Center for the Public Security Bureau of Aksu Prefecture in Xinjiang.129 Huawei also provides police in Xinjiang with technical support to help ‘meet the digitization requirements of the public security industry’.130

In May 2019, Huawei signed a strategic agreement with the state-owned media group Xinjiang Broadcasting and Television Network Co. Ltd at Huawei’s headquarters in Shenzhen. The agreement, which aims at maintaining social stability and creating positive public opinion, covered areas including internet infrastructure, smart cities and 5G.131

In 2018, when the Xinjiang Public Security Department and Huawei signed the agreement to establish an ‘intelligent security industry’ innovation lab in Urumqi. Fan Lixin, a Public Security Department official, said at the signing ceremony that Huawei had been supplying reliable technical support for the department.132 In 2016, Xinjiang’s provincial government signed a partnership agreement with Huawei.133 The two sides agreed to jointly develop cloud computing and big-data industries in Xinjiang. As mentioned above, Huawei began to work in cloud computing in Karamay (a Huawei cloud-computing ‘model city’ in Xinjiang)134 as early as 2011 in several sectors, including public security video surveillance.

In 2014, Huawei participated in an anti-terrorism BRI-themed conference in Urumqi as ‘an important participant of’ a program called ‘Safe Xinjiang’—code for a police surveillance system. Huawei was said to have built the police surveillance systems in Karamay and Kashgar prefectures and was praised by the head of Xinjiang provincial police department for its contributions in the Safe Xinjiang program.

Huawei was reportedly able to process and analyse footage quickly and conduct precise searches in the footage databases (for example, of the colour of cars or people and the direction of their movements) to help solve criminal cases.135

Since mass detentions began in Xinjiang over two years ago, state-affiliated technology companies such as those covered in this report have greatly expanded their remit and become a central part of the surveillance state in Xinjiang. Xinjiang’s crackdown on religious and ethnic minorities has been completed across the region. It has used and continues to use several different mechanisms of coercive control, such as arbitrary detention, coerced labour practices136 and at-home forced political indoctrination. Technology companies are intrinsically linked with many of those efforts, as the state’s crackdown offers ample opportunities for incentivised expansion and profitability.137
 

Conclusion

The aim of this report is to promote a more informed debate about the growth of China’s tech giants and to highlight areas where their expansion raises political, geostrategic, ethical and human rights concerns.

The Chinese tech companies in this report enjoy a highly favourable regulatory environment and are unencumbered by privacy and human rights concerns. Many are engaged in deeply unethical behaviour in Xinjiang, where their work directly supports and enables mass human rights abuses.

The CCP’s own policies and official statements make it clear that it perceives the expansion of Chinese technology companies as a crucial component of its wider project of ideological and geopolitical expansion, and that they are not purely commercial actors.138 The PRC’s suite of intelligence and security laws which can compel individuals and entities to participate in intelligence work139, and the CCP committees embedded within the tech companies (Chinese media has reported Huawei has more than 300 for example140) highlight the inextricable links between industry and the Chinese party-state.

These close ties make it difficult for them to be politically neutral actors. For western governments and corporations, developing risk mitigation strategies is essential, particularly when it comes to critical technology areas.

Some of these companies lead the world in cutting-edge technology development, particularly in the AI and surveillance sectors. But this technology development is focused on servicing authoritarian needs, and as these companies go global (an expansion often funded by PRC loans and aid) this technology is going global as well. This alone should give Western policymakers pause.

Increasing technological competition has the potential to deliver many benefits across the spectrum, but the benefits will not always accrue without good policy. If the West is going to continue to support the global expansion of these companies, it should, at a minimum, better understand the spectrum of policy risks and hold these companies to the same levels of accountability and transparency as it does its own corporations.


Acknowledgements

Thank you to Dr Samantha Hoffman and Nathan Ruser for their research contributions to this report and to the broader Mapping China’s Technology Giants project. Thank you to Fergus Hanson, Michael Shoebridge and anonymous peer reviewers for their valuable feedback on report drafts. And thank you to Cheryl Yu and Ed Moore for their research and data collection efforts.

What is ASPI?

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute was formed in 2001 as an independent, non‑partisan think tank. Its core aim is to provide the Australian Government with fresh ideas on Australia’s defence, security and strategic policy choices. ASPI is responsible for informing the public on a range of strategic issues, generating new thinking for government and harnessing strategic thinking internationally.

ASPI International Cyber Policy Centre

ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre (ICPC) is a leading voice in global debates on cyber and emerging technologies and their impact on broader strategic policy. The ICPC informs public debate and supports sound public policy by producing original empirical research, bringing together researchers with diverse expertise, often working together in teams. To develop capability in Australia and our region, the ICPC has a capacity building team that conducts workshops, training programs and large-scale exercises both in Australia and overseas for both the public and private sectors. The ICPC enriches the national debate on cyber and strategic policy by running an
international visits program that brings leading experts to Australia.

Important disclaimer

This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in relation to the subject matter covered. It is provided with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering any form of professional or other advice or services. No person should rely on the contents of this publication without first obtaining advice from a qualified professional.

© The Australian Strategic Policy Institute Limited 2019

This publication is subject to copyright. Except as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part of it may in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, microcopying, photocopying, recording or otherwise) be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted without prior written permission. Enquiries should be addressed to the publishers. Notwithstanding the above, educational institutions (including schools, independent colleges, universities and TAFEs) are granted permission to make copies of copyrighted works strictly for educational purposes without explicit permission from ASPI and free of charge.

  1. ‘Chinese police use app to spy on citizens’ smartphones’, Financial Times, 3 July 2019, online. ↩︎
  2. Mapping China’s Tech Giants, ‘Explore a company’, online. ↩︎
  3. China Eximbank is wholly owned by the Chinese Government. More detail can be found in Danielle Cave, Samantha Hoffman, Alex Joske, Mapping China’s technology giants, ASPI, Canberra, 2019, 10, online. ↩︎
  4. Lucas Niewenhuis, ‘1.5 million Muslims are in China’s camps—scholar’, SupChina, 13 March 2019, online. ↩︎
  5. Mapping China’s Tech Giants, ‘Welcome to Mapping China’s Tech Giants’, online. ↩︎
  6. Mapping China’s Tech Giants, ‘How to use this tool’, online. ↩︎
  7. Mapping China’s Tech Giants, ‘Glossary’, online. ↩︎
  8. Science and Technology Committee, ‘Oral evidence: UK telecommunications infrastructure’, HC 2200, House of Commons, 10 June 2019, online. ↩︎

The China Defence Universities Tracker

Exploring the military and security links of China’s universities.

This report accompanies the China Defence Universities Tracker website.

What’s the problem?

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is building links between China’s civilian universities, military and security agencies. Those efforts, carried out under a policy of leveraging the civilian sector to maximise military power (known as ‘military–civil fusion’), have accelerated in the past decade.

Research for the China Defence Universities Tracker has determined that greater numbers of Chinese universities are engaged in defence research, training defence scientists, collaborating with the military and cooperating with defence industry conglomerates and are involved in classified research.1

At least 15 civilian universities have been implicated in cyberattacks, illegal exports or espionage.

China’s defence industry conglomerates are supervising agencies of nine universities and have sent thousands of their employees to train abroad.

This raises questions for governments, universities and companies that collaborate with partners in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). There’s a growing risk that collaboration with PRC universities can be leveraged by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) or security agencies for surveillance, human rights abuses or military purposes.

Universities and governments remain unable to effectively manage risks that come with growing collaboration with PRC entities. There’s little accessible information on the military and security links of PRC universities. This knowledge gap limits the effectiveness of risk-management efforts.

What’s the solution?

Efforts to manage the risks of engaging with PRC universities should involve close collaboration between governments and universities. Both share a concern for protecting national interests, ensuring the integrity of research, preventing engagement from being exploited by rival militaries or for human rights abuses, and increasing the transparency of research collaboration.

The Australian Government should establish a national research integrity office and refine and enforce foreign interference and export controls legislation. It should use the China Defence Universities Tracker to improve the screening of visa applicants and inform decisions to award research funding.

Universities should be proactive in their efforts to concretely improve how research collaboration is managed.

The China Defence Universities Tracker is a tool to help universities and researchers understand institutions in China and avoid harmful collaborations.

Universities can use the recently published Guidelines to counter foreign interference in the Australian university sector to help review their management of collaboration.2 They should introduce clauses into agreements with PRC entities to terminate those agreements in the case of specific ethical concerns or indications of research going towards a military end use.

Universities could demonstrate their commitment to these initiatives by establishing independent research integrity offices that promote transparency and evaluate compliance with ethics, values and security interests, serving as administratively distinct bodies that avoid influence from internal university politics.

Introduction

Military–civil fusion is the CCP’s policy of maximising linkages between the military and the civilian sector to build China’s economic and military strength.3 The policy was promoted by President Hu Jintao in 2007 but has been elevated to a national strategy by President Xi Jinping, who personally oversees the Central Commission for the Development of Military–Civil Fusion (中央军民融合发展委员会).4 It has its roots in efforts dating back to the PRC’s founding, including policies such as military–civil integration and ‘nestling the military in the civil’.5

Many countries seek to leverage private industry and universities to advance their militaries. However, as scholar Lorand Laskai writes, ‘civil–military fusion is more far-reaching and ambitious in scale than the US equivalent, reflecting a large push to fuse the defense and commercial economies.’6

Military–civil fusion in China’s university sector has spurred efforts to increase academe’s integration with defence and security. In 2017, the Party Secretary of Beijing Institute of Technology, a leading university for defence research, wrote that universities should ‘stand at the front line of military–civil fusion’.7

‘National defence technology research requires the participation of universities’, according to the Chinese government agency overseeing efforts to safeguard classified information at universities. The agency describes universities as one of three parts of the national defence science and technology innovation system. Alongside defence conglomerates, which are responsible for large-scale projects and the commercialisation of defence equipment, and defence research organisations, which are institutes run by defence conglomerates or the military that are responsible for breaking through research bottlenecks and developing key components, universities undertake research at the frontier of defence technology.8

Military–civil fusion is tied to the government’s Double First-Class University Plan (世界一流大学和一 流学科建设 or 双一流) to build 98 of China’s best universities into world-class institutions by 2050.9

A 2018 policy document about the plan states that universities should integrate into ‘the military–civil fusion system’ and ‘advance the two-way transfer and transformation of military and civilian technological achievements’.10 The importance of international collaboration and foreign talent to the Double First-Class University Plan means that military–civil fusion, the improvement of China’s universities and research collaboration are becoming inextricable.11

While military–civil fusion doesn’t mean that barriers between the military and other parts of PRC society have vanished, it’s breaking down those barriers in many universities. At least 68 universities are officially described as parts of the defence system or are supervised by China’s defence industry agency, the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense (SASTIND, 国家国防科技工业局).

At the same time, universities around the world are expanding their collaboration with PRC partners. Much of that collaboration is mutually beneficial, but it’s clear that many institutions have not effectively managed risks to human rights, security and research integrity. While universities already have systems in place to manage these issues, they should be revisited and strengthened.

Recent cases have demonstrated gaps in universities’ management of research collaboration. For example, the ASPI International Cyber Policy Centre’s 2018 report Picking flowers, making honey: the Chinese military’s collaboration with foreign universities highlighted concerns about the high level of international research collaboration involving the PLA.12 Between 2007 and 2017, the PLA sent more than 2,500 of its scientists to train and work in overseas universities. Some of those scientists used civilian cover or other forms of deception to travel abroad. All of them were sent out to gain skills and knowledge of value to the Chinese military; all of them are believed to be party members who returned to China when instructed.

This report uses the ASPI International Cyber Policy Centre’s China Defence Universities Tracker to explain how many of the concerns raised by collaboration with the PLA increasingly apply to defence-linked Chinese universities, security organisations and industry conglomerates. The wedding of the military and the civilian in China’s universities has important consequences for policymakers and overseas universities engaged with partners in China.

To help universities, companies and policymakers navigate engagement with research institutions in China, the China Defence Universities Tracker is a database that sorts institutions into categories of very high, high, medium or low risk:

  • 92 institutions in the database have been placed in the ‘very high risk’ category
    • 52 People’s Liberation Army institutions
    • 8 security or intelligence-agency institutions
    • 20 civilian universities
    • China’s 12 leading defence industry conglomerates.
  • 23 institutions—all civilian universities—have been placed in the ‘high risk’ category.
  • 44 institutions—all civilian universities—have been placed in the ‘medium’ or ‘low’ risk categories.

The database is designed to capture the risk that relationships with these entities could be leveraged for military or security purposes, including in ways that contribute to human rights abuses and are against Australia’s interests. It provides overviews of their defence and security links and records any known involvement in espionage or cyberattacks, inclusion on end-user lists that restrict exports to them, and several measures of their involvement in defence research. While this project has uncovered large amounts of previously inaccessible information on PRC universities and research institutions, continued due diligence and research are required.

Research for the tracker was undertaken over the course of 2019. It focused on identifying key indicators of defence and security links at each university and developing reliable methods for evaluating those links. Institutions were included in the project for their military links, security links or known connection to human rights abuses or espionage. This research primarily used online Chinese-language resources from universities or Chinese Government agencies. We have attempted to archive all online sources using the Wayback Machine or archive.today.

China’s civilian defence universities

Many of China’s universities originated as military institutions but have since been developed into civilian universities that are increasingly competitive in global research rankings. However, developments over the past decade highlight the military and security links of more than 60 universities in particular.

The Seven Sons of National Defence

The ‘Seven Sons of National Defence’ (国防七子) are a group of leading universities with deep roots in the military and defence industry. They’re all subordinate to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (工业和信息化部), which oversees China’s defence industry through its subordinate agency, SASTIND.

The depth of the Seven Sons’ integration with the military suggests that it would be more accurate to describe them as defence universities than as civilian universities. In fact, they call themselves ‘defence science, technology and industry work units’ or parts of the ‘defence system’.13

Each year, more than 10,000 graduates from the Seven Sons join the defence research sector—just under 30% of their employed graduates. PhD graduates from these universities are particularly sought after, and as many as half of them go into the defence sector (Figure 1).14 State-owned defence conglomerates specialising in aircraft, missiles, warships, armaments and military electronics are among their top employers, alongside high-tech companies such as Huawei and ZTE.15

Figure 1: The percentage of employed 2017 or 2018 graduates of the Seven Sons working in the defence system

Note: Figures for Northwestern Polytechnical University and Harbin Engineering University are for 2017. The remaining figures are for 2018. Source: university graduate employment quality reports (毕业生就业质量年度报告).

The Seven Sons stand at the forefront of defence research in China. Hundreds of their scientists sit on PLA expert advisory committees and assist or even serve in major military projects, such as fighter jet or aircraft carrier programs.16 They dominate the ranks of defence research prize and defence technology patent recipients.17 One Chinese study of military–civil fusion in the university sector estimated that more than half the academics at the Seven Sons have been involved in defence projects.18 All seven have been accredited at the institutional level to participate in research into and the production of top-secret weapons and defence equipment.

They’re also among China’s best-funded universities. In 2016, the Seven Sons spent a total of ¥13.79 billion (A$2.88 billion) on research. In 2018, four of them ranked among China’s top five universities for funding per research staff member.19

Approximately half of their research spending goes towards defence research. Harbin Institute of Technology spent ¥1.973 billion (A$400 million), or 52% of its total research budget, on defence research in 2018.20 Beihang University spends roughly 60% of its research budget on defence research.21

Harbin Institute of Technology’s defence research spending alone is comparable to the Australian Department of Defence’s. The Australian Government’s most recent defence science and technology budget was just under A$469 million. Under current plans, that figure is estimated to decrease to A$418 million by 2023.22

Like the Seven Sons of National Defence, the ‘Seven Sons of the Arms Industry’ (兵工七子) are a group of Chinese universities previously subordinate to the Ministry of Ordnance Industry (兵器工业部), which was dissolved in 1986.23 Two of them—Beijing Institute of Technology and Nanjing University of Science and Technology—are also among the Seven Sons of National Defence (see box). All of them are still involved in researching and developing weapons.

Universities with national defence characteristics

Recent developments have pushed military–civil fusion far beyond the Seven Sons.24 Research for the China Defence Universities Tracker has identified 101 agreements signed between defence industry agency SASTIND (or its predecessor, COSTIND) and other agencies since 1999 to ‘jointly construct’ (共建) 61 universities subordinate to those agencies (see appendix).25 These agreements encompass leading national universities, such as Tsinghua University and Peking University, as well as provincial universities with strong foundations for defence research.

The Tracker also identifies similar agreements that show how defence industry conglomerates, such as China’s leading ballistic missile manufacturer, supervise nine universities.26 SASTIND’s joint-construction agreements have become far more common in recent years.

Fifty-seven of the 101 agreements were signed in the past five years. In 2016 alone at least 38 agreements were finalised (Figure 2).

Figure 2: SASTIND agreements on the ‘joint construction’ of universities (red bars denote agreements signed by SASTIND’s predecessor, COSTIND)

Through the agreements, SASTIND seeks to build institutions into ‘universities with national defence characteristics’ by expanding their involvement in training and research on defence technology and deepening their cooperation with defence companies.27 Specifically, it works to support the establishment of defence research laboratories, to fund defence-related research areas and to facilitate participation in military projects.28 This has led to the establishment of large numbers of defence laboratories and ‘disciplines with national defence characteristics’ (国防特色学科) in civilian universities, mostly in the past decade. More than 150 universities have received security credentials that allow them to participate in classified weapons and defence equipment projects.29

According to a university supervised by SASTIND, the agency aims to support five to eight defence disciplines and establish one or two defence labs in each university it supervises by 2020 (the end of the 13th Five-Year Plan).30 This hasn’t yet come to fruition and is unlikely to be fully achieved. Nonetheless, it may be the largest push to integrate universities into the defence research system since the beginning of China’s reform and opening, covering as many as 53 universities.31

Developing talent for China’s defence industry is an important objective of military-civil fusion in universities. In 2007, the Chinese government established the National Defence Science and Technology Scholarship to encourage high-achieving university students to join the defence sector.32

Every year, the scholarship is given to 2,000 ‘national defence technology students’ who are each sponsored by defence conglomerates or China’s nuclear weapons program to study in designated fields.33 After graduating, they are required to work for their sponsor for five years.34

Defence laboratories

The China Defence Universities Tracker has identified more than 160 defence-focused laboratories in civilian universities. It primarily catalogues three types of defence laboratories:

  • national defence science and technology key laboratories (国防科技重点实验室)
  • national defence key discipline laboratories (国防重点学科实验室)
  • Ministry of Education national defence key laboratories (教育部国防重点实验室).

By 2009, the Chinese Government had established 74 national defence science and technology key laboratories, all of which are jointly supervised by the PLA and SASTIND.35 The China Defence Universities Tracker has identified 39 in civilian universities; others are found in defence conglomerates and PLA units.

National defence science and technology key laboratories are the best funded and most prestigious kind of defence laboratory, holding the same status as state key laboratories. For example, Northwestern Polytechnical University’s national defence science and technology key laboratory for unmanned aerial vehicles has received over ¥420 million (A$87 million) in funding since its establishment in 2001.36

Thirty-six national defence key discipline labs, which are lower in status than national defence science and technology key labs and were first established around 2007, have also been identified.37

Ministry of Education defence laboratories are a previously unstudied kind of defence laboratory. Fifty-three of them have been identified at 32 universities. According to Shandong University, which hosts three of the labs, they are:

… approved by the Ministry of Education and entrusted to universities for their establishment in order to expand indigenous science and technology innovation for national defence, cultivate and concentrate high-level national defence science and technology talent, and engage in academic exchange and cooperation on national defence science and technology.38

One of these labs has been accused of carrying out cyberattacks for the PLA (see ‘Espionage’).

Many of these defence labs obscure their defence links in official translations of their names. National defence science and technology key laboratories often simply call themselves ‘national key laboratories’. For example, the National Key Laboratory of Science and Technology on Micro/Nano Fabrication jointly run by Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Peking University was established by the PLA in 1996.39 National defence key discipline laboratories are often known as ‘fundamental science’ laboratories. Ministry of Education defence labs are almost always referred to as ‘Ministry of Education Laboratory (B-category)’ (教育部重点实验室(B类)) or simply as Ministry of Education labs.

Designated defence research areas SASTIND approves ‘disciplines with national defence characteristics’, such as armament technology and materials science, at universities it supervises after an application process. They’re referred to in the China Defence University Tracker as ‘designated defence research areas’. The tracker identifies more than 400 designated defence research areas in universities. Since 2015, at least 280 of these were approved at 53 universities.40

Defence disciplines reflect each university’s specialities for defence research and serve as stepping stones for the establishment of prestigious defence laboratories. Shenyang Ligong University, one of the ‘Seven Sons of the Arms Industry’ supervised by SASTIND, stated that its defence disciplines are ‘a precursor and foundation for the university to apply to establish national defence key discipline laboratories’.41

It’s difficult to find detailed information on the operation of defence disciplines. However, one university wrote in 2018 that it expected to receive approximately ¥7 million (A$1.4 million) on average to develop each discipline.42 If that figure is representative, it indicates a doubling of the funding allocated to each discipline in comparison to a decade ago.43

Security credentials

‘Security credentials’ refers to the ‘weapons and equipment research and production unit secrecy credentials’ (武器装备科研生产单位保密资格) that are awarded to universities and companies at the institutional level. Security credentials are divided into three tiers: first class, second class and third class—roughly equivalent to top secret, secret and confidential clearances, respectively.44

The issuing of security credentials is overseen by National Administration of State Secrets Protection, the Central Military Commission’s Equipment Development Department and SASTIND, or their local equivalents.45

Security credentials allow their holders to participate in different levels of classified defence- and security-related projects. Universities with security credentials are required to meet certain standards in their protection and management of classified research and personnel.46 The credentials indicate a university’s involvement in defence projects, as well as the sensitivity of that work.

A top-secret security credentials plaque awarded to the Beijing Institute of Technology.

Source: Beijing Institute of Technology, ‘Our university passes the secrecy credentials examination and certification’, 24 April 2006, online.

As of November 2017, more than 150 universities had received security credentials.47 The tracker has identified eight universities with top-secret security credentials.

Military units don’t appear to be subject to this security credentials system but use it to scrutinise those they work with. For example, many procurement notices from the PLA require organisations submitting tenders to hold security credentials.48
 

Case study: The University of Electronic Science and Technology of China

The military links of the Seven Sons of National Defence are more widely recognised than those of an institution such as the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC) in Chengdu.

However, UESTC has more in common with the Seven Sons than a typical Chinese university. UESTC’s defence links date back to its earliest days. In 1961, six years after its founding, it was recognised by the CCP Central Committee as one of China’s ‘seven defence industry academies’.49

Since 2000, it’s been the subject of three agreements between defence industry agency SASTIND and the Ministry of Education designed to expand its role in the defence sector.50

In 2006, defence electronics conglomerate China Electronics Technology Group Corporation (CETC) also became one of the university’s supervising agencies.51 As part of its agreement to supervise the university, CETC stated that it would work with the Ministry of Education to support UESTC’s management and reforms, involvement in major research projects, establishment of laboratories and exchanges of personnel. CETC, which is expanding its overseas presence at the same time as its technologies enable human rights abuses in Xinjiang, remains one of the primary employers of UESTC graduates.52

UESTC hosts at least seven laboratories dedicated to defence research and has 10 designated defence research areas related to electronics; signal processing and anti-jamming technology; optics; and radar-absorbing materials.53 In 2017, 16.4% of its graduates who gained employment were working in the defence sector.54 Approximately 30% of its research spending in 2015 went towards defence research.55

UESTC also has links to China’s nuclear weapons program. In 2012, it was added to the US Government’s Entity List, restricting the export of US-made technology to it, as an alias of China’s nuclear weapons facility, the Chinese Academy of Engineering Physics. This indicates that UESTC had acted as a proxy for China’s nuclear weapons program.56 Its High Power Radiation Key Laboratory is jointly run with the Chinese Academy of Engineering Physics.57

The university has also been implicated in the rollout of surveillance technology in Xinjiang, where an estimated 1.5 million ethnic Uygurs and other minorities have disappeared into concentration camps. The dean of its School of Computer Science and Engineering runs a company that supplies video surveillance systems to authorities in Xinjiang.58

UESTC’s international partnerships have deepened despite its links to the military, nuclear weapons and potential human rights abuses. Its collaborations naturally align with its specialisations, which are also its main areas of defence research. For example, in 2016, with the University of Glasgow, it established a joint college in China that offers degrees in electronics.59 UESTC also runs the Joint Fibre Optics Research Centre for Engineering with the University of New South Wales in Australia.60

Espionage

China’s National Intelligence Law requires entities and individuals to cooperate with intelligence operations. However, that doesn’t mean that all PRC entities are equally likely to engage in espionage or related forms of misconduct. Military–civil fusion hasn’t meant that all universities are equally integrated into the military’s efforts. When analysing cases of espionage and illegal export involving Chinese universities, it becomes clear that institutions with strong military and security links are disproportionately implicated in theft and espionage. This can be helpful in establishing a risk-based approach to collaboration with PRC entities.

The China Defence Universities Tracker has identified at least 15 civilian universities that have been linked to espionage, have been implicated in export controls violations or have been identified by the US Government as aliases for China’s nuclear weapons program. Four of the Seven Sons of National Defence have been implicated in espionage or export controls violations. Harbin Engineering University alone has been linked to five cases, including the theft of missile technology from Russia.61

One of the Seven Sons has been accused of collaborating with the Ministry of State Security to steal jet engine technology. In 2018, US authorities arrested an officer from the Jiangsu State Security Bureau, Xu Yanjun, who allegedly sought to steal engine technology from GE Aviation. The US Department of Justice’s indictment of Xu describes how an executive at Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (NUAA) helped Xu identify and cultivate overseas targets.

Intelligence officer and part-time NUAA student Xu Yanjun after his arrest.

Source: Gordon Corera, ‘Looking for China’s spies’, BBC News, no date, BBC.

According to the indictment, the NUAA co-conspirator reached out to a GE Aviation engineer, inviting him to give a lecture at the university’s College of Energy and Power Engineering.62 The NUAA official then introduced the engineer to Xu, who used an alias and claimed to be from the Jiangsu Association of Science and Technology. Xu began cultivating the engineer and asked him to share proprietary information about fan blades for jet engines. NUAA has confirmed that Xu was also a part-time postgraduate student at NUAA.63

The establishment of defence laboratories fosters close relationships between researchers and the military that can be used to facilitate and incentivise espionage. For example, Wuhan University’s Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Aerospace Information Security and Trusted Computing has been accused of carrying out cyberattacks on behalf of the PLA.64 The laboratory is one of the Ministry of Education’s ‘B-category’ laboratories that focuses on defence research and doesn’t appear on Wuhan University’s main list of labs on its website.65 One Taiwanese report, citing unnamed intelligence officials, claimed that an office in Wuhan University is in fact a bureau of the PLA’s signals intelligence agency.66

The same Wuhan University lab has collaborated with and even sent a visiting scholar to an Australian university. A professor alleged to be the lab’s liaison with the PLA has co-authored research with a University of Wollongong cryptographer.67 One of the lab’s associate professors visited the University of Wollongong in 2010, participating in an Australian Research Council project.68

Public and state security links

As the NUAA espionage case shows, some Chinese universities work closely with the Ministry of State Security (MSS), which is China’s civilian intelligence and political security agency. The ministry was established in 1983 by merging units responsible for foreign intelligence, economic espionage, counterintelligence, political security and influence work.69 It has since grown into a well-resourced agency believed to be a prolific perpetrator of cyberattacks and intelligence operations against companies, governments and universities for political influence and economic espionage.70

The MSS operates at least two universities: the University of International Relations71 in Beijing and Jiangnan Social University72 in Suzhou. These universities train intelligence officers and carry out research to support the MSS’s work. The University of International Relations has exchange agreements with universities in Denmark, the United States, France and Japan.73

The MSS also leverages civilian universities for training, research, technical advice and possibly direct participation in cyber espionage. For example, a big-data scientist at Hunan University, which hosts the PLA’s Tianhe-1 supercomputer, serves as a ‘Ministry of State Security specially-appointed expert’.74 A professor at Tianjin University has been awarded a ‘Ministry of State Security Technology Progress Prize’.75 A professor at Southeast University has been awarded two projects under the MSS’s 115 Plan, which is a research funding program.76 Cybersecurity firm ThreatConnect identified links between Southeast University and a hack of Anthem, one of the US’s largest healthcare companies.77

The same attack was separately linked to the MSS by another cybersecurity firm.78 The MSS recruits hackers from top universities such as Harbin Institute of Technology, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications and Zhejiang University.79

The Ministry of Public Security (MPS), China’s police agency, is also building links with civilian universities. The China Defence Universities Tracker includes entries on several universities that operate joint laboratories with the MPS. Those laboratories carry out computer science and artificial intelligence research to assist the MPS’s policing capabilities. The ministry’s pivotal role in the abuse of ethnic minorities, religious groups and political dissidents makes it nearly impossible to separate legitimate and illegitimate uses of that research.

The overseas expansion of China’s nuclear weapons program and defence industry

Employees of military aircraft manufacturer AVIC graduate from Cranfield University in 2013.

Source: Zhang Xinguo, ‘Cooperation progress between AVIC & UK universities’, Aviation Industry Corporation of China, 5 May 2016, online.

China’s nuclear weapons program and defence industry have expanded their presence in foreign universities. State-owned defence industry conglomerates have established joint research and training programs in Austria, Australia, the UK, France, Germany and Switzerland. Scientists from China’s nuclear weapons program have been identified in universities across developed countries.

Defence industry

At least four of China’s 12 state-owned defence industry conglomerates (defence state-owned enterprises, or defence SOEs) have a substantial presence in overseas universities. Their work covers military electronics, aviation technology and missiles. These companies seek to increase their access to world-class training, expertise and technology through exchanges and joint laboratories with foreign universities (Table 1). Many of the collaborations involve organisations that are subject to export restrictions by the US Government, raising concerns about the effect they may have on military technology and human rights violations in China.

Table 1: Defence SOE joint laboratories or major investments in foreign universities

AECC = Aero Engine Corporation of China; AVIC = Aviation Industry Corporation of China; BIAM = Beijing Institute for Aeronautical Materials; CALT = China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology; CETC = China Electronics Technology Group Corporation; COMAC = Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China.

a: Victorian Department of Premier and Cabinet, ‘New hi-tech deal great for Victorian jobs’, media release, 24 October 2019, online.
b: Monash University, ‘Monash University and Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China sign MOU to accelerate aircraft development’, media release, 16 May 2017, online.
c: University of Technology Sydney, ‘New joint IET research centre with CETC’, media release, 26 April 2017, online.
d: University of Manchester, ‘Partnership with the Aero Engine Corporation of China’, media release, no date, online; BIAM – Manchester UTC, About us, no date, online.
e: BIAM – Manchester UTC, Research, no date, online.
f: University of Manchester Aerospace Research Institute, Sino-British Joint Laboratory on Advanced Control Systems Technology, no date, online.
g: China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT), Sino-British Advanced Control System Technology Joint Laboratory, 14 May 2016, online (in Chinese).
h: University of Manchester Aerospace Research Institute, Our research, no date, online.
i: CALT, The Rocket Institute has built 4 overseas R&D institutions, 13 May 2016, online.
j: The University of Birmingham is listed as the coordinator of the EMUSIC project. See EMUSIC, Participants, no date, online.
k: EMUSIC, Efficient Manufacturing for Aerospace Components Using Additive Manufacturing, Net Shape HIP and Investment Casting (EMUSIC), no date, online.
l: EMUSIC, EMUSIC mid-term report shows progress being made on improving manufacturing efficiency, 16 January 2018, online.
m: BIAM is a consortium member of EMUSIC. BIAM representatives are listed as project coordinators with members of the University of Birmingham, which is the university that leads the EMUSIC program. See EMUSIC, Contact us, no date, online; EMUSIC, Participants, online; European Commission, ‘Efficient Manufacturing for Aerospace Components using Additive Manufacturing, Net Shape HIP and Investment Casting’, Cordis, no date, online; EMUSIC, ‘Efficient Manufacturing for Aerospace Components Using Additive Manufacturing, Net Shape HIP and Investment Casting’, TRIMIS, no date, online; ‘Efficient Manufacturing for Aerospace Components Using Additive Manufacturing, Net Shape HIP and Investment Casting’, Cimne.com, no date, online.
n: EMUSIC, Efficient Manufacturing for Aerospace Components Using Additive Manufacturing, Net Shape HIP and Investment Casting (EMUSIC).
o: Department of European Affairs, ‘Zhongao Electronic Technology Innovation Center was established in Graz’, news release, Ministry of Commerce, PRC Government, 4 December 2015, online (in Chinese).
p: Das Land Steiermark, ‘Chinese IT giant is becoming a global player from Graz’, news release, 2 November 2016, online (in German).
q: European Sustainable Energy Innovation Alliance, ‘Cooperation with CETC on the internet of things and new energies’, news release, 21 October 2014, online.
r: CALT, Sino-British Joint Laboratory of Advanced Structures and Manufacturing Technology, 14 May 2016, online (in Chinese); University of Exeter, ‘Annual review 2015’, Issue, 5, online.
s: ‘Versarien PLC: Term sheet with Beijing Institute of Graphene Tech’, Financial Times, 15 April 2019, online.
t: University of Manchester, Partnership with the Aero Engine Corporation of China, no date, online.
u: CALT, The Rocket Institute has built 4 overseas R&D institutions; CALVT, Artificial assisted heart overseas research and development institutions, 14 May 2016, online (in Chinese).
v: CALT, The Rocket Institute has built 4 overseas R&D institutions.
w: CALT, Artificial assisted heart overseas research and development institutions.
x: CALT, The Rocket Institute has built 4 overseas R&D institutions; CALVT, Artificial assisted heart overseas research and development institutions.
y: Imperial College London, AVIC Centre for Structural Design and Manufacture, no date, online.
z: University of Strathclyde, Space Mechatronic Systems Technology (SMeSTech) Laboratory, no date, online.
aa: University of Nottingham, ‘Chinese aerospace business funds £3m University Innovation Centre’, media release, August 2012, online.
bb: University of Nottingham, Composites Research Group, no date, online.
cc: The centre was administered by AVIC before the creation of AECC in August 2016 and was called the ‘AVIC Centre for Materials Characterisation, Processing and Modelling’. A formal change of name took place on 12 July 2017. See Imperial College London, AVIC Centre, no date, online; Imperial College London, BIAM – Imperial Centre for Materials Characterisation, Processing and Modelling, Visit of BIAM delegation (31 October 2018), online; Imperial College London, BIAM – Imperial Centre for Materials Characterisation, Processing and Modelling, Events, no date, online.
dd: Imperial College London, BIAM – Imperial Centre for Materials Characterisation, Processing and Modelling, Visit of BIAM delegation (31 October 2018), online.
ee: The centre was administered by AVIC before the creation of AECC in August 2016 and was called the ‘AVIC Centre for Materials Characterisation, Processing and Modelling’. A formal change of name took place on 12 July 2017. See Imperial  College London, AVIC Centre, no date, online; Imperial College London, BIAM – Imperial Centre for Materials Characterisation, Processing and Modelling, Visit of BIAM delegation, 31 October 2018, online; Imperial College London, BIAM – Imperial Centre for Materials Characterisation, Processing and Modelling, Events, no date, online.
ff: Imperial College London, BIAM – Imperial Centre for Materials Characterisation, Processing and Modelling, no date, online.
gg: Imperial College London, BIAM – Imperial Centre for Materials Characterisation, Processing and Modelling, Projects, no date, online.

Missile technology

The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) and China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC) are the Chinese military’s leading suppliers of missiles, carrier rockets and satellites.80 The conglomerates claim to send dozens of scientists abroad every year to train in countries that include Australia, France, Italy, Japan, Russia, Ukraine, the UK and the US.81

CASC has a significant overseas presence through its subsidiary China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT), which develops space launch vehicles and intercontinental ballistic missiles.82 CALVT operates six joint labs in Europe and the UK that do research in areas such as additive manufacturing, aerospace materials and control systems.83

CALT scientists sent to work in its overseas labs are often involved in research on subjects such as hypersonic vehicles, missiles and heat-resistant aerospace materials.84 For example, Wang Huixia, who visited a CALVT joint lab at the University of Manchester in 2018,85 has published on missile flight simulation and missile countermeasures.86

CALT has a record of funding civilian technology with dual-use applications for missile systems. In 2013, it set up an ‘artificial assisted heart overseas research and development institution’ in collaboration with Germany’s RWTH Aachen University and Switzerland’s Northwestern University of Applied Sciences.87 State-owned news agency Xinhua noted in an article on CALT that the technology in artificial hearts is very similar to that in missile control systems.88

Aviation technology

The Aero Engine Corporation of China (AECC) and the Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC) are the primary suppliers of aviation technology to the PLA. AECC develops aircraft engines, while AVIC enjoys a monopoly in the supply of military aircraft to the PLA.89

Both AECC and AVIC have expanded their relationships with foreign universities by establishing joint laboratories, training programs and partnerships in Europe.90

AECC was established to develop China’s own aircraft engine supply chain.91 China’s military aircraft have long depended on other nations’ jet turbine technology, so the CCP hopes to build indigenous capabilities in this area, which may be advanced by its joint labs. An AECC subsidiary, the Beijing Institute for Aeronautical Materials (BIAM), operates three joint laboratories in the UK—two at the University of Manchester and a third at Imperial College London.92 All three labs study aerospace applications of materials such as graphene.93

AVIC has established two joint labs with the UK’s Imperial College London and the University of Nottingham.94 Its lab at Imperial College London focuses on topics related to aircraft design and manufacturing, such as ultralight aviation components and metal forming techniques.95 The lab is headed by a participant in the Chinese Government’s Thousand Talents Plan (a controversial scheme to recruit scientists from abroad), who explained that the university’s collaboration with Chinese companies can help them become ‘technology leaders’.96

The Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC), which is described as a defence industry conglomerate by the Chinese Government’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, has also expanded its ties with foreign universities.97 Monash University entered into a memorandum of understanding with COMAC in 2017, agreeing to host COMAC researchers and conduct collaborative research on aerospace materials.98 Through this partnership, the university supplied components for COMAC’s flagship aircraft, the C919, which many China analysts believe could be converted into a military surveillance aircraft.99

China’s defence aviation companies are also building ties in Europe and Australia through research collaboration and training programs. More than 700 AVIC engineers and managers have been sent to train at British, Dutch and French universities in the past 10 years.100 By 2020, the conglomerate plans to send a total of 1,200 of its researchers to study at institutions including Cranfield University, the University of Nottingham and the Institut Aéronautique et Spatial in France.101 In 2016, the Australian Research Council awarded A$400,000 to a joint project by the University of Adelaide and AECC on ‘superior rubber-based materials’.102

Military electronics

China Electronics Technology Group Corporation (CETC) is China’s leading manufacturer of military electronics such as radars and drone swarms. The conglomerate is a leading supplier of integrated surveillance systems, facial recognition cameras and mobile applications that have been linked to human rights abuses in Xinjiang.103 Hikvision, a major manufacturer of security cameras, is part of CETC’s stable of subsidiaries.

Since 2014, CETC has expanded its relationships with foreign universities, establishing joint laboratories in Europe and Australia. Its partnership and joint laboratory with Graz University of Technology in Austria, covering electronic information technology, laid the foundations for the establishment of its European headquarters in Graz.104

CETC’s relationship with the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) has attracted significant media scrutiny.105 The two began discussing a formal partnership in 2014 and agreed to establish a joint centre on information and electronics technologies by 2017.106 The centre was originally poised to receive up to A$20 million in funding from CETC over five years. Aside from its research on artificial intelligence, quantum information and big data, the centre was also set up as a training centre for CETC staff.

The partnership is still ongoing after a review in 2019, but UTS reportedly abandoned three of its joint projects with CETC after Australia’s Department of Defence raised concerns.107 Commentators have also drawn attention to the potential for UTS’s collaboration with CETC on ‘public security video analysis’ to contribute to human rights abuses in Xinjiang.108

Nuclear weapons program

The Chinese Academy of Engineering Physics (CAEP) is responsible for research into and the development and manufacturing of China’s nuclear weapons.109 It’s also involved in developing lasers, directed-energy weapons and conventional weapons.110

CAEP is expanding its international presence in order to attract leading talent to assist China’s development of nuclear weapons. Since 2000, CAEP researchers have published more than 1,500 papers with foreign co-authors.

In 2012, CAEP established the Center for High Pressure Science and Technology Advanced Research (HPSTAR) to better leverage foreign talent.111 The Beijing-based centre claims that it’s ‘committed to science without borders’ and uses English as its official language but doesn’t mention on its English-language website that it’s affiliated with CAEP. HPSTAR is run by a Taiwanese-American scientist who was recruited in 2012 through the Chinese Government’s Thousand Talents Plan—a scientific talent recruitment program that CAEP has used to hire at least 57 scientists from abroad.112

CAEP also sends large numbers of its employees to study abroad. In 2015, one of the academy’s officials claimed that hundreds of young CAEP researchers are sent to study abroad every year, which has ‘had clear results for building up young talents’.113

For example, Zhou Tingting, a researcher at CAEP’s Institute of Applied Physics and Computational Mathematics, recently worked as a visiting scholar at Caltech University’s Materials and Process Simulation Center in the US. The institute specialises in design and simulation computation for nuclear warheads and has been involved in at least two espionage cases. It’s been included on the US Government’s Entity List since 1997.114 While at Caltech, Zhou published research on polymer-bonded explosives that was funded by the US Office of Naval Research. Polymer-bonded explosives are used to detonate the cores of nuclear warheads.115

Zhou’s background also illustrates how China’s civilian universities serve as feeder schools for the nuclear weapons program. Before joining CAEP, Zhou studied at Beijing Institute of Technology—one of the Seven Sons of National Defence. As a student, she also visited the same Caltech centre to carry out research on explosives. Her supervisor at the Beijing Institute of Technology was an adviser to the PLA and the government on warheads and hypersonic vehicles.116

Figure 3: China’s twelve Defence Industry Conglomerates

Areas for further research

While the China Defence Universities Tracker includes entries for roughly 160 universities, companies and research institutes, it’s far from comprehensive. We intend to update and expand the tracker when that’s possible. In particular, there’s room for further research on the Chinese Academy of Sciences and its dozens of subordinate research institutes. Twelve of China’s defence conglomerates are included in the database, but their hundreds if not thousands of subsidiaries haven’t been publicly catalogued.

Nor have private companies and other major suppliers of equipment to the military and security apparatus been included in this project. Further research on the role of universities in supporting state surveillance and on companies that develop surveillance technology used in human rights abuses would be valuable.

Engaging with research partners in China

Better managing engagement with research partners in China will help ensure that collaborations align with Australia’s values and interests. A deeper understanding of PRC universities and the CCP will strengthen this engagement. Engagement should be built on robust risk management efforts, rather than on efforts to, on the one hand, cut out or, on the other hand, uncritically embrace interactions with PRC entities. Effective risk management won’t prevent collaboration between Australian universities and China. It won’t affect the vast majority of Chinese students studying in Australia.

Due diligence on research collaboration or visiting scholars and students should primarily take into account:

  • the nature of the engagement, such as the potential uses of a technology
  • the nature of the foreign partner.

University researchers are generally well placed to understand the nature of a technology and different ways a technology could be applied. This, in part, has led to a disproportionate focus on whether or not technologies have military or security applications; that is, whether they’re ‘dual-use’ technologies.

However, it appears that universities have insufficient expertise, resources and processes for understanding foreign research partners. Universities and researchers won’t be able to effectively scrutinise research collaborations without building better understanding of research partners. They should avoid collaborations with Chinese institutions on technologies that are also defence research areas for those institutions or could contribute to human rights abuses. Furthermore, some technology specialists aren’t used to considering ethics, values and security as a standard procedure when carrying out their research. The argument that research that leads to published papers is not of concern doesn’t consider the range of ways in which research, training and expertise can be misused by foreign partners.

Universities should set the bar higher than compliance with the law. As important civil society institutions, they should embody liberal values, especially in their interactions with overseas partners. As recipients of large amounts of public funding, they have an obligation to avoid recklessly harming human rights or national security, such as by training scientists from nuclear weapons programs or working with suppliers of surveillance technology used in Xinjiang. Universities should approach research collaboration as a way to promote ethical compliance, integrity and academic freedom rather than allowing collaborations to compromise their commitment to those values.

Recommendations for universities

1. Assess the situation.

  • Revisit existing collaborations, commissioning independent due diligence of concerning ones.
  • Review existing mechanisms for supervising collaborations and partnerships.
  • Apply particular scrutiny to engagement with high risk entities identified in the China Defence Universities Tracker.

2. Build capacity.

  • Establish an independent research integrity office:
    • The office should report directly to the vice chancellor.
    • It should be resourced to carry out due diligence and compliance work and be able to do country-specific research.
    • It should write annual reviews of research integrity in the university.
    • It should serve as an interface between security agencies and the university.
  • University research integrity offices or relevant staff members should form a working group across the university sector to share information and discuss threats.
  • Dedicate greater resources to due diligence and compliance work, including linguistic and country-specific capabilities.

3. Build a culture of proactive awareness of risks.

  • Hold briefings that are open to all staff on China, research collaboration and security by the government, university due diligence staff and scholars.
  • Encourage researchers to consider unwanted outcomes of research collaborations, such as contributions to human rights abuses.
  • Encourage researchers to consult the China Defence Universities Tracker when they’re considering collaboration or applications from visiting scholars and students.

4. Develop better systems for managing engagement with China.

  • Create general guidelines for informal and formal collaboration with PRC entities.
  • In all agreements with PRC entities, introduce clauses on ethics, academic freedom and security with provisions to immediately terminate partnerships if they’re breached.
  • Establish a travel database for staff that’s accessible to university executives and research contract, due diligence and research integrity staff.
  • Refine the approval process for collaborations with foreign entities:
    • Collaborations should consider risks to the national interest, national security, intellectual property, reputation and human rights.
    • The China Defence Universities Tracker should be used to inform decisions. Universities should avoid collaborating with Chinese institutions on technologies that are also defence research areas for those institutions.
  • Develop a policy on collaboration with foreign militaries, security agencies and defence companies
  • Use the China Defence Universities Tracker to improve the vetting of visiting scholars and students.
    • Visitors from the PLA, defence conglomerates or other high risk entities should be subject to greater scrutiny in light of their defence and security links.

5. Ensure the implementation of supervisory systems.

  • Enforce contracts and policies on conflicts of interest and external employment.
  • Introduce annual reviews of engagement with China and the management of research collaborations.
  • Introduce annual reviews of research integrity across the university.

Recommendations for the Australian Government

1. Increase and refine the allocation of government research funding, strengthening the government’s ability to encourage universities to better manage research collaboration.

  • In general, the government should seek to ensure that its research funding is being used in ways that align with Australia’s values, needs and national interests.
  • Federal funding agencies such as the Australian Research Council and the Defence Science and Technology Group should use the China Defence Universities Tracker to help investigate and consider the foreign military or security links of current and future funding recipients.
  • Federal funding agencies should ensure disclosure of conflicts of interest by grant application assessors.
  • Federal funding agencies should ensure that its policies on conflicts of interest and external employment are being followed by grant recipients.

2. Issue clear and public guidance to universities on specific areas of research with important security, economic or human rights implications that should be protected from unsupervised technology transfer.

  • The University Foreign Interference Taskforce could serve as a platform to begin developing this guidance in consultation with university representatives.

3. Reform the Defence Trade Controls Act 2012, developing solutions to the Act’s failure to control technology transfer to foreign nationals and foreign military personnel in Australia.
 

4. The Australian Federal Police and Department of Defence should enforce the Weapons of Mass Destruction (Prevention of Proliferation) Act 1995, which restricts the provision of services to assist weapons of mass destruction programs.

5. The Department of Home Affairs should incorporate the China Defence Universities Tracker into its screening of visa applicants.

  • PLA officers, PRC defence conglomerate employees and members of PRC security agencies should by default not be given visas if they intend to study dual-use technology in Australia.
  • The military and security links of university researchers, particularly those from universities whose government links have been identified in the China Defence Universities Tracker, should be scrutinised.

6. Establish a national research integrity office.

  • Its remit should cover universities, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, medical research institutes and any other recipients of government research funding
  • It should be mandated to produce public reports evaluating efforts to ensure research integrity across the higher education sector
  • It should be empowered to carry out investigations into research integrity
  • It should produce annual reports on research integrity across Australia
  • It should report to the Education Minister
  • It should conduct outreach to universities and researchers and consult them on the development of research integrity guidelines

7. Encourage the establishment of independent research integrity offices in universities.

  • The government should introduce a start-up funding program for universities seeking to establish independent research integrity offices.

8. Create an annual meeting of education ministers from Five Eyes countries to deepen research collaboration within the alliance and coordinate on research security.

9. Work with Five Eyes partners to establish a joint centre on managing sensitive technologies.

  • It should be resourced to monitor and assess the full course of China’s technology transfer activity, tracking China’s technology priorities and efforts to exploit resources in Five Eyes countries in service of those priorities.
  • It should identify where research on sensitive technologies is being carried out within Five Eyes countries and coordinate both innovation and security efforts.

10. The National Intelligence Community should increase resourcing for efforts to study China’s technology priorities and technology transfer efforts.

Appendix: Universities supervised by SASTIND

  • Anhui University
  • Beijing University of Chemical Technology
  • Central South University
  • Changchun University of Science and Technology
  • Chongqing University
  • Dalian University of Technology
  • East China University of Technology
  • Fuzhou University
  • Guilin University of Electronic Technology
  • Hangzhou Dianzi University
  • Harbin University of Science and Technology
  • Hebei University
  • Hebei University of Science and Technology
  • Hefei University of Technology
  • Heilongjiang Institute of Technology
  • Heilongjiang University
  • Henan University of Science and Technology
  • Huazhong University of Science and Technology
  • Hunan University
  • Hunan University of Science and Technology
  • Jiangsu University of Science and Technology
  • Jilin University
  • Kunming University of Science and Technology
  • Lanzhou University
  • Lanzhou University of Technology
  • Nanchang Hangkong University
  • Nanjing Tech University
  • Nanjing University
  • North China Institute of Aerospace Engineering
  • North China University of Science and Technology
  • North University of China
  • Peking University
  • Shandong University
  • Shandong University of Technology
  • Shanghai Jiaotong University
  • Shanghai University
  • Shenyang Aerospace University
  • Shenyang Ligong University
  • Shijiazhuang Tiedao University
  • Sichuan University
  • Soochow University
  • South China University of Technology
  • Southeast University
  • Southwest University of Science and Technology
  • Sun Yat-Sen University
  • Tianjin Polytechnic University
  • Tianjin University
  • Tsinghua University
  • University of Electronic Science and Technology of China
  • University of Science and Technology Beijing
  • University of Shanghai for Science and Technology
  • University of South China
  • Wuhan Institute of Technology
  • Wuhan University
  • Xi’an Jiaotong University
  • Xi’an Technological University
  • Xiamen University
  • Xiangtan University
  • Xidian University
  • Yanshan University
  • Zhejiang University

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Charlie Lyons Jones for his contributions. He would like to thank Fergus Hanson, Michael Shoebridge, Danielle Cave, Audrey Fritz, John Garnaut, Luca Biason and Jichang Lulu for their insights. He would also like to thank the analysts who helped build the China Defence Universities Tracker: Elsa Kania, Audrey Fritz, Charlie Lyons Jones, Samantha Hoffman and others.

What is ASPI?

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute was formed in 2001 as an independent, non‑partisan think tank. Its core aim is to provide the Australian Government with fresh ideas on Australia’s defence, security and strategic policy choices. ASPI is responsible for informing the public on a range of strategic issues, generating new thinking for government and harnessing strategic thinking internationally.

ASPI International Cyber Policy Centre

ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre (ICPC) is a leading voice in global debates on cyber and emerging technologies and their impact on broader strategic policy. The ICPC informs public debate and supports sound public policy by producing original empirical research, bringing together researchers with diverse expertise, often working together in teams.

To develop capability in Australia and our region, the ICPC has a capacity building team that conducts workshops, training programs and large-scale exercises both in Australia and overseas for both the public and private sectors. The ICPC enriches the national debate on cyber and strategic policy by running an international visits program that brings leading experts to Australia.

The work of ICPC would be impossible without the financial support of our partners and sponsors across government, industry and civil society. ASPI is grateful to the US State Department for providing funding for this research project.

Important disclaimer

This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in relation to the subject matter covered. It is provided with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering any form of professional or other advice or services. No person should rely on the contents of this publication without first obtaining advice from a qualified professional.

© The Australian Strategic Policy Institute Limited 2019

This publication is subject to copyright. Except as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part of it may in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, microcopying, photocopying, recording or otherwise) be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted without prior written permission. Enquiries should be addressed to the publishers. Notwithstanding the above, educational institutions (including schools, independent colleges, universities and TAFEs) are granted permission to make copies of copyrighted works strictly for educational purposes without explicit permission from ASPI and free of charge.

  1. The China Defence Universities Tracker was developed by a team of analysts at ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre including Alex Joske, Charlie Lyons Jones, Dr Samantha Hoffman, Elsa Kania and Audrey Fritz. ↩︎
  2. University Foreign Interference Taskforce, Guidelines to counter foreign interference in the Australian university sector, Department of Education, Australian Government, November 2019, online. ↩︎
  3. Jun-min ronghe 军民融合 is officially translated as ‘civil–military fusion’ and sometimes as ‘civil–military integration’ or ‘military–civil integration’. However, ‘military–civil fusion’ preserves the original structure of the Chinese phrase, and ‘military–civil integration’ should be more accurately used as a translation of an earlier Chinese Government effort, jun-min jiehe 军民结合. See also Elsa Kania, Battlefield singularity: artificial intelligence, military revolution, and China’s future military power, Center for a New American Security, November 2017, endnote 9, online; Audrey Fritz, China’s evolving conception of civil–military collaboration, Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2 August 2019, online. ↩︎
  4. ‘军民融合发展委成立 军工板块再迎重磅利好’ [Military–civil fusion development commission established; the military–industrial bloc again welcomes great benefits], Xinhua, 23 January 2017, online. ↩︎
  5. ‘我国军民融合产业发展概况’ [The status of my country’s military–civil fusion industry development], China High Tech, 15 April 2019, online. ↩︎
  6. Lorand Laskai, Civil–military fusion: the missing link between China’s technological and military rise, Council on Foreign Relations, January 29, 2018, online. ↩︎
  7. 赵长禄 [Zhao Changlu], ‘大学应站在军民融合的前线’ [Universities should stand at the front line of military–civil fusion], The People’s Daily, 18 March 2017, online. ↩︎
  8. ‘做好军民融合背景下的高校保密工作’ [Doing university secrecy work in the context of military–civil fusion], National Administration of State Secrets Protection, 27 February 2018, online. ↩︎
  9. ‘2018中国双一流大学排行榜,87所跻身全国百强’ [2018 list of China’s double first‑class universities, 87 universities in the top 100 nationally], The People’s Daily, 27 December 2017, online. ↩︎
  10. ‘教育部 财政部 国家发展改革委印发 《关于高等学校加快’双一流’建设的 指导意见》的通知’ [Notice on the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Finance, National Development and Reform Commission releasing ‘Directions and thoughts on hastening the double first‑class development of higher education institutions], chsi.com, 27 August 2018, online. ↩︎
  11. Audrey Fritz, ‘University involvement in military–civilian fusion: the driving force behind achieving the Chinese Dream’, senior thesis submitted to the University of Chicago, 17 April 2019. ↩︎
  12. Alex Joske, Picking flowers, making honey: the Chinese military’s collaboration with foreign universities, ASPI, Canberra, October 2018, online. ↩︎

A new Sino-Russian high-tech partnership

Authoritarian innovation in an era of great-power rivalry

What’s the problem?

Sino-Russian relations have been adapting to an era of great-power rivalry. This complex relationship, categorised as a ‘comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for a new era’, has continued to evolve as global strategic competition has intensified.1 China and Russia have not only expanded military cooperation but are also undertaking more extensive technological cooperation, including in fifth-generation telecommunications, artificial intelligence (AI), biotechnology and the digital economy.

When Russia and China commemorated the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China in October 2019,2 the celebrations highlighted the history of this ‘friendship’ and a positive agenda for contemporary partnership that is pursuing bilateral security, ‘the spirit of innovation’, and ‘cooperation in all areas’.3

Such partnerships show that Beijing and Moscow recognise the potential synergies of joining forces in the development of these dual-use technologies, which possess clear military and commercial significance. This distinct deepening of China–Russia technological collaborations is also a response to increased pressures imposed by the US. Over the past couple of years, US policy has sought to limit Chinese and Russian engagements with the global technological ecosystem, including through sanctions and export controls. Under these geopolitical circumstances, the determination of Chinese and Russian leaders to develop indigenous replacements for foreign, particularly American technologies, from chips to operating systems, has provided further motivation for cooperation.

These advances in authoritarian innovation should provoke concerns for democracies for reasons of security, human rights, and overall competitiveness. Notably, the Chinese and Russian governments are also cooperating on techniques for improved censorship and surveillance and increasingly coordinating on approaches to governance that justify and promote their preferred approach of cyber sovereignty and internet management, to other countries and through international standards and other institutions. Today’s trends in technological collaboration and competition also possess strategic and ideological implications for great-power rivalry.

What’s the solution?

This paper is intended to start an initial mapping and exploration of the expanding cooperative ecosystem involving Moscow and Beijing.4 It will be important to track the trajectory and assess the implications of these Sino-Russian technological collaborations, given the risks and threats that could result from those advances. In a world of globalised innovation, the diffusion of even the most sensitive and strategic technologies, particularly those that are dual-use in nature and driven by commercial developments, will remain inherently challenging to constrain but essential to understand and anticipate.

  • To avoid strategic surprise, it’s important to assess and anticipate these technological advancements by potential adversaries. Like-minded democracies that are concerned about the capabilities of these authoritarian regimes should monitor and evaluate the potential implications of these continuing developments.
  • The US and Australia, along with allies and partners, should monitor and mitigate tech transfer and collaborative research activities that can involve intellectual property (IP) theft and extra-legal activities, including through expanding information-sharing mechanisms. This collaboration should include coordinating on export controls, screening of investments, and restrictions against collaboration with military-linked or otherwise problematic institutions in China and Russia.
  • It’s critical to continue to deepen cooperation and coordination on policy responses to the challenges and opportunities that emerging technologies present. For instance, improvements in sharing data among allies and partners within and beyond the Five Eyes nations could be conducive to advancing the future development of AI in a manner that’s consistent with our ethics and values.
  • Today, like-minded democracies must recognise the threats from advances in and the diffusion of technologies that can be used to empower autocratic regimes. For that reason, it will be vital to mount a more unified response to promulgate norms for the use of next-generation technologies, particularly AI and biotech.

Background: Cold War antecedents to contemporary military-technological cooperation

The history of Sino-Russian technological cooperation can be traced back to the early years of the Cold War. The large-scale assistance provided by the Soviet Union to China in the 1950s involved supplying equipment, technology and expertise for Chinese enterprises, including thousands of highly qualified Soviet specialists working across China.5 Sino-Russian scientific and technical cooperation, ranging from the education of Chinese students in the Soviet Union to joint research and the transfer of scientific information, contributed to China’s development of its own industrial, scientific and technical foundations. Initially, China’s defence industry benefited greatly from the availability of Soviet technology and armaments, which were later reverse-engineered and indigenised. The Sino-Soviet split that started in the late 1950s and lasted through the 1970s interrupted those efforts, which didn’t resume at scale until after the end of the Cold War.6

Russia’s arms sales to China have since recovered to high levels, and China remains fairly reliant upon certain Russian defense technologies. This is exemplified by China’s recent acquisition of the S-400 advanced air defence system,7 for which China’s Central Military Commission Equipment Development Department was sanctioned by the US.8 Traditionally, China has also looked to Russia for access to aero-engines.9 Today, China’s tech sector and defence industry have surpassed Russia in certain sectors and technologies. For instance, China has developed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that are far more advanced than those currently operational in Russia.10 Nonetheless, the Russian military has been unwilling to acquire Chinese UAVs, instead deciding to attempt to develop indigenous counterparts in mid-range and heavy unmanned combat models.11 Nonetheless, for Russia, nearto mid-term access to certain Chinese products, services and experience may become the very lifeline that Russia’s industry, government and military will require in order to wean themselves off high-tech imports12, although even that approach may be challenged by limited availability of Chinese components.13

Underscoring the apparent strength of this evolving relationship, China and Russia have recently elevated their military-to-military relationship. In September 2019, the Russian and Chinese defence ministers agreed to sign official documents to jointly pursue military and military–technical cooperation.14 According to the Russian Defence Minister, ‘the results of the [bilateral] meeting will serve the further development of a comprehensive strategic partnership between Russia and China.’15

Reportedly, Russia plans to aid China in developing a missile defense warning system, according to remarks by President Putin in October 2019.16 At the moment, only the United States and Russian Federation have fully operationalized such technology, and according to Moscow, sharing this technology with Beijing could ‘cardinally increase China’s defense capability’.17 For China, access to Russian lessons learned in new conflicts such as Syria may prove extremely valuable as Beijing digests key data and lessons.18 Of course, this technological cooperation has also extended into joint exercises, including joint air patrols and naval drills.19

A strategic partnership for technological advancement

The strategic partnership between China and Russia has increasingly concentrated on technology and innovation.20 Starting with the state visit of Xi Jinping to Moscow in May 2015, in particular, the Chinese and Russian governments have signed a series of new agreements that concentrate on expanding into new realms of cooperation, including the digital economy.21 In June 2016, China’s Ministry of Science and Technology and Russia’s Ministry of Economic Development signed the ‘Memorandum of Understanding on Launching Cooperation in the Domain of Innovation’.22 With the elevation of the China–Russia relationship as a ‘comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for a new era’, the notion of these nations as being linked in a ‘science and technology cooperation partnership for shared innovation’ (作共同创新的科技合作伙伴) has been elevated as one of the major pillars of this relationship.23

To some degree, this designation has been primarily rhetorical and symbolic, but it has also corresponded with progress and greater substance over time. The Chinese and Russian governments have launched a number of new forums and mechanisms that are intended to promote deeper collaboration, including fostering joint projects and partnerships among companies. Over time, the Sino-Russian partnership has become more and more institutionalised.24 This policy support for collaboration in innovation has manifested in active initiatives that are just starting to take shape.

This section outlines five areas where the Sino-Russian relationship is deepening, including in dialogues and exchanges, the development of industrial science and technology (S&T) parks, and the expansion of academic cooperation.

Dialogues and exchanges

Concurrently, a growing number of dialogues between Chinese and Russian governments and departments have attempted to promote exchanges and partnerships, and those engagements have also become particularly prominent since 2016. While the initiatives listed below remain relatively nascent, these new mechanisms constitute a network of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) cooperation that could continue to expand in the years to come and provide the two countries with new vehicles for engagement and information sharing across their respective scientific communities.

  • Starting in 2016, the Russian–Chinese High-Tech Forum has been convened annually. During the 2017 forum, both sides worked on the creation of direct and open dialogue between tech investors of Russia and China, as well as on the expansion and diversification of cooperation in the field of innovations and high technologies.25 During the 2018 forum, proposed initiatives for expanded cooperation included the introduction of new information technologies. This forum wasn’t merely a symbolic indication of interest in cooperation but appeared to produce concrete results, including the signing of a number of bilateral agreements.26 In particular, the Novosibirsk State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering signed an agreement with Chinese partners on the development of technologies for construction and operation in cold conditions.27 The specific projects featured included China’s accession to the Russian project of a synchrotron accelerator.28
  • Beginning in 2017, the Sino-Russian Innovation Dialogue has been convened annually by China’s Ministry of Science and Technology and Russia’s Ministry of Economic Development.29 In the first dialogue, in Beijing, more than 100 Chinese and Russian enterprises participated, from industries that included biomedicine, nanotechnology, new materials, robotics, drones and AI, showcasing their innovative technologies and concluding new agreements for cooperation. During the second dialogue, in Moscow, the Russian and Chinese governments determined the 2019–2024 China–Russia Innovation Cooperation Work Plan.30 Each country regards the plan as an opportunity for its own development, as it combines the advantages of China’s industry, capital and market with the resources, technology and talents of Russia.31 Contemporaneously, forums have been convened in parallel on ‘Investing in Innovations’ and have brought together prominent investors and entrepreneurs.32 When the third dialogue was convened in Shanghai in September 2019, the agenda included a competition in innovation and entrepreneurship, a forum on investment cooperation and a meeting for ‘matchmaking’ projects and investments.33 The 70th anniversary of diplomatic relations will also be commemorated with the Sino-Russian Innovation Cooperation Week.34

Science and technology parks

The establishment of a growing number of Sino-Russian S&T parks has been among the most tangible manifestations of growing cooperation. Moscow and Beijing believe that scientific and industrial parks can create a foundation and an infrastructure that’s critical to sustained bilateral cooperation. Since so many of these efforts remain relatively nascent, it’s too early to gauge their success—yet the growing number of such efforts reflects growing bilateral cooperation.

  • As early as 2006, the Changchun Sino-Russian Science and Technology Park was established as a base for S&T cooperation and innovation. It was founded by the Jilin Provincial Government and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in cooperation with the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Siberian Branch and the Novosibirsk state of the Russian Federation.35 The park has specialised in creating new opportunities for collaboration and for the transfer and commercialisation of research and technology.36 Over more than a decade, it has built an ‘innovation team’ composed of colleges and universities, scientific research institutions and private enterprises.37
  • In June 2016, the plan for the China–Russia Innovation Park was inaugurated with support from the Shaanxi Provincial Government, the Russian Direct Investment Fund and the Sino-Russian Investment Fund. The park was completed in 2018, with information technology, biomedical and artificial intelligence enterprises invited to take part. According to the development plan, the park aims at research and development of new technologies and the integration of new tech with the social infrastructure of both countries.38
  • Also in June 2016, the Sino-Russian Investment Fund and the Skolkovo Foundation signed an agreement to build a medical robot centre and to manufacture medical robots in China with support from experts at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ School of Design and Technology.39 The state-funded Skolkovo initiative, launched in 2010, is Russia’s leading technology innovation space. The foundation manages many high-tech projects that include deep machine learning and neural network techniques.40
  • In June 2016, the China–Russia Silk Road Innovation Park was established in the Xixian New District of Xian.41 This initiative is framed as an opportunity to construct a modern industrial system as the main line of development, ‘striv[ing] to create an innovation and entrepreneurship centre with the highest degree of openness and the best development environment in the Silk Road Economic Belt’. This park welcomes entrepreneurs from China and Russia.
  • In December 2017, S&T parks from China and Russia agreed to promote the construction of a Sino-Russian high-tech centre at Skolkovo, which aims to become Russia’s Silicon Valley.42 The Skolkovo Foundation, which manages the site, agreed to provide the land, while Tus-Holdings Co Ltd and the Russia–China Investment Fund will jointly finance the project. This high-tech centre is intended to serve as a platform to promote new start-ups, including by attracting promising Chinese companies.
  • In October 2018, the Chinese city of Harbin also emerged as a major centre for Sino-Russian technological cooperation.43 This initiative is co-founded by GEMMA, which is an international economic cooperation organisation registered in Russia, and the Harbin Ministry of Science and Technology.44 At present, 19 companies are resident in the centre, which is expected to expand and receive robust support from the local government. Harbin’s Nangan District has expressed interest in cooperation with Russian research institutes in the field of AI.45
  • The cities of Harbin and Shenzhen have been selected for a new ‘Two Countries, Four Cities’ program, which is intended to unite the potentials of Moscow, Yekaterinburg, Harbin and Shenzhen.46 As of 2019, there are plans for the opening of another Russian innovation centre in the city of Shenzhen—a high-tech park that will concentrate on information technology47—enabling resident companies to enter the China market with their own software and technologies, such as big data and automation systems for mining.48

Joint funds

China and Russia are also increasing investments into special funds for research on advanced technology development.

  • The Russia–China Investment Fund for Regional Development signed on as an anchor investor in two new funds at Skolkovo Ventures to the tune of US$300 million in October 2018.49 This fund will also pour money into Skolkovo’s funds for emerging companies in information technology, which each currently have US$50 million in capital.50
  • The Russia–China Science and Technology Fund was established as a partnership between Russia’s ‘Leader’ management company and Shenzhen Innovation Investment Group to invest as much as 100 million yuan (about US$14 million) into Russian companies looking to enter the China market.51
  • The Chinese and Russian governments have been negotiating to establish the Sino-Russian Joint Innovation Investment Fund.52 In July 2019, the fund was officially established, with the Russian Direct Investment Fund and the China Investment Corporation financing the $1 billion project.53

Contests and competitions

Engagement between the Chinese and Russian S&T sectors has also been promoted through recent contests and competitions that have convened and displayed projects with the aim of facilitating cooperation.

  • In September 2018, the first China–Russia Industry Innovation Competition was convened in Xixian New District.54 The competition focused on the theme of ‘Innovation Drives the Future’, highlighting big data, AI and high-end manufacturing.55 The projects that competed included a flying robot project from Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics and a brain-controlled rehabilitation robot based on virtual reality and functional electrical stimulation.
  • In April 2019, the Roscongress Foundation together with VEB Innovations and the Skolkovo Foundation launched the second round of the EAST BOUND contest, which gives Russian start-ups an opportunity to tell foreign investors about their projects. This time, the contest will support AI developments.56 The finalists spoke at SPIEF–2019 (the St Petersburg International Economic Forum) and presented their projects to a high-profile jury consisting of major investors from the Asia–Pacific region.57

Expansion of academic cooperation

In July 2018, the Russian and Chinese academies of sciences signed a road-map agreement to work on six projects.58 The agreement joins together some of the largest academic and research institutions around the world and includes commitments to expand research collaboration and pursue personnel exchanges. The Chinese Academy of Sciences has more than 67,900 scientists engaged in research activities,59 while the Russian Academy of Sciences includes 550 scientific institutions and research centres across the country employing more than 55,000 scientists.60

These projects include a concentration on brain functions that will include elements of AI.61 The Russian side is motivated by the fact that China occupies a world-leading position in the field of neuroscience,62 including through the launch of the China Brain Project.63 The Russian Academy of Sciences delegation visited laboratories in Shanghai in August 2019 and commented on their counterpart academy’s achievements:

Brain research is a whole range of tasks, starting with genetics and ending with psychophysical functions. This includes the study of neurodegenerative diseases and the creation of artificial intelligence systems based on neuromorphic intelligence. Participation in this project is very important for Russia. China is investing a lot in this and has become a world leader in some areas …64

Priorities for partnership

Chinese–Russian technological cooperation extends across a range of industries, and the degree of engagement and productivity varies across industries and disciplines. As Sino-Russian relations enter this ‘new era’, sectors that have been highly prioritised include, but are not limited to, telecommunications; robotics and AI; biotechnology; new media; and the digital economy.

Next-generation telecommunications

The ongoing feud between the US and China over the Huawei mobile giant has contributed to unexpectedly rapid counterbalancing cooperation between Russia and China. In fact, President Vladimir Putin went on the record about this issue, calling the American pressure on the Chinese company the ‘first technological war of the coming digital age’.65 Encountering greater pressure globally, and this year in particular, Huawei has expanded its engagement with Russia, looking to leverage its STEM expertise through engaging with Russian academia. Since 2018, Huawei has opened centres first in Moscow, St Petersburg and Kazan and then in Novosibirsk and Nizhny Novgorod.66

Huawei also began monitoring the research capabilities of Russian universities, searching for potential joint projects, and in August 2019 the company signed a cooperation agreement on AI with Russia’s National Technology Initiative, which is a state-run program to promote high-tech development in the country.67 Based on a competition run by the Huawei Academy and Huawei Cloud, Russia’s best academic STEM institutions were selected.68 In May 2019, Huawei and the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences outlined areas and means of future cooperation.69

Underscoring its bullishness, China recently announced plans for a fourfold increase in its R&D staff in Russia going forward. In May 2019, the Huawei Innovation Research Program in Russia was launched, and Russian institutions have received 140 technological requests from Huawei in various areas of scientific cooperation.70 By the end of 2019, the company intends to hire 500 people, and within five years it will attract more than 1,000 new specialists.71 Huawei now has two local R&D centres in Moscow and St Petersburg, where 400 and 150 people work, respectively.72 By the end of the year, it plans to open three new R&D centres, and Russia will then be ranked among the top three Huawei R&D centres, after Europe and North America.73 The company plans to engage in close cooperation with Russian scientific communities, universities and other research centres.

At present, Russia doesn’t appear to share deep American concerns about security related to Huawei technology.74 Huawei has started actively expanding its 5G testing in the Russian Federation, partnering with Russia’s Vimplecom to test a 5G pilot area in downtown Moscow starting in August 2019.75 Commentators have stated that Russia, which isn’t considered a technological leader, has ‘the potential to get ahead globally’ now that it has Chinese high-tech enterprises as allies.76 During the summer of 2019 at SPIEF, Huawei continued to discuss with Skolkovo plans to develop 5G network technology at the innovation centre, and also to do research in AI and internet of things (IoT) projects.77

In fact, at that forum, Russia and China outlined a large-scale cooperation program in order to prepare a road map for future investment and cooperation on issues such as cybersecurity and the IoT.78 As US pressure on Huawei continues, there’s even a possibility that the Chinese company might abandon the Android operating system (OS) altogether and replace it with the Russian Avrora OS.79 If this transaction goes through, it would be the first time that a Russian OS has contributed to a significant global telecoms player.

Whether Huawei can become a trusted name in Russia’s tech sector and defence industries remains to be seen. There are also reasons to question whether Russia truly trusts the security of Huawei’s systems, but it may be forced to rely upon them, absent better options. As an illustration of potential complications, in August 2019, Russia’s MiG Corporation, which builds Russia’s fighter jets, was caught in a legal battle with one of its subcontractors over software and hardware equipment.80 The subcontractor in question, Bulat, has been one of Russia’s most active companies in riding the wave of the ‘import substitution’ drive in effect since Western sanctions were imposed on the Russian defence industry. However, in this case, Bulat didn’t offer Russian-made technology; rather, it used Huawei’s servers and processors.81 Although MiG did not say publicly why it didn’t pay Bulat, it appears that the aircraft corporation actually requested Chinese technology for its operations. 82

Big data, robotics and artificial intelligence

For China and Russia, AI has emerged as a new priority in technological cooperation. For instance, the countries are seeking to expand the sharing of big data through the Sino-Russian Big Data Headquarters Base Project,83 while another project has been launched to leverage AI technologies, particularly natural language processing, to facilitate cross-border commercial activities, intended for use by Chinese and Russian businesses.84 China’s Ambassador to Russia, Li Hui, said at an investment forum in the autumn of 2018 that the two countries should increase the quality of bilateral cooperation and emphasise the digital economy as a new growth engine, highlighting opportunities for collaboration in AI, along with big data, the internet and smart cities.85 Ambassador Li emphasised:

Russia has unique strength in technological innovation and has achieved significant innovations in many fields of science and technology. China and Russia have unique economic potential and have rich experience in cooperation in many fields. Strengthening collaboration, promoting mutual investment, actively implementing promising innovation projects, expanding direct links between the scientific, business and financial communities of the two countries is particularly important today.86

This bilateral AI development will benefit from each country’s engineers and entrepreneurs.87 From Russia’s perspective, the combined capabilities of China and Russia could contribute to advancing AI, given the high-tech capabilities of Russia’s R&D sector.88 While Russia’s share of the global AI market is small, that market is growing and maturing.89 In Russia, a number of STEM and political figures have spoken favourably about the potential of bilateral R&D in AI. At the World Robotics Forum in August 2017, Vitaly Nedelskiy, the president of the Russian Robotics Association, delivered a keynote speech in which he emphasised that ‘Russian scientists and Chinese robot companies can join hands and make more breakthroughs in this field of robotics and artificial intelligence. Russia is very willing to cooperate with China in the field of robotics.’90 According to Song Kui, the president of the Contemporary China– Russia Regional Economy Research Institute in northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province, ‘High-tech cooperation including AI will be the next highlight of China–Russia cooperation.’91

In fact, bilateral cooperation in robotics development has some Russian developers and experts cautiously optimistic. According to the chief designer at Android Technologies, the Russian firm behind the FEDOR (Skybot F-850) robot that was launched to the International Space Station on 22 August 2019, ‘medicine may be the most promising for cooperation with China in the field of robotics.’92

However, hinting at potential copyright issues with respect to China, he further clarified:

[M]edical robotics is better protected from some kind of copying, because if we [Russians] implement some components or mechatronic systems here [in China], then we can sell no more than a few pieces … But since medical robotics is protected by technology, protected by the software itself, which is the key, the very methods of working with patients, on the basis of this, this area is more secure and most promising for [Russian] interaction with the Chinese.93

Revealingly, concerns about copying are a constraint but might not impede joint initiatives, given the potential for mutual benefit nonetheless.

Indeed, advances in AI depend upon massive computing capabilities, enough data for machines to learn from, and the human talent to operate those systems.94 Today, China leads the world in AI subcategories such as connected vehicles and facial and audio recognition technologies, while Russia has manifest strengths in industrial automation, defence and security applications, and surveillance.95 Based on recent activities and exchanges, there are a growing number of indications that Chinese–Russian collaboration in AI is a priority that should be expected to expand.

  • In August 2017, the Russian Robotics Association signed agreements with the China Robotics Industry Alliance and the China Electronics Society with support from China’s Minister of Industry and Information Technology and Russia’s Minister of Industrial Trade.96
  • In October 2017, Chinese and Russian experts participated in a bilateral engagement, hosted by the Harbin Institute of Technology and the Engineering University of the Russian Federation, that focused on robotics and intelligent manufacturing, exploring opportunities for future cooperation in those technologies.97
  • In April 2018, Russia hosted the Industrial Robotics Workshop for the first time.98 The workshop participants included the leading suppliers of technology and robotic solutions, including Zhejiang Buddha Technology.99 The Chinese participants noted that the Chinese market in robotics is now stronger than ever and advised Russian colleagues to seek help from the state.100
  • In May 2019, NtechLab, which is one of Russia’s leading developers in AI and facial recognition, and Dahua Technology, which is a Chinese manufacturer of video surveillance solutions, jointly presented a wearable camera with a face recognition function, the potential users of which could include law enforcement agencies and security personnel.101 According to NtechLab, the company sees law enforcement agencies and private security enterprises among its potential customers.102
  • In September 2019, Russian and Chinese partners discussed cooperation in AI at the sixth annual bilateral ‘Invest in Innovation’ forum held in Shanghai. The forum outlined the possibility of a direct dialogue between venture investors and technology companies in Russia and China.103 There, the head of Russian Venture Company (a state investor) noted that ‘artificial intelligence seems to be promising, given the potential of the Chinese market, the results of cooperation, and the accumulated scientific potential of Russia.’104

Biotechnology

Chinese and Russian researchers are exploring opportunities to expand collaboration in the domain of biotechnology. In September 2018, Sistema PJSFC (a publicly traded diversified Russian holding company), CapitalBio Technology (an industry-leading Chinese life science company that develops and commercialises total healthcare solutions), and the Russia–China Investment Fund agreed to create the largest innovative biotechnology laboratory in Russia.105 The laboratory will focus on genetic and molecular research. Junquan Xu, the CEO of CapitalBio Technology, said:

[W]e are honoured to have this opportunity to cooperate with the Russia–China Investment Fund and Sistema … We do believe that the establishment of the joint laboratory will further achieve resource sharing, complementary advantages and improve the medical standards.106

New media and communications

Chinese and Russian interests also converge on issues involving new media. In 2019, Russia intends to submit to the Chinese side a draft program of cooperation in the digital domain.107 China recently hosted the 4th Media Forum of Russia and China in Shanghai with the goal of creating a common digital environment conducive to the development of the media of the two countries, the implementation of joint projects and the strengthening of joint positions in global markets.108 In fact, China’s side discussed joint actions aimed at countering Western pressure against the Russian and Chinese media.109 Both Russia and China aim to develop common approaches and response measures to improve their capacity to promote their point of view—a dynamic that the Chinese Communist Party characterises as ‘discourse power’ (话语权).110 According to Alexey Volin, the Russian Deputy Minister of Digital Development, Telecommunications and Mass Media:

If Twitter, YouTube or Facebook follow the path of throwing out Russian and Chinese media from their environment, then we will have nothing else to do but create new distribution channels, how to think about alternative social networks and instant messengers.111

Such cooperation in new media, internet governance, and propaganda extends from technical to policy-oriented engagements. For instance, at SPIEF–2019, Sogou Inc. (an innovator in research and a leader in China’s internet industry) announced the launch of the world’s first Russian-speaking AI news anchor, which was developed through a partnership with ITAR-TASS, which is Russia’s official news agency, and China’s Xinhua news agency.112 According to the official announcement, the Russian-speaking news anchor features Sogou’s latest advances in speech synthesis, image detection and prediction capabilities, introducing more engaging and interactive content for Russian audiences.113 ‘AI anchors,’ which are starting to become a fixture and feature of China’s media ecosystem, can contribute to the landscape of authoritarian propaganda. During the World Internet Conference in October 2018, China and Russia also plan to sign a treaty involving the Cyberspace Administration of China and Roskomnadzor about ‘combatting illegal internet content.’114

The digital economy

China’s tech giants see business opportunities in Russia’s nascent digital economy. Russia’s data centres are gaining increased capabilities as Chinese companies move into this market. Over the past year, more than 600 Tencent racks have been installed in IXcellerate Moscow One, becoming its largest project. Tencent’s infrastructure will be used for the development of its cloud services and gaming. This project opens up new prospects for Tencent in Russia, which has the highest number of internet users in Europe (about 100 million—a 75% penetration rate).115 All provided services, including the storage and processing of personal data, are expected to be in full compliance with Russian legislation.116 In late 2018, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd started establishing a US$2 billion joint venture with billionaire Alisher Usmanov’s internet services firm Mail.ru Group Ltd to strengthen the Chinese company’s foothold in Russian e-commerce.117 Usmanov is one of Russia’s richest and most powerful businessmen, and his fortunes depend upon the Kremlin’s goodwill as much as on his own business acumen. In this deal, Alibaba signed an accord with Mail.ru to merge their online marketplaces in Russia, which is home to 146 million people. The deal was backed by the Kremlin through the Russian Direct Investment Fund, and the local investors will collectively control the new business.118

Problems in partnership and obstacles to technological development

To date, Sino-Russian cooperation in S&T has encountered some problems. Those issues have included not only insufficient marketisation but also initial Russian reservations about China’s One Belt, One Road initiative, which has been closely linked to scientific and technological collaboration.119 Additionally, there’s evidence that there may still be significant trust issues that impede adopting or acquiring Chinese-made high-tech products for the Russian markets. For example, in a February 2019 interview, Evgeny Dudorov, the CEO of Android Technologies (which built the FEDOR robot), said in a public interview that his company did not want to adopt Chinese robotics parts ‘due to their poor quality’.120

China’s track record over IP theft may be a concern, but it doesn’t seem that Russia is presently as anxious as others about this issue.For instance, Vladimir Lopatin, the Director of the Intellectual Property Department at the Russian Republican Centre for Intellectual Property, sounded a warning about Chinese activities back in 2013:

[T]he prevailing practice of theft and illegal use of Russian intellectual property in the production of counterfeit products by Chinese partners has led to a widespread critical decline in the level of confidence in them from Russian academic and university science centres and enterprises. This is a significant factor in restraining the implementation of strategic initiatives of innovative cooperation between the two countries …121

However, such sentiment does not appear to be so widespread at present. For instance, the Russian media typically concentrates on US–China IP disputes while presenting Sino-Russian high-tech activity in a primarily positive light. Moscow today may be merely resigned, given the long history of Chinese reverse-engineering of Russian defence technologies, but it’s notable that the Chinese Government is publicising promises to enforce IP protection vis-a-vis its Russian counterpart, implying that perhaps a detente has been reached.122 At this point, Russia seems to be more concerned about China possibly stealing its best and brightest scientists—in September 2019, the head of the Russian Academy of Sciences expressed concern that Beijing seems to be successful in starting to attract Russian STEM talent with better pay and work conditions.123 He also seemed concerned that, due to its better organisation and development goals, China was becoming a ‘big brother’ to Russia in not just economic but scientific development and called for a study of China’s overall STEM success.124

At the same time, such bilateral cooperation isn’t immune to the internal politics and certain economic realities in both nations. For instance, in what was obviously an unexpected setback, Tencent admitted back in 2017 it was ‘deeply sorry’ that its social media app WeChat had been blocked in Russia, adding that it was in touch with authorities to try to resolve the issue.125 Russian telecoms watchdog Roskomnadzor listed WeChat on the register of prohibited websites, according to information posted on the regulator’s website. ‘Russian regulations say online service providers have to register with the government, but WeChat doesn’t have the same understanding [of the rules],’ Tencent said in a statement at the time. Equally important is Russia’s ongoing uphill battle in import-substitution of high-tech and industrial components, as a result of the sanctions imposed by the West in 2014 and 2015. Despite significant progress, Russia is still reliant upon Western technology procured by direct or indirect means, and Moscow is not always keen to embrace Chinese high-tech as a substitute.

In Russia, the most lucrative companies are entangled within semi-monoplistic structures close to the Russian Government. Those players are few in number and tend to wield enormous influence in the Russian economy. As a result, the possible high-tech contact nodes between Moscow and Beijing lead through a small number of offices belonging to the most powerful and connected individuals. The true test of the Sino-Russian bilateral relationship concerning high-tech products and services may be in attempting to expand to the medium- and small-sized businesses and enterprises offering the most nimble and capable solutions. For example, the head of Russian Venture Company, a state investor, noted the difficulties in creating tools for a joint venture fund:

We did not resolve the problem of investing in a Russian venture fund. Withdrawing money from China to Russian jurisdictions under an understandable partnership and an understandable instrument is nevertheless difficult.126

Moreover, for both China and Russia, a significant challenge remains: promising young scientists in both countries would prefer to work elsewhere, namely in the US. Some recent polls and anecdotal evidence point to a continuously strong desire for emigration among the best educated, and especially among those with already established international professional relationships.127 This is especially true for Russia. However, as its National Technology Initiative has observed:

We believe that everybody for whom the Californian comfort, sun, wine, mountains and oceans are important has already left Russia. Others realise that the wine, mountains and sea in Sevastopol are just as good.128

For China, the current paradox is that, while Beijing offers plenty of incentives for its STEM community to stay in the country, many researchers choose, in fact, to work overseas, particularly in American institutions.129 The establishment of numerous S&T initiatives outlined in this paper is meant to offset that trend, but the trajectory of so many efforts launched recently remains to be seen.

Conclusions and implications

The Chinese–Russian high-tech partnership may continue to progress in the coming years, as both countries look to leverage each other’s capabilities to advance high-tech developments. China is clearly approaching Russia for its STEM R&D and S&T proficiencies, and Russia seems to be happy to integrate itself more into Chinese high-tech capabilities, and yet it is Beijing that emerges as a dominant player in this bilateral cooperation, while Russia tends to find itself in a position of relative disadvantage. Russia lacks such giants as China’s Baidu, Tencent and Alibaba, which are starting to expand globally, including into the Russian market.130 Nonetheless, as the Russian Government seeks to jump-start its own indigenous innovation, China is seen as a means to an end—and vice versa.

After all, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Maxim Akimov told reporters on the sidelines of the VI Russia–China Expo in Harbin that Russia is interested in cooperation with China in the cybersecurity sphere and in the development of technology solutions: ‘We keep a close eye on the experience of Chinese colleagues.’131

However, the future trajectory of this relationship could be complicated by questions of status and standing, not to mention politics and bureaucracy, as such projects, financing and research accelerate.

Russia may benefit from its embrace of China’s technology prowess and financing, but the full range of risks and potential externalities is still emerging and perhaps poorly understood. As Sino-Russian partnership has deepened, observers of this complex relationship have often anticipated some kind of ‘break’ in the ongoing Russo-Chinese ‘entente’.132 Many commentators find it difficult to believe that countries with such global ambitions and past historical grievances can place much trust in each other.

Certainly, there have been subtle indications of underlying friction, including Russia’s initial reluctance to embrace Xi’s signature One Belt, One Road initiative, to which Moscow has since warmed, or so it seems.

Going forward, high-tech cooperation between Moscow and Beijing appears likely to deepen and accelerate in the near term, based on current trends and initiatives. In a world of globalised innovation, scientific knowledge and advanced technologies have been able to cross borders freely over the past quarter of a century. China and Russia have been able to take advantage of free and open STEM development, from life sciences to information technology and emerging technologies, applying the results to their own distinctive technological ecosystems. Today, however, as new policies and countermeasures are introduced to limit that access, China and Russia are seeking to develop and demonstrate the dividends from a new model for scientific cooperation that relies less and less on foreign, and especially American, expertise and technology, instead seeking independence in innovation and pursuing developments that may have strategic implications.

Policy considerations and recommendations

In response to these trends and emerging challenges, like-minded democracies, particularly the Five Eyes states, should pursue courses of action that include the following measures.

  • Track the trajectory of China–Russia tech collaborations to mitigate the risks of technological surprise and have early warning of future threats. This calls for better awareness of Sino-Russian joint high-tech efforts among the Five Eyes states, in conjunction with allies and partners and relevant stakeholders, that goes beyond the hype of media headlines by developing better expertise on and understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of Russian and Chinese technological developments.
  • Monitor and respond to tech transfer activities that involve IP theft or the extra-legal acquisition of technologies that have dual-use or military potential, including those activities where there is a nexus between companies and universities with Russian and Chinese links. The US and Australia, along with their allies and partners, should coordinate on export controls, screening of investment and restrictions against collaborations with military-linked or otherwise problematic institutions in China and Russia. Otherwise, unilateral responses will prove inadequate to counter the global threat of Chinese industrial espionage, which is undertaken through a range of tech transfer tactics and is truly international in scope at scale.133
  • Deepen cooperation among allies and partners on emerging technologies, including by pursuing improvements in data sharing. The US and Australia should promote greater technological collaboration between Five Eyes governments in the high-tech sectors that are shared priorities in order to maintain an edge relative to competitors. For instance, arrangements for sharing of data among allies and partners could contribute to advances in important applications of AI. To compete, it will be critical to increase funding for STEM and high-tech programs and education in the Five Eyes countries.
  • Promulgate norms and ethical frameworks for the use of next-generation technologies, particularly AI, that are consistent with liberal values and democratic governance. In the process, the US and Australia, along with concerned democracies worldwide, should mount a more coordinated response to Russian and Chinese promotion of the concept of cyber sovereignty as a means of justifying repressive approaches to managing the internet and their advancement of AI for censorship and surveillance.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Danielle Cave, Fergus Hanson, Alex Joske, Rob Lee and Michael Shoebridge for helpful comments and suggestions on the paper.

What is ASPI?

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute was formed in 2001 as an independent, non‑partisan think tank. Its core aim is to provide the Australian Government with fresh ideas on Australia’s defence, security and strategic policy choices. ASPI is responsible for informing the public on a range of strategic issues, generating new thinking for government and harnessing strategic thinking internationally.

ASPI International Cyber Policy Centre

ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre (ICPC) is a leading voice in global debates on cyber and emerging technologies and their impact on broader strategic policy. The ICPC informs public debate and supports sound public policy by producing original empirical research, bringing together researchers with diverse expertise, often working together in teams. To develop capability in Australia and our region, the ICPC has a capacity building team that conducts workshops, training programs and large-scale exercises both in Australia and overseas for both the public and private sectors. The ICPC enriches the national debate on cyber and strategic policy by running an international visits program that brings leading experts to Australia.

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  1. ‘China, Russia agree to upgrade relations for new era’, Xinhua, 6 June 2019, online. ↩︎
  2. ‘Russia and China celebrate 70 years of the establishment of diplomatic relations’ [Россия и Китай отмечают 70-летие установления дипотношений], TVC.ru, 30 September 2019, online. ↩︎
  3. Official evening commemorating 70th years of diplomatic relations between Russia and China (Вечер, посвящённый 70-летию установления дипломатических отношений между Россией и Китаем), Official website of the Russian President, June 5, 2019 ↩︎
  4. This paper uses entirely open sources, and there are inherently limitations in the information that is accessible. Nonetheless, we hope this is a useful overview that leverages publicly available information to explore current trends. ↩︎

Engineering global consent: The Chinese Communist Party’s data-driven power expansion

The Chinese party-state engages in data collection on a massive scale as a means of generating information to enhance state security—and, crucially, the political security of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)—across multiple domains. The party-state intends to shape, manage and control its global operating environment so that public sentiment is favourable to its own interests. The party’s interests are prioritised over simply the Chinese state’s interests or simply the Chinese people’s interests. The effort requires continuous expansion of the party’s power overseas because, according to its own articulation of its threat perceptions, external risks to its power are just as likely—if not more likely—to emerge from outside the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) borders as from within.

This report explains how the party-state’s tech-enhanced authoritarianism is expanding globally. The effort doesn’t always involve distinctly coercive and overtly invasive technology, such as surveillance cameras. In fact, it often relies on technologies that provide useful services. Those services are designed to bring efficiency to everyday governance and convenience to everyday life. The problem is that it’s not only the customer deploying these technologies—notably those associated with ‘smart cities’, such as ‘internet of things’ (IoT) devices—that derives benefit from their use. Whoever has the opportunity to access the data a product generates and collects can derive value from the data. How the data is processed, and then used, depends on the intent of the actor processing it.

Designing for resilient energy systems: Choices in future engineering

v

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Areality of modern times is the public expectation that not only will flows of potable water from their taps and home sewage systems simply always be there, but their lights will always turn on at the flick of a switch. An enabler that underpinning all these expectations is an effective and efficient electricity supply.

These services along with transport, and telecommunication systems are universally considered to be essential for raising the quality of life for humans. Access to these services is also a central factor in the productivity of firms and thus of entire economies, making them a key enabler of economic development.

What do young Australian engineers who have inherited our present world think about the challenges of designing resilient energy systems within the parameters of new and emerging technologies? Commissioned by Engineers Australia in partnership with ASPI, this report presents the thoughts of four young engineers on innovative energy design projects they are currently working on, as well as their views on the challenges they foresee for the design of future energy systems. These four sections are bookended by the views of two established leaders within the engineering profession.

Tweeting through the Great Firewall

Preliminary Analysis of PRC-linked Information Operations on the Hong Kong Protests

Introduction

On August 19th 2019, Twitter released data on a network of accounts which it has identified as being involved in an information operation directed against the protests in Hong Kong. After a tip-off from Twitter, Facebook also dismantled a smaller information network operating on its platform. This network has been identified as being linked to the Chinese government. 

Researchers from the International Cyber Policy Centre (ICPC) at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute have conducted a preliminary analysis of the dataset. Our research indicates that the information operation targeted at the protests appears to have been a relatively small and hastily assembled operation rather than a sophisticated information campaign planned well in advance.

However, our research has also found that the accounts included in the information operation identified by Twitter were active in earlier information operations targeting political opponents of the Chinese government, including an exiled billionaire, a human rights lawyer, a bookseller and protestors in mainland China. The earliest of these operations date back to April 2017.

This is significant because—if the attribution to state-backed actors made by Twitter is correct—it indicates that actors linked to the Chinese government may have been running covert information operations on Western social media platforms for at least two years. 

Methodology

This analysis used a mixed-methods approach combining quantitative analysis of bulk Twitter data with qualitative analysis of tweet content.

The dataset for quantitative analysis was the tweets and accounts identified by Twitter as being associated with a state-backed information operation targeting Hong Kong and is available here.

This dataset consisted of 

  • account information about the 940 accounts Twitter suspended from their service
    • The oldest account was created in December 2007, although half of accounts were created after August 2017 
  • 3.6 million tweets from these accounts, ranging from December 2007 to May 2019

The R statistics package was used for quantitative analysis, which informed phases of social network analysis (using Gephi) and qualitative content analysis.

Research limitations: ICPC does not have access to the relevant data to independently verify that these accounts are linked to the Chinese government; this research proceeds on the assumption that Twitter’s attribution is correct. It is also important to note that Twitter has not released the methodology by which this dataset was selected, and the dataset may not represent a complete picture of Chinese state-linked information operations on Twitter.

Information operation against Hong Kong protests

Indications of a hastily constructed campaign

Carefully crafted, long-running influence operations on social media will have tight network clusters that delineate target audiences. We explored the retweet patterns across the Twitter take-down data from June 2019 – as the network was mobilising to target the Hong Kong protests – and did not find a network that suggested sophisticated coordination. Topics of interest to the PRC emerge in the dataset from mid-2017 but there is little attempt to target online communities with any degree of psychological sophistication.

There have been suggestions that Taiwanese social media, during recent gubernatorial elections, had been manipulated by suspicious public relations contractors operating as proxies for the Chinese government. It is notable that the network targeting the Hong Kong protests was not cultivated to influence targeted communities; it too acted like a marketing spam network. These accounts did not attempt to behave in ways that would have integrated them into – and positioned them to influence – online communities. This lack of coordination was reflected in the messaging. Audiences were not steered into self-contained disinformation ecosystems external to Twitter, nor were hashtags used to build audience, then drive the amplification of specific political positions. As this network was mobilising against the Hong Kong protests, several nodes in the time-sliced retweet data (see Figure 1) were accounts to promote the sex industry, accounts that would have gained attention because of the nature of their content. These central nodes were not accounts that had invested in cultivating engagement with target audiences (beyond their previous marketing function). These accounts spammed retweets at others outside the network in attempts to get engagement rather than working together to drive amplification of a consistent message.

Figure 1: Retweet network from June 2019, derived from Twitter’s take-down data, showing the significant presence of likely pornography-related accounts within the coordinated network that targeted the Hong Kong protests.

This was a blunt–force influence operation, using spam accounts to disseminate messaging, leveraging an influence-for-hire network. The predominant use of Chinese language suggests that the target audiences were Hong Kongers and the overseas diaspora.

This operation is in stark contrast to the efforts of Russia’s Internet Research Agency (IRA) to target US political discourse, particularly through 2015-2017.

The Russian effort displayed well-planned coordination. Analysis of IRA account data has shown that networks of influence activity cluster around identity or issue-based online communities. IRA accounts disseminated messaging that inflamed both sides of the debates around controversial issues in order to further the divide between protagonist communities. High-value and long-running personas cultivated influence within US political discourse. These accounts were retweeted by political figures, and quoted by media outlets.

The IRA sent four staff to the US to undertake ‘market research’ as the IRA geared up its election meddling campaign. The IRA campaign displayed clear understanding of audience segmentation, colloquial language, and the ways in which online communities framed their identities and political stances.

In contrast, this PRC-linked operation is clumsily re-purposed and reactive. Freedom of expression on China’s domestic internet is framed by a combination of top-down technocratic control managed by the Cyberspace Administration of China and devolved, crowdsourced content regulation by government entities, industry and Chinese netizens. Researchers have suggested that Chinese government efforts to shape sentiment on the domestic internet go beyond these approaches. One study estimated that the Chinese government pays for as many as 448 million inauthentic social media posts and comments a year. The aim is to distract the population from social mobilisation and collective forms of protest action. This approach to manipulating China’s domestic internet appears to be much less effective on Western social media platforms that are not bounded by state control.

Yet, the CCP continues to use blunt efforts to grow the reach, impact and influence of its narratives abroad. Elements of the party propaganda apparatus – including the foreign media wing of the United Front Work Department – have issued (as recently as 16 August) tenders for contracts to grow their international influence on Twitter, with specific targets for numbers of followers in particular countries.

In the longer term, China’s investments in AI may lift its capacity to target and manipulate international social media audiences. However, this operation lacks the sophistication of those deployed by other significant state proponents of cyber-enabled influence operations; particularly Iran and Russia, who have demonstrated the capacity to operate with some degree of subtlety across linguistic and cultural boundaries.

This was the quintessential authoritarian approach to influence – one-way floods of messaging, primarily at Hong Kongers.

Use of repurposed spam accounts

Many of the accounts included in the Twitter dataset are repurposed spam or marketing accounts. Such accounts are readily and cheaply available for purchase from resellers, often for a few dollars or less. Accounts in the dataset have tweeted in a variety of languages including Indonesian, Arabic, English, Korean, Japanese and Russian, and on topics ranging from British football to Indonesian tech support, Korean boy bands and pornography.

This graph shows the language used in tweets over time, (although Twitter did not automatically detect language in tweets prior to 2013). The dataset includes accounts tweeting in a variety of languages over a long period of time. Chinese language tweets appear more often after mid-2017.

This map shows the self-reported locations of the accounts suspended by twitter, color-coded for the language they tweeted in. These locations do not reliably indicate the true location of the account-holder, but in this data set there is a discrepancy between language and location. The self-reported locations are likely to reflect the former nature of the accounts as spam and marketing bots – i.e., they report their locations in developed markets where the consumers they are targeting are located in order to make the accounts appear more credible, even if the true operators of the account are based somewhere else entirely.

Evidence of reselling is clearly present in the dataset. Over 630 tweets within the dataset contain phrases like ‘test new owner’, ‘test’, ‘new own’, etc. As an example, the account @SamanthxBerg tweeted in Indonesian on the 2nd of October 2016, ‘lelang acc f/t 14k/135k via duit. minat? rep aja’ – meaning that the @SamanthxBerg account with 14,000 followers and following 135,000 users, was up for auction. The next tweet on 6th October 2016 reads ‘i just become the new owner, wanna be my friend?.’

  • tweetid: 782380635990200320
  • Time stamp: 2016-10-02 00:44:00 UTC
  • userid: 769790067183190016
  • User display name: 阿丽木琴
  • User screen name: SamanthxBerg
  • Tweet text: PLAYMFS: #ptl lelang acc f/t 14k/135k via duit. minat? rep aja

Use of these kinds of accounts suggests that the operators behind the information operation did not have time to establish the kinds of credible digital assets used in the Russian campaign targeting the US 2016 elections. Building that kind of ‘influence infrastructure’ takes time and the situation in Hong Kong was evolving too rapidly, so it appears that the actors behind this campaign effectively took a short-cut by buying established accounts with many followers.

 

Timeline of activity

The amount of content directly targeting the Hong Kong protests makes up only a relatively small fraction of the total dataset released by Twitter, comprising just 112 accounts and approximately 1600 tweets, of which the vast majority are in Chinese with a much smaller number in English.

Content relevant to the current crisis in Hong Kong appears to have begun on 14 April 2019, when the account @HKpoliticalnew (profile description: Love Hong Kong, love China. We should pay attention to current policies and people’s livelihood. 愛港、愛國,關注時政、民生。) tweeted about the planned amendments to the extradition bill. Tweets in the released dataset mentioning Hong Kong continued at the pace of a few tweets every few days, steadily increasing over April and May, until a significant spike on 14 June, the day of a huge protest in which over a million Hong Kongers (1 in 7) marched in protest against the extradition bill.

Hong Kong related tweets per day from 14 April 2019 to 25 July 2019.

Thereafter, spikes in activity correlate with significant developments in the protests. A major spike occurred on 1 July, the day when protestors stormed the Legislative Council building. This is also the start of the English-language tweets, presumably in response to the growing international interest in the Hong Kong protests. Relevant tweets then appear to have tapered off in this dataset, ending on 25 July.

It is worthwhile noting that the tapering off in this dataset may not reflect the tapering off of the operation itself – instead, it is possible that it reflects a move away from this hastily-constructed information operation to more fully developed digital assets which have not been captured in this data.

Lack of targeted messaging and narratives

One of the features of well-planned information operations is the ability to subtly target specific audiences. By contrast, the information operation targeting the Hong Kong protests is relatively blunt.

Three main narratives emerge:

  • Condemnation of the protestors
  • Support for the Hong Kong police and ‘rule of law’
  • Conspiracy theories about Western involvement in the protests

Support for ‘rule of law’:

  • tweetid: 1139524030371733504
  • Time stamp: 2019-06-14 13:24:00 UTC
  • userid: r+QLQEgpn4eFuN1qhvccxtPRmBJk3+rfO3k9wmPZTQI=
  • User display name: r+QLQEgpn4eFuN1qhvccxtPRmBJk3+rfO3k9wmPZTQI=
  • User screen name: r+QLQEgpn4eFuN1qhvccxtPRmBJk3+rfO3k9wmPZTQI=
  • Tweet text: @uallaoeea 《逃犯条例》的修改,只会让香港的法制更加完备,毕竟法律是维护社会公平正义的基石。不能默认法律的漏洞用来让犯罪分子逃避法律制裁而不管。 – 14 June 2019

Translated: ‘The amendment to the Fugitive Offenders Ordinance will only make Hong Kong’s legal system more complete. After all, the law is the cornerstone for safeguarding fairness and justice in society. We can’t allow loopholes in the legal system to allow criminals to escape the arm of the law.’

Conspiracy theories:

  • tweetid: 1142349485906919424
  • Time stamp: 2019-06-22 08:31:00 UTC
  • Userid: 2156741893
  • User display name: 披荆斩棘
  • User screen name: saydullos1d
  • Tweet text: 香港特區警察總部受到包圍和攻擊, 黑衣人嘅真實身份係咩? 係受西方反華勢力指使,然後係背後操縱, 目的明確, 唆使他人參與包圍同遊行示威。把香港特區搞亂, 目的就係非法政治目的, 破環社會秩序。  – 22 June 2019

Translated: ‘Hong Kong SAR police headquarters were surrounded and attacked. Who were the people wearing black? They were acting under the direction of western anti-China forces. They’re manipulating things behind the scenes, with a clear purpose to instigate others to participate in the demonstration and the encirclement. They’re bringing chaos to Hong Kong SAR with an illegal political goal and disrupting the social order.’

[NB: Important to note that this was written in traditional Chinese characters and switches between Standard Chinese and Cantonese, suggesting that the author was a native mandarin speaker but their target audience was Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong.]

  • tweetid: 1147398800786382848
  • Time stamp: 2019-07-06 06:56:00 UTC
  • Userid: 886933306599776257
  • User display name: lingmoms
  • User screen name: lingmoms
  • Tweet text: 無底線的自由,絕不是幸事;不講法治的民主,只能帶來禍亂。香港雖有不錯的家底,但經不起折騰,經不起內耗,惡意製造對立對抗,只會斷送香港前途。法治是香港的核心價值,嚴懲違法行為,是對法治最好的維護,認為太平山下應享太平。 – 6 July 2019

Translated: ‘Freedom without a bottom line is by no means a blessing; democracy without the rule of law can only bring disaster and chaos. Although Hong Kong has a good financial background, it can’t afford to vacillate. It can’t take all of this internal friction and maliciously created agitation, which will only ruin Hong Kong’s future. The rule of law is the core value of Hong Kong. Severe punishment for illegal acts is the best safeguard for the rule of law. Peace should be enjoyed at the foot of The Peak.’’

[NB: This Tweet is also written in Standard Chinese using traditional Chinese characters. The original text says ‘at the foot of Taiping mountain’, meaning Victoria Peak, but is more commonly referred to in Hong Kong as “The Peak” (山頂). However, the use of Taiping mountain instead of ‘The Peak’ to refer to the feature is a deliberate pun, because Taiping means ‘great peace’]

  • tweetid: 1152024329325957120
  • Time stamp: 2019-07-19 01:16:00 UTC
  • Userid: 58615166
  • User display name: 流金岁月
  • User screen name: Licuwangxiaoyua
  • Tweet text: #HongKong #HK #香港 #逃犯条例 #游行 古话说的好,听其言而观其行。看看那些反对派和港独分子,除了煽动上街游行、暴力冲击、袭警、扰乱香港社会秩序之外,就没做过什么实质性有利于香港发展的事情。反对派和港独孕育的“变态游行”这个怪胎,在暴力宣泄这条邪路上愈演愈烈。 – 19 July 2019

Translated: ‘#HongKong #HK #HongKong #FugitiveOffendersOrdinance #Protests The old Chinese saying put it well: ‘Judge a person by their words, as well as their actions’. Take a look at those in the opposition parties and the Hong Kong independence extremists. Apart from instigating street demonstrations, violent attacks, assaulting police officers and disturbing the social order in Hong Kong, they have done nothing that is actually conducive to the development of Hong Kong. This abnormal fetus of a “freak demonstration” that the opposition parties and Hong Kong independence people gave birth to is becoming more violent as it heads down this evil road.’

This approach of vilifying opponents, emphasising the need for law and order as a justification for authoritarian behaviour is consistent with the narrative approaches adopted in earlier information operations contained within the dataset (see below).

Earlier information operations against political opponents

Our research has uncovered evidence that the accounts identified by Twitter were also engaged in earlier information campaigns targeting opponents of the Chinese government.

It appears likely that these information operations were intended to influence the opinions of overseas Chinese diasporas, perhaps in an attempt to undermine critical coverage in Western media of issues of interest to the Chinese government. This is supported by a notice released by China News Service, a Chinese-language media company owned by the United Front Work Department that targets the Chinese diaspora, requesting tenders to expand its Twitter reach.

Campaign against Guo Wengui

The most significant and sustained of these earlier information operations targets Guo Wengui, an exiled Chinese businessman who now resides in the United States. The campaign directed at Guo is by far the most extensive campaign in the dataset and is significantly larger than the activity directed at the Hong Kong protests. This is the earliest activity the report authors have identified that aligns with PRC interests.

Graph showing activity in an information operation targeting Guo from 2017 to the end of the dataset in July 2019

Guo, also known as Miles Kwok, fled to the United States in 2017 following the arrest of one of his associates, former Ministry of State Security vice minister Ma Jian. Guo has made highly public allegations of corruption against senior members of the Chinese government. The Chinese government in turn accused Guo of corruption, prompting an Interpol red notice for his arrest and return to China. Guo has become a vocal opponent of the Chinese government, despite having himself been accused of spying on their behalf in July 2019.

Within the Twitter Hong Kong dataset, the online information campaign targeting Guo began on 24 April 2017, five days after the Interpol red notice was issued at the request of the Chinese government, and continued until the end of July 2019. Guo continues to be targeted on Twitter, although it is unclear if the PRC government is directly involved in the ongoing effort.

Tweets mentioning Guo Wengui over time from 23 April 2017 to 4 May 2017: Graph showing activity in tweet volume by day. Activity appears to take place during the working week (except Wednesdays), suggesting that this activity may be professional rather than authentic personal social media use.

In total, our research identified at least 38,732 tweets from 618 accounts in the dataset which directly targeted Guo. These tweets consist largely of vitriolic attacks on his character, ranging from highly personal criticisms to accusations of criminality, treachery against China and criticisms of his relationship with controversial US political figure Steve Bannon. 

  • tweetid: 1123765841919660032
  • Time stamp: 2019-05-02 01:47:00 UTC
  • Userid: 4752742142
  • User display name: 漂泊一生
  • User screen name: futuretopic
  • Tweet text: “郭文贵用钱收买班农,一方面想找靠山,一方面想继续为自己的骗子生涯增加点砝码,其实班农只是爱财并非真想和郭文贵做什么, 很快双方会发现对方都 是在欺骗自己,那时必将反目成 仇.” – 2 May 2019

Translated: “Guo Wengui used his money to buy Bannon. On the one hand, he needed his backing. On the other hand, he wanted to continue to add weight to his career as a swindler. In fact, Bannon just loves money and doesn’t really want to do anything with Guo Wengui. Soon both sides will find out that they’re both deceiving the other, and then they’ll turn into enemies.”

  • tweetid: 1153122108655861760
  • Time stamp: 2019-07-22 01:58:00 UTC
  • Userid: 1368044863
  • User display name: asdwyzkexa
  • User screen name: asdwyzkexa
  • Tweet text: ‘近日的郭文贵继续自己自欺欺人的把戏,疯狂的直播,疯狂的欺骗,疯狂鼓动煽风点火,疯狂的鼓吹自己所谓的民主,鼓吹自己的“爆料革命”。但其越是疯狂,越是难掩日暮西山之态,无论其吹的再如何天花乱坠,也终要为自己的过往负责,亲自画上句点.’ – 22 July 2019

Translated: ‘Lately, Guo Wengui has continued to use his cheap trick of deceiving himself and others with a crazy live-stream where he lied like crazy, incited and fanned the flames like crazy, and agitated for his so-called democracy like crazy—enthusiastically promoting his “Expose Revolution”. But the crazier he gets the harder it is to hide the fact that the sun has already set on him. It doesn’t matter how much he embellishes things; eventually, he will have to take responsibility and put an end to all of this himself.’

Spikes in activity in this campaign appear to correspond with significant developments in the timeline of Guo’s falling out with the Chinese government. For example, a spike around 23 April 2018 (see below chart) correlates with the publishing of a report by the New York Times exposing a complex plan to pull Guo back to China with the assistance of the United Arab Emirates and Trump fundraiser Elliott Broidy. 

  • tweetid: 988088232075083776
  • Time stamp: 2018-04-22 16:12:00 UTC
  • Userid: 908589031944081408
  • User display name: 如果
  • User screen name: bagaudinzhigj
  • Tweet text: ‘‘谎言说一千遍仍是谎言,郭文贵纵有巧舌如簧的口才,也有录制性爱视频等污蔑他人的手段,更有给人设套录制音频威胁他人的前科,还有诈骗他人钱财的146项民事诉讼和19项刑事犯罪指控,但您在美国再卖力的表演也掩盖不了事实.’ – 22nd April 2018

Translated: ‘Even if a lie is repeated a thousand times, it’s still a lie. Guo Wengui is an eloquent smooth talker and uses sex tapes and other methods to slander people. He also has a criminal record for trying to threaten and set people up with recorded audio. He has 146 civil lawsuits and 19 criminal charges for swindling other people’s money. No matter how much effort you put in in the United States, you still can’t hide the truth.’

This tweet was repeated 41 times by this user from 7 November 2017 to 15 June 2018, at varying hours of the day, but at only 12 or 42 minutes past the hour, suggesting an automated or pre-scheduled process:

Volume of tweets mentioning Guo Wengui over time from 14 April 2019 to 29 April 2019.

Like the information operation targeting the Hong Kong protests, the campaign targeting Guo is primarily in Chinese language. There are approximately 133 tweets in English, many of which are retweets or duplicates. On 5th November 2017, for example, 27 accounts in the dataset tweeted or retweeted: ‘#郭文贵 #RepatriateKwok、#Antiasylumabused、 sooner or later, your fake mask will be revealed.’

As the Hong Kong protests began to increase in size and significance, the information operations against Guo and the protests began to cross over, with some accounts directing tweets at both Guo and the protests.

  • tweetid: 1148407166920876032
  • Time stamp: 2019-07-09 01:42:00 UTC
  • Userid: 886933306599776257
  • User display name: lingmoms
  • User screen name: lingmoms
  • Tweet text: ‘唯恐天下不乱、企图颠覆香港的郭文贵不仅暗中支持香港占中分子搞暴力破坏,还公开支持暴力游行示威,难道这一小撮入狱的暴民就是文贵口中的“香港人”?’– 9 July 2019

Translated: ‘Guo Wengui, who fears only a world not in chaos and schemes to toppleHong Kong, is not only secretly supporting the violent and destructive Occupy extremists in Hong Kong, he’s also openly supporting violent demonstrations.  Is this small mob of criminals the “Hong Kong people” Guo Wengui keeps talking about?’ 

The dataset provided by Twitter ends in late July 2019, but all indications suggest that the information campaign targeting Guo will continue.
 

Campaign against Gui Minhai

Although the campaign targeting Guo Wengui is by far the most extensive in the dataset, other individuals have also been targeted.

One is Gui Minhai, a Chinese-born Swedish citizen. Gui is one of a number of Hong Kong-based publishers specialising in books about China’s political elite who disappeared under mysterious circumstances in 2015. It was later revealed that he had been taken into Chinese police custody. The official reason for his detention is his role in a fatal traffic accident in 2003 in which a schoolgirl was killed. Gui has been in and out of detention since 2015, and has made a number of televised confessions which many human rights advocates believe to have been forced by the Chinese government.

The information operation targeting Gui Minhai is relatively small, involving 193 accounts and at least 350 tweets. With some exceptions, the accounts used in the activity directed against Gui appear to be primarily ‘clean’ accounts created specifically for use in information operations, unlike the repurposed spam accounts utilised by the activity targeted at Hong Kong.

The campaign runs for one month, from 23 January to 23 February 2018. The preciseness of the timing is indicative of an organised campaign rather than authentic social media activity. The posting activity also largely corresponds with the working week, with breaks for weekends and holidays like Chinese New Year.

A graph showing campaign activity in tweets per day. Weekends and public holidays are indicated by grey shading.

The campaign started on 23 January 2018, the day on which news broke that Chinese police had seized Gui off a Beijing-bound train while he was travelling with Swedish diplomats to their embassy. The campaign then continued at a slower pace across several weeks, ending on 23 February 2018. The tweets are entirely in Chinese language and emphasise Gui’s role in the traffic accident, painting him as a coward for attempting to leave the country and blaming Western media for interfering in the Chinese criminal justice process. Some also used Gui’s name as a hashtag.

  • tweetid: 956700365289807872
  • Time stamp: 2018-01-26 01:28:00 UTC
  • Userid: 930592773668945920
  • User display name: 赵祥
  • User screen name: JonesJones4780
  • Tweet text: ‘#桂民海 因为自己一次醉驾,让一个幸福家庭瞬间支离破碎,这令桂敏海痛悔不已。但是,他更担心自己真的因此入狱服刑。于是,在法院判决后不久、民事赔偿还未全部执行完的时候,桂敏海做出了另一个错误选择.’ – 26 January 2018

Translation: ‘#GuiMinhai deeply regrets that a happy family was shattered because of his drunk driving. However, he’s even more worried that he’s actually going to have to serve a prison sentence for it. Therefore, not long after the court’s decision and before any civil compensation was paid out, Gui Minhai made another bad choice’

  • tweetid: 956411588386279424
  • Time stamp: 2018-01-25 06:21:00 UTC
  • Userid: 1454274516
  • User display name: 熏君
  • User screen name: nkisomekusua
  • Tweet data: ‘#桂敏海 西方舆论力量仍想运用它们的话语霸权和双重标准,控制有关中国各种敏感信息的价值判断,延续对中国政治体制的舆论攻击,不过西方媒体这样的炒作都只是自导自演,自娱自乐.’ – 25 January 2018

Translation: ‘#GuiMinhai Western public opinion forces still want to use their discourse hegemony and double standards to control value judgments of all kinds of sensitive information about China and are continuing their public opinion attacks on the Chinese political system. However, this kind of hype in the Western media is just a performance they’re doing for themselves for their own personal entertainment.’

Others amplify the messages of Gui’s “confession”, claiming that he chose to hand himself in to police of his own volition due to his sense of guilt.

  • tweetid: 959276160038289408
  • Time stamp: 2018-02-02 04:03:00 UTC
  • Userid: 898580789952118784
  • User display name: 雪芙
  • User screen name: Ryy7v3wQkXnsGO8
  • Tweet text: ‘#桂敏海     父亲去世他不能奔丧这件事情,对桂敏海触动很大。他的母亲也80多岁了,已经是风烛残年,更让他百般思念、日夜煎熬,心里总是有一种很强烈的愧疚不安。所以他选择回国自首.’ – 2 February 2018

Translation: The death of #GuiMinhai’s father and the fact he couldn’t return home for the funeral greatly affected him. His mother is also over 80 years old and is already in her twilight years, causing him to suffer day and night in every possible way. There was always a strong sense of guilt and uneasiness in his heart. So he chose to return to China and give himself up.’

It seems likely that this was a short-term campaign intended to influence the opinions of overseas Chinese who might see reports of Gui’s case in international media.
 

Campaign against Yu Wensheng

On precisely the same day as the information operation against Gui started, another mini-campaign appears to have been launched. This one was aimed against human rights lawyer and prominent CCP-critic Yu Wensheng.

Yu was arrested by Chinese police whilst walking his son to school on 19 January 2018. Only hours before, Yu had tweeted an open letter critical of the Chinese government, and called for open elections and constitutional reform. Shortly after, an apparently doctored video was released, raising questions about whether Chinese authorities were attempting to launch a smear campaign against Yu.

In this dataset, tweets targeting Yu Wensheng begin on 23 January 2018—the same day as the campaign against Gui Minhai—and continue through until 31 January (only four tweets take place after this, the latest on 10 February 2018). This was a small campaign, consisting of roughly 218 tweets from 80 accounts, many of which were the same content amplified across these accounts. As with Gui, Yu’s name was often used as a hashtag.

This graph shows campaign activity in tweets per day over time. Selected weekends are highlighted in grey.

The content shared by the campaign was primarily condemning Yu for his alleged violence against the police as shown by the doctored video.

  • tweetid: 956707469677359104
  • Time stamp: 2018-01-26 01:56:00
  • Userid: 0jFZp2sQdCYj8hUveyN4Llxe2UvFbQgTqxaymZihMM0
  • User display name: 0jFZp2sQdCYj8hUveyN4Llxe2UvFbQgTqxaymZihMM0
  • User screen name: 0jFZp2sQdCYj8hUveyN4Llxe2UvFbQgTqxaymZihMM0
  • Tweet text: ‘#余文生 1月19日,一余姓男子在接受公安机关依法传唤时暴力袭警致民警受伤,被公安机关依法以妨害公务罪刑事拘留。澎湃新闻从北京市公安机关获悉,涉案男子系在被警方强制传唤时,先后打伤、咬伤两名民警.’ – 26 January 2018.

Translation: ‘#YuWensheng On January 19, a man surnamed Yu violently assaulted a police officer while receiving a legal summons from the public security bureau, and was arrested for obstructing government administration. Beijing Public Security Bureau told The Paper [a Chinese publication] that the man involved in the case wounded the officers repeatedly by biting them when he was being forcibly summoned by the police.’

As with the other campaigns, however, accusations of supposed Western influence were also notable: 

  • tweetid: 956742165845090304
  • Time stamp: 2018-01-26 04:14:00 UTC
  • Userid: 2l1eDka0eiClBUYoDXlwYaKcUaeelnz44aDM9OJRM
  • User display name: 2l1eDka0eiClBUYoDXlwYaKcUaeelnz44aDM9OJRM
  • User screen name: 2l1eDka0eiClBUYoDXlwYaKcUaeelnz44aDM9OJRM
  • Tweet text: ‘#余文生  在中国,有一批人自称维权律师,他们自诩通过行政及法律诉讼来维护公共利益、宪法及公民权利,并鼓吹西方民主、自由,攻击中国黑暗、专制、暴力执法、缺乏法治精神,视频主人公余文生律师也正是其中的一员.’ – 26 January 2018

Translation: ‘#YuWensheng  It can be seen from Yu Wensheng’s past activities that he is one of the so-called rights lawyers in China. Yu Wensheng thinks that with the support of foreign media and rights lawyers, he can become a hero and that naturally, some people will cheer for him. Little did he know that this time the police were wearing a law enforcement recording device that they used to record an overview of the incident and quickly published it to the world. Yu’s ugly face was undoubtedly revealed to the public.’

  • tweetid: 958222061972832256
  • Time stamp: 2018-01-30 06:15:00 UTC
  • Userid: Kmto+XqJ6hcowk0GvAGVEasNxHUW11beLphANrm3uhE=
  • User display name: Kmto+XqJ6hcowk0GvAGVEasNxHUW11beLphANrm3uhE=
  • User screen name: Kmto+XqJ6hcowk0GvAGVEasNxHUW11beLphANrm3uhE=
  • Tweet text: ‘#余文生 从余文生过去的活动中可以看到,他是国内所谓维权律师中的一员。余文生认为身后有国外媒体以及维权律师群体的支持,他就能成为英雄,自然有人为他摇旗呐喊。殊不知这次警察佩戴了执法记录仪,录下了事件的概况,并迅速公布于世,余的丑陋嘴脸在公众暴露无疑.’ – 30 January 2018.

Translation: ‘#YuWensheng In China, a group of people claim to be rights defenders. They claim to protect the public interest, constitution and civil rights through administrative and legal proceedings. They advocate for Western democracy and freedom and attack China’s darkness, autocracy, violent law enforcement and the lack of the rule of law. Lawyer Yu Wensheng, the star of the video, is also one of them.’

As with the other campaigns seen in this dataset, it seems probable that the motivation behind this effort was to convince overseas Chinese to believe the Chinese Communist Party’s version of events, bolstering the doctored video of Yu and amplifying the smear campaign.

Campaign against protesting PLA veterans

Another information campaign aimed at influencing public opinion appears to have taken place in response to the arrest of ten Chinese army veterans over protests in the eastern province of Shandong.

The protests took place in October 2018, when around 300 people demonstrated in Pingdu city to demand unpaid retirement benefits for veterans of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). The protests allegedly turned violent, leading to injuries and damage to police vehicles. On 9 December 2018, Chinese state media announced that ten veterans had been arrested for their role in the protest. China Digital Times, which publishes leaked censorship instructions, reported that state media had been instructed to adopt a “unified line” on the arrests.

On the same day, a small but structured information operation appears to have kicked into gear. Beginning at 8:43am Beijing time, accounts in the dataset began tweeting about the arrests. This continued with tweets spaced out every few minutes (a total of 683) until 3:52pm Beijing time. At 9:52pm Beijing time the tweets started up again, this time continuing until 11:49pm.

This graph shows campaign activity over the day by hour of the day adjusted for Beijing UTC+8 time.

Activity by the accounts in the dataset included tweets as well as retweeting and responding to one another’s tweets, creating the appearance of authentic conversation. There was significant repetition within and across accounts, however, with many accounts tweeting a phrase and then tweeting the exact same phrase repeatedly in replies to the tweets of other accounts.

The content of the tweets supported and reinforced the message being promoted by state media, in condemning the protestors as violent criminals and calling for them to be punished.

  • tweetid: 1071589476495835136
  • Time stamp: 2018-12-09 02:16:00 UTC
  • Userid: 53022020
  • User display name: sergentxgner
  • User screen name: sergentxgner
  • Tweet text: ‘中国是社会主义法治国家,绝对没有法外之地和法外之人,法律面前人人平等。自觉遵守国家法律、依法合理表达诉求、维护社会正常秩序,是每一位公民的义务和责任。对任何违法犯罪行为,公安机关都将坚决依法予以打击,为中国公安点赞,严厉惩治无视法律法规之人,全力保障人民群众生命、财产安全.’ – 9 December 2018

Translated: ‘China is a socialist country ruled by law. There’s no place and no people in it that are above the law. All people are equal before the law. It is the duty and responsibility of every citizen to consciously abide by the laws of the state, to express their demands reasonably and according to the law, and to maintain the normal social order. Public security organs will resolutely crack down on any illegal or criminal acts in accordance with the law. Like [this post] for China’s public security, severely punish those who ignore laws and regulations, and fully protect the lives and property of the people.’

  • tweetid: 1071614920846786560
  • Time stamp: 2018-12-09 03:58:00 UTC
  • Userid: 4249759479
  • User display name: 林深见鹿
  • User screen name: HcqcPapleyAshle
  • Tweet text: ‘这些人的行为严重造成人民群众的生命财产安全,就应该雷霆出击,绝不手软.’ – 9 December 2018

Translated: ‘The behaviour of these people has seriously caused [harm to] the safety of the lives and property of the people. They should strike out like a thunderclap and not relent.’

[NB: This tweet may have been typed incorrectly and missed out a character or two. It should probably say that the behaviour endangered the lives and property of these people.]

Again, it appears likely that the motivation behind this campaign was to influence the opinions of overseas Chinese against critical international reporting (although international coverage of the arrests appears to have been minimal, which perhaps helps to explain the short-lived nature of the campaign) and videos of the event being circulated on WeChat that contradicted the official narrative.

Dormant accounts and Chinese language tweets

The information operation against Guo Wengui appeared to begin on 24 April 2017. Our research also tried to determine whether earlier PRC-related information operations had taken place. 

Chinese language tweets.

One measure we examined was the percentage of Chinese language tweets per day in the dataset. Twitter assigns a ‘tweet_language’ value to tweets, and manual examination of a sample of tweets showed that this was approximately 90% accurate.

Figure 11: Percent Chinese language tweets per day from Jan 2017 onwards.

Figure 11 shows that prior to April 2017 there was no significant volume of Chinese language tweets in the network of accounts that Twitter identified. A noticeable increase is seen by July 2017, and a significant volume of the tweets are identified as Chinese from then on, with a peak at over 80% in October 2017.

This measure does not support the existence of significant PRC-related operations prior to April 2017, unless their initial operations occurred in languages other than Chinese.

Account creation and tweet language

A second measure examined when accounts were created and the language they tweeted in.

Figure 12: Account creation day by percent Chinese tweets and follower size from 2008 to July 2019.

Figure 12 shows when accounts were created with time on the x-axis, compared to percent Chinese tweets over the lifetime of the account y-axis, with size of point reflecting follower numbers.

Figure 13: Account creation day by percent Chinese tweets and follower size from April 2016 to July 2019.

Figure 13 is the same data from April 2016 to July 2019.

In Figure 12 and Figure 13 we can see a vertical stripe in July 2016, and more in August through October 2017. These stripes indicate many accounts being created at close to the same time. From July 2017 new accounts tweet mostly in Chinese.

These data indicate that accounts were systematically created to be involved in this network. Accounts created after October 2017 tweet mostly in Chinese, with just a couple of exceptions. There are also a group of accounts that were created in July 2016 that were involved in the network that were created close to simultaneously.

Sleeper Accounts

The dataset contained 233 accounts that had greater than year-long breaks between tweets. These sleeper accounts were created as early as December 2007, and had breaks as long as ten years between tweets.

Figure 14: Tweets over time as represented as dots coloured by tweet language for accounts with a greater than one-year gap between tweets. More than year-long gaps between tweets are represented by grey lines.

Figure 14 shows the pattern of tweets for these accounts over time. These accounts tweeted in a variety of languages including Portugese, Spanish and English, but not Chinese prior to their break in activity. After they resumed tweeting there is a significant volume of Chinese language tweets.  

The bulk of these sleeper accounts begin to tweet again from late 2017 onwards. These data support the hypothesis that PRC-related groups began recruiting dormant accounts into their network from mid- to late-2017 and onwards. 

Figure 15: Tweets over time as represented as dots coloured by tweet language for accounts with a greater than one-year gap between tweets that were created between June and August 2016.

Figure 15 shows the tweeting pattern of accounts created in June and August 2016. These accounts can be seen as a vertical stripe in Figure 13.

The presence of long gaps in tweets immediately after account creation before reactivation and tweeting mostly in Chinese from early 2018 does not support the hypothesis that PRC-related elements were engaged in active information operations before April 2017. It is possible that these accounts were created by PRC-related entities expressly for use in subsequent information operations, but our assessment is that it is more likely that these inactive accounts were created en masse for other purposes and then acquired by PRC-related groups.

This research did not identify any evidence for other PRC-related information operations earlier than April 2017.

Conclusion

The ICPC’s preliminary research indicates that the information operation targeting the Hong Kong protests, as reflected in this dataset, was relatively small hastily constructed, and relatively unsophisticated. This suggests that the operation, which Twitter has identified as linked to state-backed actors, is likely to have been a rapid response to the unanticipated size and power of the Hong Kong protests rather than a campaign planned well in advance. The unsophisticated nature of the campaign suggests a crude understanding of information operations and rudimentary tradecraft that is a long way from the skill level demonstrated by other state actors. This may be because the campaigns were outsourced to a contractor, or may reflect a lack of familiarity on the part of Chinese state-backed actors when it comes to information operations on open social media platforms such as Twitter, as opposed to the highly proficient levels of control demonstrated by the Chinese government over heavily censored platforms such as WeChat or Weibo.

Our research has also uncovered evidence that these accounts had previously engaged in multiple information operations targeting political opponents of the Chinese government. Activity in these campaigns show clear signs of coordinated inauthentic behaviour, for example patterns of posting which correspond to working days and hours in Beijing. These information operations were likely aimed at overseas Chinese audiences. 

This research is intended to add to the knowledge-base available to researchers, governments and policymakers about the nature of Chinese state-linked information operations and coordinated inauthentic activity on Twitter. 

Notes

The authors would like to acknowledge the assistance of ICPC colleagues Fergus RyanAlex Joske and Nathan Ruser

Twitter did not provide any funding for this research. It has provided support for a separate ICPC project.


What is ASPI?

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute was formed in 2001 as an independent, non‑partisan think tank. Its core aim is to provide the Australian Government with fresh ideas on Australia’s defence, security and strategic policy choices. ASPI is responsible for informing the public on a range of strategic issues, generating new thinking for government and harnessing strategic thinking internationally.


ASPI International Cyber Policy Centre

The ASPI International Cyber Policy Centre’s mission is to shape debate, policy and understanding on cyber issues, informed by original research and close consultation with government, business and civil society.


It seeks to improve debate, policy and understanding on cyber issues by:

  1. conducting applied, original empirical research
  2. linking government, business and civil society
  3. leading debates and influencing policy in Australia and the Asia–Pacific.

The work of ICPC would be impossible without the financial support of our partners and sponsors across government, industry and civil society. ASPI is grateful to the US State Department for providing funding for this research project.

Important disclaimer

This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in relation to the subject matter covered. It is provided with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering any form of professional or other advice or services. No person should rely on the contents of this publication without first obtaining advice from a qualified professional person.


© The Australian Strategic Policy Institute Limited 2019

This publication is subject to copyright. Except as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part of it may in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, microcopying, photocopying, recording or otherwise) be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted without prior written permission. Enquiries should be addressed to the publishers. Notwithstanding the above, educational institutions (including schools, independent colleges, universities and TAFEs) are granted permission to make copies of copyrighted works strictly for educational purposes without explicit permission from ASPI and free of charge.

Towards a Commonwealth law enforcement innovation framework

Introduction

In March 2019, ASPI, with the sponsorship of Oracle, coordinated the ASPI–Oracle Innovation Framework Workshop.

The workshop brought together subject-matter experts from federal law enforcement agencies, academia and the private sector to explore the feasibility of a Commonwealth law enforcement innovation framework (CLEIF).

This followed a 2018 research project that explored the current state of innovation in law enforcement.1 That research was based on a case study of innovation in Australia’s federal anti-money-laundering (AML) provisions.

The research project was underpinned by three key questions:

  1. How can technology enhance the identification of money-laundering offences?
  2. How can law enforcement bring together technology and policy to ensure more agile AML decision-making?
  3. How can law enforcement agencies gain faster access to new AML technologies and capabilities?

The research resulted in the publication of a Special Report, titled ‘I can see clearly now!’, which provided specific analysis of the key factors that support and restrict technological innovation in federal law enforcement AML efforts.2

The report’s central argument was that the current ecosystem for technological innovation in AML needs to be enhanced to engage with the dual challenge of disruptive technology and the integration of pockets of AML excellence into a holistic whole-of-government program.

While the research was focused on technology and AML, it has broader application to law enforcement technological innovation.

The research found little evidence that the organisational frameworks for enterprise or portfolio technological innovation in federal law enforcement are fully developed.3

The March 2019 workshop explored innovation themes in government and the corporate sector that had relevance to law enforcement. The results provide further input to policymakers as they formulate future directions for the agencies and their capabilities.

Purpose

This report presents the key innovation themes that were discussed during the workshop before presenting a SWOT analysis for the implementation of a CLEIF.4 The aim is to promote further consideration of the concept of such a framework.

Methodology

The workshop was conducted on 12 March 2019 under the Chatham House Rule. The agenda was divided into five sessions:

  • The context
  • Innovation in law enforcement: a case study of the Fintel Alliance
  • Innovation in research: a case study of the Data to Decisions Cooperative Research Centre
  • Innovation in the private sector: a case study of Oracle
  • A SWOT analysis of the concept of a CLEIF.

The context

In this space, ‘innovation’ refers to industrialising the generation of new approaches. For many years, governments haven’t had a significant independent technological edge except in niche areas. Much of their advantage has been created by companies in sectors that are dependent on government spending—notably defence, with some contribution from in-house government R&D through entities such as Defence Science and Technology and its predecessor groups. This situation has shifted over time, and the dominant source of innovation is now commercial sectors that aren’t primarily driven by government investment and aren’t primarily in the defence sector. The result is that, in the face of rapid technological change, governments need to find new ways of accessing a technological edge. The very concepts of sovereignty and geographical jurisdictions are being challenged, given the globalised nature of some technologies, corporations and activities (finance being an obvious one of relevance to law enforcement).

At the turn of the millennium, cutting-edge computing capability was still being driven by governments, or at least by government demand. However, the speed at which technology has been developed and then deployed has since accelerated exponentially. In the process, the Australian Government’s technological advantages have eroded. There’s no binary answer to whether this is a positive or negative development; rather, it’s a truism of the contemporary environment that policymakers face, and not just in Australia.

More recently, technological developments, especially those that have been disruptive, have subsequently been driven predominantly by private corporations.5 Legislative responses to those changes, disruptive or otherwise, have lagged the changes.

In some cases, the corporations responsible for the changes draw their R&D budgets from revenues that exceed those of some governments. Complex ownership, financial and geographical arrangements make it difficult for governments to regulate these companies. The rising disruptive influence of small enterprises and start-ups has shown that at least some of this change isn’t just about available finance but about entrepreneurial approaches to technological innovation.

By the early 2000s, our day-to-day life was mostly viewed by policymakers through two conceptual lenses: real and virtual, with quite a clear separation between the two realms. Governments’ policy responses to technology, at least in Australia, treated technological challenges through similarly divided silos. In the meantime, events such as the launch of the iPhone in 2007 by Steve Jobs were altering the way that many of us interact with each other and the world. Today, many Australians are unlikely to see their life or social interactions as divided between the real and the virtual: it’s just their life.

Unsurprisingly, technological disruptions to the way our world operates are becoming more frequent and potent. For those in government, many of the underlying policy assumptions about crime and security are now also being affected. Acceleration in the development and use of technology has been matched by changes in the capability of those who would do us harm.6 ASIO Director-General Duncan Lewis has recently argued that ‘a person who would wish us ill is far more empowered as a result of the technology at their disposal than once upon a time.’7 State and non-state actors alike are leveraging technology to communicate, mount information operations and conduct cyberattacks; for instance, the Islamic State terror group uses Twitter and Twitter bots to organise and market its message broadly.

Australian law enforcement agencies face an increasing number of challenges from emergent technologies. For ease of consideration, it’s possible to categorise those challenges into four broad thematic groupings:

  • the implications of specific technological developments 
  • encryption
  • the continued globalisation of organised crime
  • the declining impact of traditional policing responses.

A key policy challenge that underpins the issues facing the government relates more to limitations on the capacity of law enforcement here and elsewhere to introduce innovative strategies in response to disruptive technology. Many parts of law enforcement are rapidly changing and becoming more global, but that doesn’t mean an end to investigations and response roles.

With the rising threat to domestic security from non-state actors, law enforcement agencies face a broad family of threats that are increasingly untouchable because they operate in ways that aren’t vulnerable to existing police capabilities and legislative powers.

The range of transnational untouchables—those that exploit the vulnerabilities of international legal regimes, safe havens and corruption—is increasing.

The ability of law enforcement to collect admissible evidence and prosecute emergent transnational non-state actors is limited by legal jurisdictions, differing rules across jurisdictions and the effectiveness of cross-border cooperation. While criminal organisations can cross borders in seconds electronically, the collection of evidence from individual foreign jurisdictions using mutual legal assistance treaty arrangements, where they exist, can take weeks or months. While a non-state actor can operate from anywhere at any time, our law enforcement agencies’ operational freedom of movement is limited by the geographical borders established in domestic and international law. This point is illustrated by the 2017 Sydney airline terrorist plot. In late July 2017, the Australian Federal Police (AFP), with intelligence from Israel, uncovered a suspected Islamic State plot to blow up an Etihad flight to Abu Dhabi. The terror group allegedly coordinated the operation in Syria and mailed a bomb kit from Turkey.8

The detection of transnational criminals is becoming increasingly difficult. In a physical sense, proactively identifying deviant financial transactions, people and cargo across borders is being made ever more difficult by the exponentially growing number of legitimate transactions. This is making investigations more complex and time consuming, due in part to the increased sophistication and technological capabilities of criminal conspiracies but also to the density of cross-border flows.

Global supply chains and complex business structures are also making evidence collection more difficult. While data analytic capabilities are increasing, law enforcement is faced with growing information flows that are difficult to store and analyse. This point isn’t lost on Australian law enforcement officials and policymakers, who know that at least part of the solution is broader adoption of new approaches such as data analytics. Clearly, this requires new skills in law enforcement entities as well as new concepts for applying these new analytic tools.

The impact of new and emerging information and communications technology (ICT) ensures that technological disruptions will increase rapidly—and the resulting need to adapt should be built into agency business models. The implications of the current trajectory of technological developments is that the life cycle of ICT investments will be drastically reduced, particularly when it comes to applications that run over the underlying ICT infrastructure of servers, networks and storage. So, while the AFP’s current case management system might be decades old, the next one won’t have the same usable life.

The news isn’t all bad: there are pockets of excellence and consistent efforts for innovation in Australian law enforcement. While most of the government’s law enforcement efforts are focused on arrests and seizures, a few extremely successful enforcement officers are focused on the disruption of threats—especially organised crime—using soft power, such as capacity development.

Law enforcement has traditionally employed a ‘grow your own’ approach to subject-matter expertise and capability development. 

In the current operating context, it will also need to engage more frequently to acquire capabilities and subject-matter expertise on an as-required, contracted basis, putting expertise into the investigations at hand when needed. R&D budgets for law enforcement, especially for the development and rapid fielding of technological capabilities, need to drastically increase. Martin Callinan makes this point in his 2019 ASPI Special Report, Defence and security R&D: a sovereign strategic advantage.9 While government is unlikely to be the predominant spender or regain its ‘technological edge’ as a quasi-monopoly customer, it can innovate and it can use its funding to drive private innovation that it can use. After all, law enforcement innovation is a broad term with organisational, cultural, financial and policy dimensions.

Key points

  1. Innovation is increasingly coming from commercial sectors that aren’t primarily driven by government.
  2. The Australian Government’s ability to be a dominant driver of technological innovation has ended.
  3. Opportunities to adopt commercial innovation are strong, and the government’s ability to seed innovation from R&D funding can push innovation into paths useful to law enforcement.
  4. Innovation isn’t just about available finance but about entrepreneurial approaches to technological innovation.
  5. Technological disruptions to the way our world operates are becoming more frequent and potent—and perhaps need to be thought of less as disruptions than as rapidly emerging opportunities to change the way agencies operate.
  6. A key policy challenge that underpins the issues facing the government relates more to the limited capacity of law enforcement, whether in Australia or in other countries, to introduce innovative strategies in response to disruptive technology.
  7. R&D budgets for law enforcement, especially for the development and rapid fielding of technological capabilities, need to drastically increase and be used to drive private innovation that law enforcement can use.

A law enforcement case study: the Fintel Alliance

Launched in 2017 by the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC), the Fintel Alliance is a private–public partnership established to combat money-laundering and terrorism financing. The alliance is between the federal government and the finance sector.

It’s structured with two hubs: an Innovation Hub and an Operations Hub. Individuals from various private-sector finance organisations are seconded into the Fintel Alliance, which allows for higher levels of collaboration.

The Innovation Hub activities are either ‘push projects’ (that is, looking at ways new technologies may be employed in an operational scenario) or generated by the Operations Hub identifying operational problems to be solved with technology. The Innovation Hub develops capability, through proof-of-concept with the Fintel Alliance members, which is then moved across to the Operations Hub.

Two recent examples are the Pseudocode and the Alerting Platform projects.

  • Pseudocode allows the Fintel Alliance to identify criminal networks using data drawn from all stakeholders, and to develop typologies in order to improve reporting of suspicious individuals and behaviour.
  • The Alerting Platform Project is a longer term one and is a form of confidential computing whereby users can use data without seeing information. This approach to anonymising data but still enabling it to be useful in data analysis is a promising design approach to address privacy concerns and legislative restraints on the use of personal information.

This division of innovation and implementation could be a useful adaptation for the CLEIF, as innovation could occur centrally in conjunction with various stakeholders and be operationalised in various operations hubs as needed by agencies.

Key points

  1. Innovation projects with multiple stakeholders that cross sectors are complex. Participation isn’t mandatory, and contributions can vary. An innovation framework needs to consider that an equal contribution from each stakeholder may be unlikely—and stakeholders must be comfortable with this as a design principle of the partnership.
  2. Centrally managed innovation frameworks need to proactively engage with those responsible for operationalising projects throughout the innovation process.

Innovation in research: the Data to Decisions Cooperative Research Centre

Cooperative research centres (CRCs) were pioneered by the Australian Government during the 1990s to support collaboration among government, industry and researchers and foster high-quality research and outcomes. Since then, the government has committed nearly $5 billion in grants to CRC projects.

The Data to Decisions (D2D) CRC is a collaboration between national security agencies, industry and researchers.10 The D2D CRC was established as a five-year project with the purpose of solving big data challenges facing the Australian national security community. It currently runs four R&D projects, which all focus on harnessing the power of big data to create predictive and analytical functions for national security and law enforcement agencies.

After five years, this particular CRC is nearing the end of its life cycle; however, it has spurred the creation of two new start-ups (Fivecast and NQRY) to continue the innovation generated in the research projects, showing the potential for work from CRCs to become self-sustaining and attract funding from other sources as well.

The D2D CRC provided several key insights on its innovation journey. The first is the need to remove the fear of failure (‘fail fast’ is an easy motto but a much harder thing to demonstrate in practice). During its first years of operation, D2D was frequently faced with decisions that involved significant implementation risks. There was a need to balance necessary risks in innovation against insulation from failure. In doing so, D2D made failure not a thing to be punished or frowned upon but an inflection point for learning.

The second key insight was the need for innovation champions who not only support but understand the innovation process.

The real benefit of a CRC is its ability to draw together a variety of stakeholders and bridge the public–private divide.

Workshop discussions following the presentation of the case study highlighted the inherent challenges of traditional law enforcement performance indicators for technology development. A key observation is that often law performance measures for enforcement technology projects are more centrally focused on time and budget delivery, which makes the application of more agile R&D approaches challenging.

The D2D CRC case study highlighted that there are often numerous opportunities for policymakers to propose changes to legislation and policy constraints that are currently unintentionally inhibiting innovation. Such changes require organisations to adopt a more entrepreneurial mindset that looks to digital transformation and innovation to keep pace with increasingly frequent technological disruption. While legislative change isn’t easy, it was recognised that many legislators are looking to boost industry and bridge the public–private divide.

Key points

  1. Fear of failure restricts innovation.
  2. Project failure is inevitable in innovation, and organisations need to be able to stop projects when it becomes obvious that success is unlikely.
  3. Innovation projects need strong champions.

Innovation in the private sector: a case study of Oracle

Oracle provides essential services and products for companies to pioneer innovations and drive new business models. For example, Oracle embeds machine learning into several management and security offerings to help monitor, troubleshoot and predict potential outages and security breaches. Its corporate focus is on integrating artificial intelligence into analytics to help discover hidden patterns and enable automated and personalised interactions across applications via digital assistants. Oracle helps customers develop road maps, migrate to the cloud and take advantage of emerging technologies from any point: new cloud deployments, on-premises environments, and hybrid implementations.

As a large multinational organisation working across industries in both the private and public sectors, Oracle provided the workshop with a series of insights into how to develop and promote an innovation culture.

Oracle’s innovation framework centralises ‘innovation management’ to be able to identify sources of innovation and then direct resources towards economically profitable innovation.11 It uses a five-step structured process, known as the Oracle Innovation Design Engine, that supports end-to-end innovation: frame, ideate, share, test and scale. This can also be conceptualised as building an ‘innovation pipeline’.12 Using this structured process, the best ideas can be chosen and finessed.

Discussions on profit suggested that the private sector’s profit motive could be replaced with a balanced return on investment consideration, in which a reasonable profit return sits alongside a longer term revenue flow.

Importantly, Oracle emphasises benefits from continual, at times incremental, innovation and moving away from the idea that adding or creating value can only come from radical change and innovation—an idea that should be emphasised in creating a CLEIF.

Additionally, Oracle seeks to inculcate and nurture a culture of innovation. Principally, the argument is that culture is the key catalyst for innovation. However, to be successfully developed the innovation must be championed at a high level within the organisation.

Oracle argues that organisations can’t adopt a business-as-usual approach to innovation, which is why leadership engagement is essential. To be successful in the private sector, innovation and the processes for managing it must be continuously adapting.

Key points

  1. Culture is a critical input to innovation.13
  2. An innovation framework should be viewed as a prioritisation tool that promotes the creation of an endless line of potential opportunities and possibilities; however, inevitably, most will never reach full implementation.
  3. The decision-making in a public-sector innovation framework would need to be driven by a balanced scorecard return-on-investment calculation that also considers the opportunity costs of not adopting specific innovations.
  4. Innovation needs to be viewed through two lenses: radical change and incremental change.

Constructing a law enforcement innovation framework

Each of the case study sessions resulted in substantial discussion among the participants. That conversation, while broad ranging, revealed that more can be done to enhance innovation in federal law enforcement. More specifically, the workshop’s first four sessions revealed that a CLEIF was likely to be needed and demanded.

The final session was used to undertake a SWOT analysis of such a framework.

Strengths

During the workshop, strengths were conceptualised as characteristics that could give a CLEIF an advantage over other approaches to innovation. The following specific strengths were identified during the workshop:

  • There are already good examples of collaboration underway, such as the Fintel Alliance and the D2D CRC. It’s easier to conceptualise and construct a framework when good examples are already thriving.
  • There’s also much goodwill, intent and interest in continuing these existing arrangements, which could lead to interest in establishing new ones.

Weaknesses

Weaknesses were conceptualised as characteristics of a CLEIF that may place it at a disadvantage compared to other systems. The following specific weaknesses were identified during the workshop:

  • One of the principal weaknesses is the public sector’s fear of failure and its risk-averse attitude. That attitude has a very legitimate basis: the misallocation of taxpayers’ funds is rightly a significant concern for all public-sector agencies and entities, and failure on innovation can often be characterised as waste. However, as much as possible, that attitude should be minimised, including by being able to derive benefits and lessons from ‘failed’ innovation. Organisations need to nurture innovation cultures and promote engagement with risk.
  • A CLEIF could place too much emphasis on creating new products constantly instead of reusing, recycling and adapting existing and appropriate technology. It would need to give some focus to regular stocktakes or near-real-time management of current technology and projects.
  • Centralised objectives and resourcing make it difficult to enunciate and change priorities and objectives as quickly as needed.

Agility and the ability to adapt quickly are necessary for innovation to thrive, so this will have to be addressed in any CLEIF model proposed.

There have been some concerns that not enough future policymakers from younger generations are involved in the innovation and project process, and that they should be better nurtured and given senior leadership support as they engage with risk.

Opportunities to be seized

The workshop identified the following opportunities:

  • New and innovative partnerships are starting in a whole range of areas. Consideration could be given to how those relationships could be further leveraged from a federal law enforcement community or whole-of-government perspective.
  • There are numerous opportunities to propose changes to legislation and policy constraints. Doing so in the context of innovation may perhaps be particularly attractive to legislators who are looking to boost industry and bridge the public–private divide.
  • There’s an opportunity to explore new and meaningful key performance indicators to give a more realistic assessment of how law enforcement technology is progressing.

Threats to be controlled

Several threats need to be considered while planning a CLEIF:

  • In technology, crime is outpacing law enforcement every day of the week, mainly because it’s opportunistically hitchhiking on wider commercial innovation and technology.
  • The pace of innovation in the broader community continues to increase. In response, law enforcement will have to constantly scan the horizon to anticipate changes, and it needs partners immersed in commercial innovation to add their own scanning capacity.
  • Organisational structures can be a threat to the implementation of innovative practices. For example, at the state and federal levels, law enforcement agencies have different, and sometimes competing, priorities. The jostling for resources and attention could be managed in an integrated system to ensure the most effective use of time and resources. Related to this will be how priorities are set so all stakeholders see that they’re getting the maximum value-add for their contribution.
  • During decision-making, there may be conflicting objectives between decision-making and what will address the issue. This will have to be mitigated by open analysis and frank conversations about issues and priorities.
  • Public engagement about the reasons for shifts in concepts of operation and technology and, where relevant, legislative change to enable those shifts will require well-designed public engagement and communication if community support is to be achieved.
  • As financing is a clearly identified issue, all key law enforcement agencies and departments need to find a dedicated budget line or other sources of funding for innovation, which might be best channelled through a centralised hub to achieve critical mass and efficiency. This should be an attractive prospect for central government agencies involved in financing as it will streamline the cost of innovation into a single location.

The framework

To be successful, an optimised CLEIF would:

  • integrate all levels of law enforcement and national security activities
  • have reliable and flexible funding
  • take into consideration the wide range of stakeholders and their needs
  • widen the sources of innovation and innovation scanning beyond law enforcement agencies to include capable commercial partners.

An entity structured similarly to the CRC model would offer flexibility and opportunity to create innovative solutions for law enforcement. However, while having a model that sits outside of government has advantages, there are legislative barriers that would need to be considered. For example, certain provisions of the Privacy Act 1988 (Cwlth) will make it extremely difficult to share the necessary information from law enforcement and national security agencies with a CRC, hindering its capacity to properly address problems and create solutions.

In all likelihood, a well-designed CLEIF will have to integrate a number of different approaches in order to ensure that the agencies involved continue to meet their legislative obligations.

Considering all of the issues discussed in this workshop, consideration could be given to the next steps:

  • the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU), initially by all relevant federal agencies, to inculcate a culture of innovation in this space
  • the creation of a law enforcement innovation hub in the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission.

Memorandum of understanding

The MoU would articulate a principles-based commitment by federal law enforcement agencies to work together on innovation. However, this early federal focus should be a starting point only; the end goal would be the inclusion of state and territory agencies.

The MoU could be focused, at least initially, on four key priority areas:

  • developing and documenting the agencies’ innovation cultures
  • documenting and sharing innovation projects
  • working within legislative and regulatory requirements, a commitment from each agency to resource innovation projects
  • a commitment to burden share law enforcement community challenges.

Law enforcement innovation hub

At this initial stage, a collaboration research hub could provide a starting point for creating and developing new technologies for law enforcement. While some stakeholders may be tempted to adopt a CRC-type structure, a stronger starting point might involve building on initial interest in cooperative innovation among law enforcement stakeholders.

A committee supported by a modest secretariat in either the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission or the Department of Home Affairs could be used to promote exchanges of knowledge on innovation. It could focus on sharing current and future innovation investments and challenges. The secretariat could be used to develop central innovation challenges and projects registers with the aim of identifying opportunities for burden sharing and collaboration.
 

Conclusion

Partnerships and co-creation are crucial to the future successes of Australia’s law enforcement agencies. The workshop, supported by ASPI’s earlier report, made a solid case for a cohesive and coherent CLEIF to encourage change in law enforcement’s innovation culture and behaviours. A focus should be on preventing innovation silos. While the workshop identified a need for change, and this report has provided some initial steps, further research and collaboration are needed before a definitive framework can be developed.

Before engaging in a program of change, it’s imperative to acknowledge that a great deal of innovation, both technology-based and not, already occurs within and across the various stakeholders who attended the workshop. That work has also had very real positive impacts on community safety. Similarly, the commitment of those from the public, private or not-for-profit sectors who attended the workshop, as well as those who participated in the preceding research projects, speaks volumes of their contribution to collaboration and innovation. The central thesis here isn’t a critique of what’s being done, but rather a strong argument for how to leverage current efforts to achieve even more.


Acknowledgement

This report finds its origins in conversations between ASPI and Oracle staff on law enforcement innovation. At the time, Oracle wanted to make a contribution to Australian public policy dialogue on technology innovation in law enforcement. From these conversations Oracle kindly provided ASPI corporate sponsorship for an innovation research project. ASPI would like to acknowledge Oracle’s support for this project, without which this report would not have been possible.

Important disclaimer

This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in relation to the subject matter covered. It is provided with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering any form of professional or other advice or services. No person should rely on the contents of this publication without first obtaining advice from a qualified professional.

© The Australian Strategic Policy Institute Limited 2019

This publication is subject to copyright. Except as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part of it may in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, microcopying, photocopying, recording or otherwise) be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted without prior written permission. Enquiries should be addressed to the publishers.

Notwithstanding the above, educational institutions (including schools, independent colleges, universities and TAFEs) are granted permission to make copies of copyrighted works strictly for educational purposes without explicit permission from ASPI and free of charge.

  1. John Coyne, Amelia Meurant-Tompkinson, ‘I can see clearly now! Tech innovation in law enforcement’, The Strategist, 19 July 2018, online. ↩︎
  2. Coyne & Meurant-Tompkinson, ‘I can see clearly now!’. ↩︎
  3. Coyne & Meurant-Tompkinson, ‘I can see clearly now!’. ↩︎
  4. SWOT = strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. ↩︎
  5. Coyne & Meurant-Tompkinson, ‘I can see clearly now!’. ↩︎
  6. Coyne & Meurant-Tompkinson, ‘I can see clearly now!’. ↩︎
  7. Colin Brinsden, ‘Australia faces daily threats: spy chief’, Canberra Times, 27 July 2019, online. ↩︎
  8. Jessica Kidd, ‘Intelligence on alleged meat grinder bomb plot came from Israel, Australia confirms’, ABC News, 22 February 2018, online. ↩︎
  9. Martin Callinan et al., Defence and security R&D: a sovereign strategic advantage, ASPI, Canberra, January 2019, online. ↩︎
  10. List of participants: Australian Federal Police, Attorney-General’s Department, Department of Defence, Government of South Australia, Office of National Intelligence, Department of Home Affairs, BAE Systems, Palantir, Basis Technology, Pivotal, AiGroup, Genix, Leidos, UNISYS, iapa, aiia, Teradata, Semantic Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University (Australia), Deakin University, eResearchSA, LaTrobe University, University of Adelaide, University of Technology Sydney, University of New South Wales, University of South Australia and Australian National University. ↩︎
  11. Oracle, What is innovation management?, no date, online. ↩︎
  12. Oracle, Build an innovation pipeline, no date, online. ↩︎
  13. Gary P Pisano, ‘The hard truth about innovative cultures’, Harvard Business Review, January–February 2019, online. ↩︎

The Marawi crisis—urban conflict and information operations

Executive Summary

The seizure of Marawi in the southern Philippines by militants linked to Islamic State (IS) and the response to it by Philippine authorities provides useful insights to Australian and other policymakers, with relevance for force structure, concepts of operations and the breadth of activity required to deal effectively with the consequences of an urban seizure. One overall insight is that the increasing urbanisation of global populations, combined with proliferating information technologies, means there’s a need to be prepared both for military operations in urban environments and for a widening of what policy/decision-makers consider to be ‘the battlefield’ to include the narrative space.

The siege showed the unpreparedness of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) for an urban fight: the AFP took five months to recover the city, leaving it in ruins and sustaining a notable number of casualties. This will obviously provide a set of lessons and insights to the Philippine military and authorities, but it also can allow other governments and militaries to assess their own readiness to deal with urban operations, either as assisting partners or in their own territories. This seems especially relevant to considering capability options for supporting allies facing comparable challenges, which could reduce military and civilian casualties in future operations.

The insurgents’ seizure of Marawi was accompanied by a systematic IS propaganda campaign (online and offline) aimed at projecting an image of triumph and strength. The AFP engaged in active counter-messaging to undermine militants’ narratives, encompassing the online space as well as more traditional methods of messaging, such as leaflet drops, banners, and radio and loudspeaker broadcasts. In the tactical sphere, this was aimed at avoiding civilian casualties as well as stemming further recruitment by and popular support for the insurgents. In the longer term, the overarching goal was to morally denounce the militants and undercut their support bases.

Considering the centrality of ideology and information operations (IOs) in the future operating environment, the Marawi crisis offers an instructive case when preparing for the challenges of an evolving threat landscape. This report therefore examines both the capability aspects of kinetic hard power and the lessons from soft-power IOs, and how they intertwine in the urban environment.

There are lessons here for the Australian Defence Force (ADF).

This report makes the following observations and recommendations.

Hard power

Urban operations generally, and particularly urban seizure by a jihadi enemy equipped with improvised explosive devices (IEDs), present a serious political and military challenge. Any force retaking urban terrain from a determined enemy will suffer heavy casualties unless it employs measures to protect its advancing soldiers, and the only significant protective measure available is explosive firepower. If firepower is used, there will be casualties among any civilians present.

Adversaries exploit this to present political and military leaders with the brutal dilemma of trading off their own casualties against civilian casualties. The reputational risk for the ADF in any future urban fight is acute, as the Australian public has come to expect a degree of discrimination that’s unlikely to be possible. We need to consider approaches that will enable or encourage civilians in urban conflict areas to evacuate as well as develop means of fighting with reduced casualties.

Contingency planning and policy debate should address the likelihood that asymmetric adversaries will learn to ‘seize, defy and discredit’; that is, take and hold sections of a state’s urban territory and be able to retain that control for a period, while generating a mass-media profile and narrative that portray their success, contrasted with the failure of the responding state. Whole-of-government capacity development should address measures that enable and encourage populations to leave cities during armed conflict.

Capabilities that reduce risks to soldiers and civilians during urban combat operations should be acquired. They include unmanned ‘robots’ for reconnaissance and for entering and clearing buildings in the presence of IEDs; systems that lay obscurants (smoke) with low hazard to civilians; and special weapons to breach holes in walls or attack targets inside buildings with reduced collateral damage. Such systems are within the capacity of Australian industry to deliver and have export potential.

The ADF should raise an Australian Army combat engineering entity that’s able to conduct unmanned combat search-and-clear operations in an urban environment in support of our own or friendly nations’ operations.

Soft power

The Philippine political and media environment is distinctly different from the Australian one; given the tight government control of media narratives during the Battle of Marawi, we can’t uncritically extract universal lessons. The Marawi IO nevertheless provides an instructive case study in that it highlights some key principles of legitimacy-building. Those principles can be applicable beyond military operations to the ensuing political process and wider practice of preventing and countering violent extremism.

The destruction of the city has given rise to accusations of the use of excessive, indiscriminate force by the AFP—a source for further extremist recruitment if the truth of the AFP’s challenges in retaking the urban territory isn’t managed with transparency. This highlights that clear, open communication is needed on the realities and dilemmas of urban warfare in order to avoid a loss of legitimacy. Ultimately, Marawi demonstrates that the most important elements in a successful soft-power campaign are credibility and legitimacy beyond mere persuasion — moral authority can arise only when there’s no gap between rhetoric and action.

In urban operations, the narratives surrounding the conduct of operations aren’t just a supporting element but are equally as important as—if not more important than—the military objective. Effective use of soft power plays a crucial part in achieving a favourable political outcome.

The moral dimension matters. Responding to the sociopolitical and emotional realities of the target audiences is crucial. Political victory can be brought about only by avoiding dissonance between military/government effects and narratives. Legitimacy requires a close match between words and deeds.

There’s a need for cultural intelligence as a future capability: IO shouldn’t be regarded as a technical exercise but a human one, premised on a thorough understanding of the causes and drivers of political violence. This includes a focus on values and ethical stances, and how they’re constructed on the ground.

Why Marawi matters

An increasing element of future land warfare is expected to be urban as the dynamics of global conflict and terrorism play out in densely populated urban environments. War can be understood as an inherently sociocultural phenomenon that now largely occurs ‘among the people’ as conflicts have become more political in nature. And, in the information age, this includes the online space, thereby affording a greater role to communications technologies to shape perceptions and affect military and political outcomes.1

History shows that urban areas reduce the advantages of better equipped conventional armies over irregular forces or non-state actors. This comes at the cost of civilian populations trapped in the fighting as the insurgents embed themselves among urban populations.2 The war-ravaged cities of the 21st century—Fallujah, Sana’a, Gaza, Aleppo, Mosul—are testament to the brutality of the urban fight, and their destruction starkly displays its tactical, technological and moral challenges. Marawi fits into this sad line-up as a city largely reduced to rubble during a five-month-long campaign by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) against jihadi insurgents (Figure 1).

Figure 1: The destruction that, absent special capability, is the price of ejecting militants from urban terrain

The Battle of Marawi, from May to October 2017, marked the first time that militants aligned with Islamic State (IS) joined forces to claim territory in the Asia–Pacific, notably with combat techniques and media strategies imported from IS’s operations in Syria and Iraq.3

Unprepared for an urban fight, improvising and ‘learning on the job’, the AFP struggled to clear the city, and airstrikes and heavy artillery left much of it as rubble.4 Through what we define as a ‘seize–defy–discredit’ strategy, the alliance of the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG), the Maute Group and several smaller militant factions sought to draw the AFP into an urban battle in which civilian casualties would be inevitable— bringing international condemnation, reinforcing IS’s narratives and inspiring popular resistance as, for example, occurred when US Marines attacked the Iraqi city of Fallujah in 2004.

This goal was as much about winning the information war as about holding the territory of Marawi, and this is why information operations (IOs) are a key part of this report.

The AFP’s struggle to eject the militants from Marawi reflects the enduring nature of urban warfare. The advantages a city has always offered a determined defender are now compounded by contemporary adversaries with improvised explosive devices (IEDs) who intend to die with the attackers.

This presents a tactical problem that can’t be solved by high standards of training and outstanding leadership alone. As recent battles in the Middle East also illustrate, progress requires using heavy firepower, risking grave humanitarian consequences. Urban warfare specialists stress that, without effective alternatives, even highly skilled militaries may find that the only option is to ‘destroy the city to save it’.5 However, it must be acknowledged that in Marawi the political cost of an unavoidable resort to heavy firepower has been aggravated by the subsequent failure to begin rapid, effective rehabilitation and reconstruction.

The recapture of Marawi took at least twice as long as comparable urban battles. The protraction was attributable to capability shortfalls, especially training, which the AFP acknowledged and, with the help of outside partners such as Australia, Singapore and the US, sought to address. The resulting tendency for outside observers to understand the Marawi operation through a lens of AFP training shortfalls discounts some AFP strengths and experience and also risks underestimating both inherent and emerging challenges. This analysis treats the crisis as an instructive case study that casts light on capability needs for future urban missions for Australia and other partners, whether as combatants or to support allies.

Importantly, the AFP’s focus on soft power through IOs alongside hard kinetic operations is pertinent. According to the Australian Army’s Future land warfare report, control over information is a key factor shaping the evolving operating environment:

No country will have complete control over its communications infrastructure or control over the information that its citizens can access. Global telecommunications networks coupled with omnipresent communications technology will continue to empower non-state and semi-state actors. The effect will be disproportionate to their size and stature … Large populations are also likely to be permanently connected to global networks, providing constant access to new ‘real time’ information. Access to social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, is widespread and accessible to both friend and foe, potentially allowing any individual to influence political outcomes, transform perceptions of events, and create positive or negative responses. This may dramatically affect the future use of military force.6

War is a contest of political will. Hard power provides the means to apply violence, while soft power is employed to disempower the adversary without coercion and to influence affected populations. Soft power, in the context of the so-called hybrid-warfare paradigm, can be defined as ‘the ability to get what you want through attraction and persuasion’ via the strategic use of (dis)information and influence campaigns.7 In the case of Marawi, the goal of a soft-power approach was defined as legitimising government action and countering violent extremist narratives to prevent the spread of the insurgent ideology. According to the AFP’s official documentation on the battle, this soft-power approach was applied across all the levels of army operations—strategic, operational and tactical.

This meant a focus on the IS–Maute fighters, hostages and trapped civilians within the main battle area, internally displaced persons outside of Marawi City and the wider national community.8

Revisiting Marawi is topical since—despite the defeat of the Maute–ASG alliance in the city itself—Mindanao remains a possible location for future conflict and is central to counterterrorism efforts in the Asia–Pacific.

Since the southern Philippines is the only place in the region where IS has managed to assert itself through holding physical space, the seizure of Marawi has, to a certain extent, been considered a propaganda victory and strategic success for the wider jihadi cause. This continues to make Mindanao an attractive destination for transnational jihadists following the territorial demise of IS’s caliphate in the Middle East; the January 2019 Jolo bombings as well as ongoing reports of the presence of foreign fighters in the southern Philippines illustrate this trend.9

Figure 2: The devastation wreaked at the dockside to eliminate the final handful of militants

Introducing hard power

The hard power part of this report describes how, after a confused initial response amid an evacuating population and a long pause to regroup, the AFP slowly and systematically recovered Marawi. It doesn’t seek to examine tactical and training lessons from the battle or dissect errors of the AFP in any detail. Those aspects are covered in an extensive series of internal documents, the more sensitive aspects of which can’t be shared for security reasons.

An excellent selection of insights is at The Cove blog in James Lewis’s overview of the hard-power battle, which is a considered critique of the three main stages and examines how major challenges of an urban fight played out in this case. As Lewis highlights:

The lessons learned by the [AFP] in the Battle of Marawi, fighting a determined, ruthless enemy, are invaluable to the Australian Army … Urbanisation trends—as well as the existential reality of conflict amongst people, where they live—compel us to be expert at this most difficult of environments.10

A crucial factor in the outcome of the kinetic battle is that the population chose to leave, and thus heavy civilian casualties were avoided and the militants’ hopes of a ‘Fallujah effect’ were confounded. Furthermore, the fight didn’t inspire significant violent resistance elsewhere, much less the general uprising that the militants sought.

The AFP attributes this to its effective use of soft power.

Introducing soft power

IS, typical of modern insurgents, relies on the use of IOs. Marawi is an instructive case of how digital media has been employed as a new weapon by a well-equipped, media-savvy enemy.

Globally, IS Central in the Middle East took a significant interest in Marawi, making it the focus of a targeted media campaign that presented Mindanao as the hub for a new regional and global jihadi insurgency. This created a sense of momentum to IS’s pursuit of global impact and built on IS narratives of growing capability and reach, as a counterbalance to its continued loss of territory in its ‘caliphate’.

In the Philippines, the local militants, making calculated use of IS media tactics and resources, sought to position themselves as the more ‘ethical actors’ in comparison with the government and the AFP. In response, the AFP engaged them in a ‘battle of the narratives’ or ‘battle of perceptions’ framed around themes of ‘moral power’ and ‘cultural friction’.

In the context of Marawi, the term information operation was used by the AFP to describe its coordinated, sustained efforts to counter the IS media campaign. In this paper, IO therefore refers to how the IS-aligned insurgents leveraged existing local grievances through strategic messaging as well as the AFP’s targeted response to (re)gain a favourable reputation and establish legitimacy.

The purpose of this analysis is not to examine whether Marawi can be seen as an overall, long-term success.

That would require more extensive fieldwork among affected populations that generates independent data on community perceptions in the post-conflict rehabilitation phase. It’s been rightly pointed out that insurgencies are hardly defeated on the battlefield. Marawi clearly demonstrates that the real battle ‘is won in the way a nation provides physical reconstruction, economic recovery and human rehabilitation post-conflict’.11

That process is still ongoing in the Philippines, where the government is reportedly struggling with post-conflict community building, reconstruction and communication with affected populations12—all of which are crucial to preventing further radicalisation.

Instead, this report highlights key themes and principles relevant to an effective soft-power approach and underscores the IO elements that achieved successful outcomes during the AFP operations in Marawi itself.

Recognising the centrality of whole-of-government approaches to countering extremist discourses, such insights are valuable for the wider political process and the prevention of further radicalisation.

Figure 3: Nature reclaims a destroyed mosque a year after the battle ended, highlighting the vital reconstruction work to be done

In order to draw out implications for future scenarios, it’s necessary to consider not only how the AFP countered IS messaging but also how IS messages could resonate so strongly that they could enable the Marawi crisis in the first place. This examination of IS’s messaging and the AFP’s approach therefore focuses on:

  • identity factors and cultural and moral justifications (‘just war’)
  • gaps between rhetoric and deeds
  • legitimacy and credibility.

This demonstrates how effective, credible messaging needs to be closely attuned to the sociopolitical and emotional realities of the particular target audiences. Taking into consideration the causes and drivers of political conflict—in particular, the underlying moral context—is vital for credibility.

Background to the Marawi crisis

The seizure of Marawi needs to be understood against a background of existing separatist insurgency, poverty, marginalisation and lack of inclusive governance. The militants’ plans for taking over the city exploited its physical and political geography as well as Muslim grievances, including a profound sense of disconnect from the Philippine state and its predominantly Christian identity.

Marawi, located on the island of Mindanao (Figure 4), is the capital of Lanao del Sur, one of the five provinces of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). It’s officially known as the Philippines’ only ‘Islamic city’, giving it symbolic significance in a predominantly Catholic nation. Mindanao has a history of revolutionary resistance against colonial powers and subsequently the postcolonial Philippine state; its Moro population is accustomed to fighting for self-determination and independence. The Moros, comprising different ethnic and tribal groups of the Muslim region, were traditionally seen as the subversive Muslim ‘other’ within an otherwise homogeneous national identity.

In parallel, the Moro sociopolitical and religious identity is constructed in sharp opposition to what’s regarded as an oppressive state that marginalises them.13

Figure 4: The location of Marawi on Mindanao

The seizure of Marawi was preceded by decades of separatist resistance and enabled by a pre-existing culture of conflict in the form of feuds (rido) between warring Moro clans and traditional honour codes that make it obligatory to join the fighting.

Violence was furthered by the presence of armed groups, private militias and illegal firearms. The Islamist militant groups operating on Mindanao include ASG, the Maute Group, Ansar Khalifa Philippines and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters—all with longstanding ties to either al-Qaeda or Jemaah Islamiyah, albeit for opportunistic reasons.

The leader of the ASG, Isnilon Hapilon, swore allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in 2014; Ansar Khalifa Philippines and the Maute Group followed shortly thereafter. In 2016, these newly allied groups cooperated in several operations, including a bombing in Davao City and the short seizure of the Maute Group’s hometown of Butig by 300 militants.

The militant groups had also been joined by foreign (mostly regional) jihadis who infiltrated Mindanao, adding funds and weapons.

It appears that the local militant leaders were eager to establish their credibility with the IS leadership, while the latter were looking to ‘franchise’ their operation beyond the Middle East. While clan and tribal rivalries run deep, IS seems to have brought the ‘ideological glue’ that—aided by social media as a connector—prompted unification and operational cooperation on the goal of a regional caliphate.14

Marawi is hence a case in point as a ‘glocal’ manifestation of jihadism, in which localised objectives and grievances become enmeshed with the meta-narratives and ideology of jihad at the global level. This is evidenced by the wider ideological, strategic and financial links to jihadi militants globally that Muslim separatist insurgents in Mindanao have had for decades.

The Marawi crisis stalled the Bangsamoro peace process, which had been underway to grant full autonomy to the ARMM. The creation of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), led by former commanders of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), is the only hope for ending the conflict. In 2014, the MILF signed the Bangsamoro agreement to demilitarise in return for Muslim self-rule in parts of the southern Philippines, after having worked since 2005 to fight jihadi extremists. But pro-IS (or alternatively pro-al-Qaeda) sentiments combined with insurgent and warlord control of territory opposed their initiative in an ongoing dynamic that continues to endanger the full implementation of the BARMM.

Given this context, the stakes for alienating the Muslim population in Mindanao were extremely high, as were the opportunities to exploit existing grievances and division that would have made the ensuing political process of ratifying the BARMM outright impossible. During the Marawi seizure, capitalising on entrenched Muslim resentment, the jihadis sought to portray the Philippine Government and the AFP as the cause of suffering and injustice and as enemies of Islam and humanity, holding them responsible for the destruction of the city. Specifically, a key reason IS could even attempt to establish a caliphate in Mindanao was because militants exposed flaws in the government’s approach to democracy and equality, playing on genuine grievances. As highlighted by Sidney Jones, ‘whatever happens to the pro-ISIS coalition in Mindanao, it has left behind the idea of an Islamic state as a desirable alternative to corrupt democracy’.15 Coupled with a global jihadist narrative of historical injustice against Muslims, this makes fertile ground for ongoing jihadi activity, posing significant security challenges for neighbouring countries, with implications beyond the immediate region. 

Figure 5: ISIS graffiti found on houses in Marawi’s main battle area

Photos: Katja Theodorakis, 11 October 2018.

Analysing hard power

This section gives a chronology of the Marawi operation and draws some conclusions about the use of hard power in urban environments.

Overview of the battle

After the alliance of local militants with IS, the AFP was keenly aware of increased activity and had vague reports of a planned seizure. What it didn’t know was that militants had infiltrated several hundred men, weapons and a range of IT equipment into a city suited for defence, bounded on two sides by a lake and with only three approach roads.

Furthermore, many buildings have ready-made ‘Buho’ ferro-concrete bunkers, which the local population build and stock with food and illegal weapons to take shelter from regular outbreaks of clan warfare. When news reached the military that the militant leadership was meeting in a safe house in western Marawi, it took action. 

The raid on 23 May to arrest the militant leaders involved an all-arms team. As they approached the safe house, up to 100 militants appeared from nearby buildings, resulting in a firefight that had the arrest team pinned down for days while the militant leaders escaped. The raid led the militants to prematurely launch an operation that was planned for the start of Ramadan. Militants across the city took hostages and seized the hospital, police station and prison, killing police officers, setting prisoners free and arming them. A large group of militants also attacked the army camp, while others occupied the City Hall, desecrated the cathedral, set fire to the Catholic college and rampaged through the streets hoisting black flags. On the edges of the city, their checkpoints asserted control and killed escaping non-Muslims. Police and troops in armoured vehicles who rushed into the city to relieve trapped comrades were ambushed; crews were killed and survivors trapped. President Rodrigo Duterte declared martial law, and a nationwide response began.

The situation in Marawi was confused. In the suburbs, the AFP recaptured ground quickly from constantly moving militants, while in the city well-sited snipers stopped its advance. Inhabitants began to leave, shocked by the brutality of foreign fighters and wanton destruction by ‘local boys’. Most of the population of 200,000 fled in the first days, although several thousand were trapped—held as hostages, caught in the crossfire or hiding in fear of militant brutality. Using phones and two-way radios, they called for help and passed on militant threats to kill hostages unless AFP attacks stopped.

Uncertainty, unexpected militant strength and threats to hostages made an AFP with little experience in urban operations hesitant. Units that advanced were ambushed both within buildings and on the streets, and a Philippine Marine Corps company (about 100 personnel) was hit with a sophisticated multilayered firebomb attack16 that killed 13 and injured many more. AFP reliance on firepower to strike militants became increasingly controversial, especially after airstrikes also killed soldiers. Setbacks led troops to ‘learn on the job’ and improvise—for instance, putting timber armour on vehicles, using sledgehammers to knock holes through walls to avoid moving on streets, and erecting walls or screens to pass across laneways.

Concurrently, friendly nations provided training, weapons, equipment and specialist capabilities, such as surveillance flights provided by the Royal Australian Air Force. The Joint Task Force (JTF) formed to retake Marawi gave priority to cordon security, managing displaced civilians and IOs. For example, a force of female ‘hijab warriors’ was assembled to ensure that control in the evacuation centres was culturally appropriate, while military engineers were assigned to construct refugee shelters even while they were in demand for the urban fight.

While the tactical concern was security—to stop other jihadis joining the rebellion or spreading it among the evacuated refugees—the crucial point was to act in a way that signalled respect for Islam and concern for evacuees’ welfare. 

The hiatus while the AFP tightened a cordon around the city core and regrouped for the urban fight enabled several hundred militants to withdraw to the city core and prepare for a long fight. However, it did allow the military to concentrate on ad hoc rescue efforts, in cooperation with community and civil society groups, while ceasefires and evacuations were negotiated by the MILF. This unprecedented cooperation and focus on civilian welfare provided narratives to counter those of the militants.

The AFP describes the approach that it developed for the systematic recovery of the city as ‘SLICE-ing’ (strategise, locate, isolate, constrict and eliminate). It strategised by dividing the city into three sectors, each allocated to Marine or Army units with armoured vehicles and artillery attached.

In each sector, it located and then isolated the militants by arranging forces or fire effects around their position, then constricted them by shifting soldiers and fire effects inwards, and finally eliminated them with explosive firepower followed by infantry assault. The evolved SLICE approach was slow and deliberate; the attack on each building was planned in detail and rehearsed, and its capture was followed by full preparation for defence before proceeding. It took five months to clear the city (Figure 6).

Figure 6: The Battle for Marawi

Source: Charles Knight, using Google Earth.

The challenges of kinetic urban operations

The AFP struggled to retake Marawi. The time taken, in particular, highlights a shortfall in capability. However, closer examination of the fight shows that the destruction largely reflects the challenges of using capabilities that traditional militaries possess when confronting an enemy exploiting urban structures and intent on martyrdom. 

To clear urban terrain with less destruction requires specific capabilities—leadership and training alone won’t suffice. The battle showed how the environment presents opportunities for defenders and acute challenges for attackers.

The initial raid

Some media criticised the execution of the initial arrest raid as ‘botched’.17 However, the use of a company-sized force including elite troops and armoured vehicles was a prudent response in an unexpected task, vindicated by the force having low casualty rates. The lesson, relevant well beyond the Philippines, is that, wherever the population is intimidated or alienated from the forces of the state, an adversary might use urban cover to assemble and prepare a force undetected.

Responding to the seizure

Urban cover offered further opportunities to the relatively untrained militants as the Philippine forces responded.

Fighting at close range increases the value of surprise and decreases the necessity for weapons skills. By concealing themselves within, on or behind structures, the militants were able to spring ambushes at point-blank range, knocking out armoured personnel carriers (APCs) using anti-armour weapons and petrol bombs. The militants’ obsolescent rocket-propelled-grenade launchers (RPG-2s) penetrated police and army APCs, killing and maiming crew and disabling the vehicles. In one case, after surviving soldiers abandoned their APC, they were trapped for five days. This is a stark reminder of the vulnerability of the ADF’s APC fleet in urban terrain—a problem repeatedly rediscovered by the Israeli Defence Force with its M113s since 1973.18 The AFP might have avoided this risk by having the infantry moving dismounted, but that would have been too slow to save the police who were being attacked.

Furthermore, the militants were ready to exploit the extreme exposure of dismounted movement on streets.

Leading troops were shot by snipers, who then moved between well-concealed protected positions. The AFP’s reputation as tough fighters has been maintained over 60 years of counterinsurgency since General MacArthur famously said ‘give me 10,000 Filipinos and I will conquer the world’. Jungle fighting skills and determination couldn’t compensate for lack of training in urban operations and special tools such as smoke grenades. The AFP’s experience is a reminder to the ADF of the inherent vulnerability of any soldier or vehicle advancing into an ‘urban threat canyon’ and the need for a capability to reduce it. A partial answer may lie in the use of unmanned aerial and ground vehicles (UAV/UGV) to ‘prove’ routes and highly protected vehicles (which the ADF may acquire under Project Land 400). Laying smoke within the urban area would greatly inhibit a militant force, but current ADF smoke munition types present a lethal hazard to civilians.

Figure 7: Initial seizure tactics—images that help explain how militants initially held off the AFP

Image Notes

The Mapandi (Baloi) Bridge over the Agus River was a key obstacle to the AFP for two months. A reaction force in armoured personnel carriers was ambushed on the far side and trapped for five days. Later, a Marine company that pushed across suffered 53 casualties.

  1. A militant about to fire a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG-2) at an APC. RPG ambushes hit APCs, killing troops and imposing caution.
  2. Ambushed APC firing at militants above. This image, filmed from a few metres away, shows APC vulnerability among buildings.
  3. Militant throws petrol bomb. Troops were hit with petrol bombs, explosive flame-bombs and grenades thrown from above.
  4. Militant sniping. Concealed, experienced shooters engaged any exposed movement on approach roads, paralysing the AFP advance.
  5. Hostage pleads to the camera. Hostages were taken and their presence was publicised to produce hesitation, doubt and political dissent.
  6. Hobby drone. Militants used drones to observe AFP deployments and coordinate counterattacks.
  7. Militant fires machine gun wildly. Roving teams conducting ‘shoot and scoot’ attacks caused few casualties but much fear and confusion.
  8. Improvised explosive device. As troops were driven into buildings by sniping they suffered increasing losses from IEDs.

Source: Composite by Charles Knight; images from AFP sources or screen grabs from militant propaganda. 

Were there ways to disrupt the militants’ preparations, other than an immediate and risky counterattack? Inserting a force by helicopter to secure dominating features within the city would require that force to be too large to be overrun, enough aircraft to deliver troops and supplies in one lift, and good intelligence. Those enablers weren’t available to the AFP, and the risks are well illustrated by the 1993 ‘Black Hawk down’ incident in which a US helicopter was shot down in Somalia, or the 1987 Tamil Tigers’ ambush and destruction of an Indian Army heliborne attempt to seize Jaffna Hospital.19

Small UAVs armed with precision bullet-firing weapons would appear to offer the capability to rapidly respond and disrupt a militant force preparing to defend an urban area; however, such systems remain controversial.

Retaking the city

Critics of the destruction and length of time taken to clear Marawi attribute both to AFP failings.20

Training deficiencies, which were acknowledged by the AFP, partially account for the time taken. The combat clearance operations took two or three times as long as battles for similarly sized cities such as Fallujah and Grozny. However, the destruction is common to similar battles and better explained by the nature of urban combat and the need to use explosive firepower to reduce one’s own casualties.

To clear a city, a force must clear every room, in every building, in every block. A soldier entering is at a lethal disadvantage to a waiting enemy. In earlier urban battles among the lightly constructed buildings of Butig and Zamboanga, the AFP had suffered casualties from shots through walls when using American room-combat drills, but had learned to use firepower to sweep militants out. It brought that experience to Marawi but found the method less effective among the concrete walls of the city, and the militants compounded their advantage by cutting small loopholes in interior walls to shoot from behind protection. Militants with IEDs or suicide vests could also wait until the troops entered before detonating them. The most effective answer was weapon systems that could punch high-explosive munitions through concrete to explode in the voids immediately ahead of attacking troops.

The most ‘surgical’ option was fire from the cannon of an APC, and the AFP innovated to get those vehicles into positions where they could get a line of sight onto a building. Though far more vulnerable than tanks, they could move in tight spaces. The AFP paired them with bulldozers clad with improvised armour to clear a path through rubble, and even constructed a ramp to enable an APC to fire from an upper level (Figure 8). It found the 105-mm pack howitzer, long retired from ADF service, invaluable because it could be manhandled among buildings and fire high-explosive shells that could be fused to detonate after entering a building. Instructively, AFP discussion documents examining the requirement for a tank assess the 105 mm to be the optimal projectile for urban combat.

It’s notable that the ADF no longer has artillery that can be manhandled, that our main current APCs don’t have cannon, and that the future well-protected vehicles will be too large to manoeuvre in confined urban spaces.

Figure 8: AFP employment of direct fire. Left: A 105-mm field gun firing directly in support of clearing operations. Right: An M113 fitted with ad hoc wooden armour intended to provide protection against obsolescent and improvised warheads.

Photos: AFP.

When cannon or guns couldn’t be brought to bear on the target, the AFP solution was aircraft bombs—with an attendant risk of the errors that on several occasions caused multiple own casualties. It seems likely that small armed UGVs, robotic platforms with infantry-type weapons, might move more readily in, among and around buildings to deliver fire precisely where it’s required, with no risk to one’s own soldiers and reduced risk to civilians — and that this would be a valuable capability in a future urban fight.

The militants made extensive use of IEDs, which were often sophisticated and ingeniously hidden (for example, some were concealed in ceiling spaces). The AFP suffered many IED casualties in doorways or hallways and learned to always enter a building via a newly created breach in the wall, preferably one created with explosives. The value of a clearing approach that was dependent on explosives and explosive firepower is illustrated by the ‘natural experiment’ that occurred when they weren’t used. President Duterte directed that explosive weapons weren’t to be used on mosques, yet mosques were used to fight from and hold hostages (Figure 9). The consequence was that assaults on mosques were repeatedly beaten back with casualties. Eventual success there was associated with the employment of CS gas grenades.

Figure 9: The structural challenges of the Marawi fight. Left: A street too narrow for vehicles but so swept by sniper fire that a sandbag wall had to be built to cross the gap and holes smashed through every concrete wall to avoid street exposure and IEDs in doorways. Right: The cellar below a mosque where militants sheltered with their hostages for dual impunity.

Photos: Charles Knight, 11 October 2018.

The fundamental challenge that militants in an urban area can present is evident from the fact that it took over a month to clear the last 50 militants from a 1,000-metre by 800-metre area (Figure 10). At this stage, the AFP had learned fast, been substantially re-equipped and retrained, had new systems for air attack and was supported by allied surveillance systems and special forces. The method of deliberate attack described to the authors appears similar to techniques used in recent battles against IS in the Middle East and approximates to ‘best practice’. The resulting level of destruction despite that highlights the urgent need for new capabilities.

Figure 10: Protracted seizure tactics—images that help explain why it took months for the AFP to clear the main battle area

Image Notes

The main battle area, looking towards the 800-metre by 1,000-metre zone where 50 militants held out for the final month. The well-prepared and cunning enemy intended to die with as many AFP casualties as possible. Avoiding that required deliberate methods.

  1. A sniper’s view. Streets became no-go areas that could be crossed only by erecting sandbag walls or screens or in armoured vehicles.
  2. An IED. Hundreds of IEDs, often in entrances and stairwells, made every building a potential deathtrap when entered.
  3. An RPG is fired from a building. The RPG threat, added to that of IEDs in the rubble, limited the use of armoured vehicles.
  4. Militant observer–sniper pair. Using loopholes deep inside buildings and moving after a few shots, they remained unseen.
  5. Tunnel dug by hostages. Combined with existing bunkers, tunnels allowed militants to survive bombardment and manoeuvre.
  6. ‘Ratholes’ and loopholes. Militants prepared holes to both move through buildings and fire into rooms from adjacent ones.
  7. Militant waiting with IEDs and rifle. Militants used ‘hugging’ tactics, staying hidden in a building or infiltrating back inside after the AFP assaulted. This denied the troops their heavy firepower, while the militants fired and threw IEDs from cover.

Source: Composite by Charles Knight; images from AFP sources or screen grabs from militant propaganda.

A final but major consideration is that most of the population successfully evacuated Marawi, which demonstrates the militants’ miscalculation of popular support and a failure of their IOs. Had evacuation not occurred, significant civilian casualties would have been inevitable, with profound political consequences. In similar crises, facilitating rapid evacuation is desirable from a humanitarian point of view. The capability to assist with an effective evacuation, and especially to provide confidence-building measures among a fleeing population, might be a vital Australian contribution.

Hard power: conclusions

The Marawi crisis highlights the challenge presented by urban operations in general and urban seizures in particular.

The urban problem is a challenge that has historically been neglected—SLA Marshall called it ‘a curious void in the history of war’.21 Simply attributing the delays and destruction of the response to lack of AFP capability—real though that was—risks continuing complacency. The drivers and trends shifting conflict towards the urban environment are clear, and non-state adversaries have clearly learned about seizure as a strategy and about methods of fighting in cities.

Contemporary jihadi enemy equipped with IEDs represent a special problem. We need to think hard about countering this, both as a nation and to help our friends. The starting point is recognising that a determined defender on urban terrain with local knowledge and IEDs presents a problem that can’t be solved by high standards of training and outstanding leadership alone. A force will take heavy casualties unless it employs measures to protect its advancing soldiers from lurking threats—and the only protective measure currently available to most armies is explosive firepower. If firepower is used, there will be casualties among civilians present—and in Marawi most had left. In future urban fights, political leaders and decision-makers are very likely to face the dilemma of balancing their own casualties with civilian casualties—with attendant reputational risk.

Technology appears to offer new options for protecting soldiers. We should pursue these:

  1. Factor the likelihood that asymmetric adversaries will ‘seize, defy and discredit’ into contingency planning for domestic and overseas responses. In many situations of urban crisis, humanitarian interest will be served by the early evacuation of the civilian population. The capacity to offer support for a secure evacuation makes it more likely to happen. It’s similar to the capacity that we would already seek to offer in other humanitarian crises.
  2. Review the suitability of current and planned Australian Army capabilities for operating in a Marawi-like environment. Some new capabilities might significantly reduce risks to soldiers and civilians in urban combat, such as specialist reconnaissance UAVs/UGVs and tele-operated ‘bulldozer-like’ engineering platforms. Their value extends to remediating the battlefield after conflict and also responding to natural disasters. Such systems might be plausibly offered to friendly governments in a crisis, and they may use technologies within the scope of Australian industry and the Defence Innovation Program. Other examples include: – stand-off wall-breaching systems; – persistent armed drones with a discriminate strike capability against fleeting targets (smaller and cannon-armed); – smoke and other obscurant systems that can be used without risk to civilians; deployable security barrier systems.
  3. Develop a deployable organisation with unmanned medium engineering capability. Leading-edge ADF counter-IED capability should provide the foundations for an Australian Army entity that’s able to conduct unmanned combat search and clear operations in an urban environment.

Analysing soft power

Contextualising information operations and the information environment

‘Information operations’ is a frequently employed yet ambiguously defined term. Aside from narrow military usage, colloquially it has become a catch-all for propaganda, strategic communications, psychological influence campaigns and Cold-War-style disinformation. Appreciating the nuances, it is therefore important to define its meaning in a concise and context-specific manner.

Relevant for the purposes of this report is the application of IOs in the specific operational context as well as the wider information environment which they’re part of. A recent research contribution recognised the basic elements of operations in the information domain as ‘the sequence of actions with the common purpose of affecting the perceptions, attitudes, and decision making of relevant actors’.22 That definition is somewhat broader than the ADF’s focus on operations ‘against the capability, will and understanding of target systems and/or target audiences’.23

The common denominator is a cognitive effect, and the end goal is to shape decision-making in target populations according to strategic and national interests. This can include, as was the case in Marawi, both insurgents and affected populations as well as the wider national audience.

Figure 11: AFP combat cameramen operated among the assaulting troops to capture emotive images in support of a narrative of steady progress against the militants

Photo: Operations Research Center, Philippine Army.

As information can be shared globally in real time by almost any actor, the wider information environment encompasses social, cultural, cognitive, technical and physical attributes ‘that act upon and impact knowledge, understanding, beliefs, world views, and, ultimately, actions of an individual, group, system, community, or organization’.24 Implied in this definition is the widening of the battlefield, as an increasingly connected world has enlarged the audiences of the conflict beyond those immediately affected. Particularly in a conflict zone, the information environment consists of an interconnected system of actors—often with opposing objectives—who all create, influence and disseminate information with different tools and across various platforms.

IS messaging

Establishing legitimacy and authority therefore becomes trickier as populations are subject to a wider array of information and forces that seek to influence them. Characterisations of IS’s IOs reflect this new paradigm, highlighting how the group exploited the information environment with multidimensional campaigns that:

simultaneously target ‘friends and foes’ … With the use of simple messages, catchy phrases and striking imagery, all augmented by actions in the field, the fundamental purpose of IS’s IO is to shape the perceptions and polarise the support of its audiences.25

Key parts of IS’s propaganda brand have been the centrality of visual images, the so-called ‘propaganda of the deed’, the sheer volume of its output and its effort to key messages to local audiences to achieve maximum resonance. 

Propaganda materials for the Battle of Marawi were produced locally in Mindanao during the battle, as well as by IS Central through its Amaq News Agency. Marawi was mentioned for the first time in Rumiyah magazine and several feature videos about the new ‘South East Asian province of the caliphate’ in mid-2017. The mentions contained familiar tropes: a rallying cry against occupation, highlighting the colonial legacy of Southeast Asia and framing the battle as justified liberation from secular governments, Christians and American involvement in the region. The purity of Islamic governance was contrasted with the failures of the Philippines’ version of democracy, zeroing in on the brutality of security forces in Mindanao.

The key objective, as with all other IS media, was to broadcast IS’s triumphalist takeover of the city to project an image of global expansion and strength. The importance of visual symbolism could, for instance, be seen in video images of IS fighters smashing Mary and Jesus statues in a Catholic church, ridding Marawi of ‘idolatry’ and establishing sharia law. This was an example of attempts to reinforce cultural norms and prejudices to ‘turn’ a population. Moreover, the jihadists also employed more direct ‘offline’ methods by interacting directly with residents across Mindanao, leveraging existing ties and networks to personally connect with the population.26

This reportedly involved ‘door-to-door’ visits whereby IS-aligned militants personally informed residents of their intended plans for Mindanao, as well as coercing local clerics to denounce fatwas they had previously issued against IS.27

AFP messaging

In response, JTF Marawi created an IO cell (the Civil–Military Operations Coordinating Center) under Lieutenant Colonel Jo-Ar Herrera and with several subordinate localised joint task groups across Mindanao, which engaged in active counter-messaging to shape public opinion and undermine militants’ narratives. This encompassed both the online space as well as more traditional methods of messaging, such as leaflet drops, banners, and radio and loudspeaker broadcasts. In the tac tical and operational sphere, it was aimed at avoiding civilian casualties, getting the population to evacuate, and stemming further recruitment by and popular support for the insurgents.

In the longer term, the overarching goal was to ‘translate tactical gains into a moral and strategic victory’.28 Alongside the systematic removal of online IS content, this included the strategic deployment of government counter-narratives in the form of emotional combat footage, documentation of civilian rescue operations and solidarity stories that were used to flood the information environment. Additionally, a team of soldiers and civilian contractors created a 24-hour media centre to support the public information campaign.

This was part of a broader soft-power effort aimed at civil–military cooperation, which was regarded as a crucial element during the crisis; the goal was to forge a unifying patriotic narrative to win the support of the national population. Coordinating and reporting about rescue and humanitarian operations formed an important part of the strategy to demonstrate that the needs of the population were a priority. This included symbolic actions such as footage of drones delivering direction-giving mobile phones to hostages, the organisation of ‘peace corridors’ with the MILF and NGOs to facilitate evacuations, and the setting up of ‘stakeholder’ desks with provincial officials for press conferences and face-to-face engagements in order to put forward an image of transparency. In this way, the AFP sought to ensure that its community engagement was visible in deed, not word only.

Figure 12: Image from the Civil–Military Operations Coordinating Center

Note: The Civil–Military Operations Coordinating Center was officially branded as the medium where civilian stakeholders (civil society groups, media, private individuals and government organisations) were able to engage the military in three areas—‘information dissemination, continuous dialogue, and the conduct of emergency activities’.

Source: ‘Civil–Military Operations Coordinating Center (CMOCC)’, Marawi and beyond, JTF Marawi, online.

Accordingly, AFP messaging employed a human rights discourse, showing itself as a positive force that cares. This was counterintuitive to what the local population associated with the military, which has a history of violently repressing insurgencies—its response to the 1972 uprisings on Mindanao and its brutal imposition of martial law being prime examples exploited by militants. Given the lingering memory of this, the commander of JTF Marawi, Lieutenant General Bautista, candidly acknowledged Muslim distrust, even hatred, of the military and spoke of avoiding what he called ‘cultural friction’. Exhibiting an awareness of the normative nature of the fight, the commander stated that the aim was to build political legitimacy through a narrative of inclusion, humanism and the righteousness of military action. The key frame of government narratives was that ‘this was not a war between Muslims and Christians’, aiming to reconstitute national identity to be more inclusive.

The IO accompanying the Battle of Marawi can hence be understood as a battle for the moral high ground: content versus content to claim the ‘truth’ and establish perceptions as reality. IS narratives highlighted the lack of welfare and social justice for residents and refugees, focusing on what was framed as deliberate destruction and disregard for civilian casualties.

A fighter’s comment, posted on the Telegram channel, illustrates this position: Remember my dear brothers and sisters. We did not destroy Marawi City. We did not bomb it to ashes … We conquered the City for the purpose of implementing the Laws of Allah azzawajal. We ordained good and forbade evil … but the response of the Crusader Army was brutal. They fired upon us first in Padian, the civilians know this and as Soldiers of Allah we are obligated to fight back. Wallaahi, We never intended harm to the City and its people.29

Likewise, the AFP relied on similar arguments to discredit the insurgents’ narratives and undermine their credibility, highlighting military efforts to avoid civilian casualties and the AFP’s care for the population. Trust, unity and ‘truth’ were key themes in this discourse; hashtags to support this narrative in public information campaigns included #AbuSayyafHaram, #UnitedAgainstTerrorism, #MauteKafirun, #IAmfromMindanao, #IsupportMartialLaw, #Munafiq, #UniteforMarawi, #NotoViolence, #NotoISIS, #SupportOurTroops and #OurFallenHeroes (Figure 13).

Figure 13: The official website of JTF Marawi—#SupportOurTroops

Note: According to the official website of JTF Marawi, #SupportOurTroops ‘commanded a huge following locally and internationally. People from all walks of life identified with this hashtag, and extended their support.’

Source: ‘Social media operations’, Marawi and beyond, JTF Marawi, 2018, online.

As one of the AFP’s official public relations publications on Marawi states, ‘if the enemy could come out with a sophisticated campaign of deception, the Public Information Campaign showed them that the Philippine government could counter these simply by telling the truth’.

Results

In the tactical space, it appears that the IO managed to discredit militants’ claims about indiscriminate AFP violence to a fair extent. The population heeded AFP directions to evacuate, thereby avoiding significant civilian casualties. The swift humanitarian response, actively spearheaded or supported by the AFP, sent a visible signal of a responsive government providing needed services. There were accusations by residents that AFP soldiers had looted their homes; those claims were denounced and countered by the AFP, which reportedly then sent troops alongside local officials to secure residents’ homes to prevent further looting by the insurgents. It emerged later, however, that five individual cases of looting by AFP soldiers were acknowledged by the military, which promised to prosecute them accordingly.30 The insurgents also didn’t manage to inspire notable violent resistance elsewhere, much less win large-scale popular support in favour of their caliphate as a viable alternative government.

Yet, easily reportable actions and effects on immediate decision-making don’t automatically translate into improved political relationships in the long term. In this regard, the picture is more complicated. There are some reports that the image of the military had been improved and that, through its efforts to deal with NGOs to facilitate humanitarian aid, greater trust in the AFP as a force ‘for the people’ was created.31 As one report stated, ‘children in the evacuation centres, who initially depicted the military as the enemy in their drawings, started to portray the soldiers as friends or saviours’.32 Even though trust in the state overall is very likely still low, especially through poorly managed post-conflict rehabilitation, the AFP worked hard to establish itself during the crisis as a committed actor in the service of the local population. That doesn’t equate, however, to successful, holistic counterinsurgency with long-lasting effects (what the AFP termed ‘moral and strategic victory’). In particular, interviews with internally displaced persons in camps highlight that the destruction of the city through airstrikes as well as military and police treatment of civilians suspected to be militants are genuine sources of anger against the government and the security forces.33

Figure 14: The wrecked Jameo Dansalan Masjiid or Islamic College

Photo: Katja Theodorakis, 11 October 2018.

All this demonstrates that IOs are not only a rhetorical but also a deeply political activity. This means that they’re crucial to shaping the overall political character of the conflict and, in this case, even attempting to reconstitute national identity—which is a big responsibility. The normative approach taken by the AFP in Marawi illustrates this recognition. As IS has shown, leveraging perceptions is crucial to influencing populations. In order to counter this, cultural awareness and responsiveness to the sociopolitical and emotional realities of the target audiences are crucial.

But, for a more accurate understanding, it’s also necessary to consider the context in which the operations in Marawi were conducted. Existing research has extensively covered the tricky symbiotic relationship between the responsibility of mass media to report on events in the public interest and terrorists seeking to use the media to promote their political agenda. Accordingly, it’s well acknowledged that terrorism challenges the media’s ability and right to inform on events independently.34 IS is a case in point for this. The group not only made unprecedented use of its own media channels but also exploited mainstream media, which in some cases (unwillingly) made themselves vehicles for IS’s message.35

In Marawi, these dilemmas were especially pronounced, which was expressed poignantly by one Filipino journalist:

As with any other conflicts, the lines between propaganda and factual information are almost always hard to distinguish. But in the battle of Marawi, it was cranked up to the highest level. Access to independent information and to the actual main battle area was tightly controlled by the military, and for good reason. At the same time, though, the proliferation of smart phones with high-resolution cameras made it possible for journalists to take an unfiltered peek at what was happening on the ground.36

Despite journalists’ efforts, the government was nevertheless the media’s primary source for coverage of the siege of Marawi. Such a controlled information environment extended to the kinds of reports that were permitted to come out of Marawi and the AFP’s open declaration of a ranking system that only allowed ‘positive’ media coverage (as documented in its official book series about Marawi). Given that, in the first few days of the siege, insurgents used social media to communicate with the outside world, the Philippine Government also asked Facebook in Singapore to remove content from accounts associated with the IS–Maute Group, which it did.37

Aware of how media representations can affect the outcome of an urban battle, the AFP’s restrictions on reporting from the main battle area were justified by operational security concerns.38 This is a general practice reflected elsewhere; for example, US Marine Corps doctrinal guidance on urban operations states that ‘enforcing established guidelines helps prevent negative publicity which could jeopardize the operation or national and strategic objectives’.39

It’s argued that controlling the media environment is driven by the need to look beyond the immediate tactical implications of the battle to long-term security and stability; a tightly scripted narrative is seen as a necessary foundation for legitimacy in the ensuing political process. The implications of enmeshing IOs and psychological operations with public affairs efforts for the sake of projecting legitimacy and containing dissent have been identified as a point of concern in reporting on contemporary conflicts.40 In the Australian context, Kevin Foster’s analysis of the ADF’s relationship with the media during operations in Afghanistan illustrates this problem set; Foster was highly critical of ADF efforts to control communications by restricting media access and journalists’ freedom of movement among troops in the country.41 Ironically, the ADF’s Operation Augury in support of the AFP during the Battle of Marawi and its aftermath has also been criticised for an apparent lack of transparency about financial costs and personnel involvement.42

Such general security considerations and political dilemmas interacted with the particular domestic information environment of the Philippines—notably, the scope of a free press, which has been criticised as severely restricted under the Duterte government. In Freedom House’s free press ranking for 2017, the media environment in the Philippines was classified as ‘dangerous’ for journalists.43 This is evidenced by the frequent arrests of journalist Maria Ressa, and reportedly also includes coordinated government attempts at ‘domestic disinformation’ in order to control the domestic information space.44

Consequently, we can’t simply extract lessons from the ‘battle of the narratives’ in Marawi in an uncritical manner. Any targeted campaign or operation in today’s complex information environment involves cultural and political contestations, but particularly so in a context in which democratic principles are upheld only to a certain extent. In a fully democratic society, ethical debates about means and ends and a responsibility to ‘truth’ must continue to accompany the practice and analysis of propaganda or information campaigns and journalistic reporting on conflicts and terrorism.

Ultimately, the most important elements in a successful soft-power campaign are credibility and legitimacy beyond mere persuasion; moral authority can arise only when there’s no gap between rhetoric and actions. In the case of Marawi, the destruction of the city, in which the main battle area was aptly named ‘ground zero’, has given rise to accusations of the use of excessive, indiscriminate force by the AFP—a source for further extremist recruitment if the narrative of the AFP’s challenges isn’t managed with transparency. This highlights that clear, open communication is needed on the realities and dilemmas of urban warfare in order to avoid a loss of legitimacy. It’s a must that accusations of disproportionate air and ground attacks are addressed objectively and in a timely way.

Figure 15: JTF Marawi’s soft-power approach

Note: JTF Marawi states that the soft-power approach was applied ‘across all the levels of army operations: strategic, operational, and on the tactical level. On the tactical level, we applied it within the MBA [main battle area], particularly on the IS–Maute fighters, their hostages, and trapped civilians. On the operational level, we applied it outside the MBA, specifically by focusing on the IDPs [internally displaced persons] of Marawi City, their local and traditional leaders, and the people from the surrounding towns, provinces, and the lake area. On the strategic level, we directed our efforts on the Filipino nation and the global community.’

Source: ‘Soft power approach’, Marawi and beyond, JTF Marawi, 2018, online.

The strategic objective of jihadist groups is to gain recognition as credible ethical actors in global politics. To that end, they leverage grievances and seek to expose hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance in their opponents’ narrative. This can be countered only by nuanced knowledge of the cultural and moral context. As Albert Palazzo incisively argued recently, the new master program for future conflict isn’t the constant pursuit of a technological edge but knowledge.45 Part of that’s a keen, emotionally aware understanding of how points of views leading to action are constructed.

Soft power: conclusions

Adherence to the international rules-based order is the premise of our national security and defence strategy. But lawfulness, in the form of compliance with the international legal frameworks governing conflict, is only the necessary starting point to establishing credibility. Building legitimacy in a complex urban conflict with its ethical challenges needs to go beyond reputational concerns, proactively avoiding the ethical traps jihadis seek to lay.

This is especially important when considering whole-of-government responses that are shaped by political imperatives and long-term security and stability concerns.

Conceptions of ‘just war’ imply a moral righteousness, but that isn’t fixed—it’s derived from perceptions. As we saw with IS attempts to portray the AFP as the enemy of the local population, moral claims, especially in a conflict situation, are open to interpretation and constituted ‘on the ground’, among the people and amid the action. Careful attention to credibility gaps contributes to stripping extremist narratives of their perceived moral power and appeal.

An effective soft-power approach that amounts to more than mere persuasion and instead focuses on building relationships should take into account the following insights:

  • In urban operations, the narratives surrounding the conduct of operations aren’t just a supporting element but are equally as important as—if not more so than—the military objective: the effective use of soft power plays a crucial part in achieving a favourable political outcome.
  • The moral dimension matters. Responding to the sociopolitical and emotional realities of the target audiences is crucial. Political victory can be brought about only by avoiding dissonance between military effects and narratives. Legitimacy requires a close match between words and deeds.
  • There’s a need for cultural intelligence as a future capability: IOs shouldn’t be regarded as technical exercises but as human ones, premised on a thorough understanding of the causes and drivers of political violence. This includes a focus on values and ethical considerations and how they’re constructed on the ground.

Figure 16: Remnants of St Mary’s Cathedral in Marawi’s main battle area where IS insurgents smashed holy statues and kidnapped a priest

Photo: Katja Theodorakis, 11 October 2018.


Note from the authors

This report draws on insights from interviews with academics, members of the Philippine military in Manila and Marawi, and local government stakeholders and displaced residents in Mindanao during a research trip in October 2018. As a co-authored report, it takes a bifurcated approach based on our respective expertise in the kinetic and propaganda domains. Accordingly, it’s divided into two distinct lines of inquiry: hard-power and soft-power lessons.

Important disclaimer

This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in relation to the subject matter covered. It is provided with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering any form of professional or other advice or services. No person should rely on the contents of this publication without first obtaining advice from a qualified professional.

© The Australian Strategic Policy Institute Limited 2019

This publication is subject to copyright. Except as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part of it may in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, microcopying, photocopying, recording or otherwise) be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted without prior written permission. Enquiries should be addressed to the publishers. Notwithstanding the above, educational institutions (including schools, independent colleges, universities and TAFEs) are granted permission to make copies of copyrighted works strictly for educational purposes without explicit permission from ASPI and free of charge.

  1. Margarita Konaev, The future of urban warfare in the age of megacities, Defence Research Unit, Insitut Français des Relations Internationales, March 2019, 11, online. ↩︎
  2. Vincent Bernard, ‘War in cities: the spectre of total war’, International Review of the Red Cross, International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Geneva, 2016, 98(901):1–11, online; M Konaev, J Spencer, The era of urban war is already here, Foreign Policy Research Institute, 21 March 2018, online; D Kilcullen, Out of the mountains: the coming age of the urban guerrilla, Hurst & Co., London, 2013; Michael Evans, ‘Future war in cities: urbanization’s challenge to strategic studies in the 21st century’, International Review of the Red Cross, ICRC, Geneva, 2016, 98(901):37–51, online. ↩︎
  3. On IS’s urban warfare techniques and propaganda, see R Posting, A guide to the Islamic State’s way of urban warfare, Modern War Institute at West Point, 9 July 2018, online. ↩︎
  4. Agence France-Presse, ‘Marawi: city destroyed in Philippines’ longest urban war’, Straits Times, 19 October 2017, online; C Fonbuena, ‘Marawi battle zone: urban warfare challenges PH military’, Rappler, 19 June 2017, online. ↩︎
  5. J Spencer, Why militaries must destroy cities to save them, Modern War Institute at West Point, 8 November 2018, online. ↩︎
  6. Australian Army, Future land warfare report, 2014, 11. ↩︎
  7. Joseph S Nye, ‘Soft power versus information warfare’, The Strategist, 12 May 2017, online. ↩︎
  8. Operations Research Center (ORC), Marawi and beyond: the Joint Task Force Marawi story, Armed Forces of the Philippines, Termago Publishing, Quezon City, 2018, 60–61. ↩︎
  9. Carmela Fonguena, ‘“The fight is not over”: fears of Isis resurgence in Philippines’, The Guardian, 8 February 2019, online; Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC), The Jolo bombing and the legacy of ISIS in the Philippines, IPAC report no. 54, 5 March 2019. ↩︎
  10. J Lewis, ‘The battle of Marawi: small team lessons learned for the close fight’, The Cove, 21 January 2019, online. ↩︎
  11. SJ Cox, The Philippines: after the fighting in Marawi, Australian Civil-Military Centre, 24 August 2018, online. ↩︎
  12. D Simangan, ‘Is Marawi City “alive and booming” or a ghost town?’, The Diplomat, 1 May 2019, online. ↩︎
  13. H Neumann, ‘Identity-building and democracy in the Philippines: national failure and local responses in Mindanao’, Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs, 2010, 29(3):61–90. ↩︎
  14. IPAC, Pro-ISIS groups in Mindanao and their links to Indonesia and Malaysia, IPAC report no. 33, 25 October 2017; NG Quimpo, ‘Mindanao: nationalism, jihadism and frustrated peace’, Journal of Asian Security and International Affairs, 13 March 2016, 3(1):64–89, online. ↩︎
  15. Hannah Beech, Jason Gutierrez, ‘How ISIS is rising in the Philippines as it dwindles in the Middle East’, New York Times, 9 March 2019, online. ↩︎
  16. J Franco, The battle for Marawi: urban warfare lessons for the AFP, Security Reform Initiative, Quezon City, 2017. ↩︎
  17. C Fonbuena, ‘How a military raid triggered Marawi attacks’, Rappler, 29 May 2017, online. ↩︎
  18. N Sayers, ‘Future combat vehicle systems: lessons from Operation Defensive Shield’, in DSTO-GD-0484, Defence Science and Technology Organisation, Edinburgh, South Australia, 2006. ↩︎
  19. See unofficial Indian Air Force website online. ↩︎
  20. Zachary Abuza, ‘Counterterrorism in Southeast Asia’, in Isaac Kfir, Georgia Grice (eds), Counterterrorism yearbook 2019, ASPI, Canberra, 2019, online. ↩︎
  21. Samuel Lyman Atwood Marshall, ‘Notes on urban warfare’, Army Materiel Systems Analysis Activity, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, 1973. ↩︎
  22. Christopher Paul, ‘Is it time to abandon the term information operations?’, The Strategy Bridge, 11 March 2019, online. ↩︎
  23. Department of Defence, Operation series: Information activities, 3rd edition, ADDP 3.13, Australian Government, Canberra, 2013, I-4, online. ↩︎
  24. US Department of Defense, ‘Chapter IV: Organizing for joint operations’, in JP 3-0: Joint operations, US Government, Washington DC, 22 October 2018, IV-1-2, online. ↩︎
  25. H Ingram, ‘Three traits of the Islamic State’s information warfare’, RUSI Journal, 2014, vol. 159. ↩︎
  26. Understanding violent extremism: messaging and recruitment strategies on social media in the Philippines, Asia Foundation and Rappler, 2018, online. ↩︎
  27. Thomas Joscelyn, Caleb Weiss, ‘Islamic State releases video from the fighting in Marawi’, Threat Matrix, 31 May 2017, online; Charlie Winter, Haroro J Ingram, ‘Terror, online and off: recent trends in Islamic State propaganda operations’, War on the Rocks, 2 March 2018, online. ↩︎
  28. ORC, Marawi and beyond: the Joint Task Force Marawi story. ↩︎
  29. Quoted in IPAC, Marawi, the ‘East Asia Wilayah’ and Indonesia, IPAC report no. 38, 21 July 2017, 24. ↩︎
  30. Amnesty International (AI), The battle of Marawi: death and destruction in the Philippines, AI, London, 2017, 23, online. ↩︎
  31. C Fonbuena, ‘Marawi: where military rules and LGUs take a back-seat’, Rappler, 3 August 2017, online. ↩︎
  32. I Deinla, ‘A travel notebook to Marawi City’, The Interpreter, 23 July 2018, online. ↩︎
  33. AI, The battle of Marawi: death and destruction in the Philippines; S Jones, ‘Has Marawi killed the Philippines peace process?’, The Interpreter, 27 August 2017, online. ↩︎
  34. See, for example, JP Marthoz, Terrorism and the media: a handbook for journalists, UNESCO, 2017, 28–43, online. ↩︎
  35. A Courty, H Rane, K Ubayasiri, ‘Blood and ink: the relationship between Islamic State propaganda and Western media’, Journal of International Communication, 2019, 25(1):69–94. ↩︎
  36. Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, ‘To the max, facts, propaganda cranked up in battle for Marawi’, ABS-CBN News, 4 May 2018, online. ↩︎
  37. M Panzo, ‘Framing the war: the Marawi siege as seen through television documentaries’, Journal of Asian Politics & Policy, January 2018, 10:149–154, online; Lindsay Murdoch, ‘Philippine Islamic extremists open second front on Facebook’, Sydney Morning Herald, 12 June 2017, online. ↩︎
  38. Jack Board, ‘Soldiers’ lives at risk in Marawi from “irresponsible” social media use: Philippine military’, ChannelNewsAsia, 18 June 2017, online. ↩︎
  39. US Marine Corps, Military operations on urbanized terrain (MOUT), MCRP 12-10B.1, 6-2, online. ↩︎
  40. E Briant, Propaganda and counter-terrorism: strategies for global change, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 2015. ↩︎
  41. K Foster, Don’t mention the war: the Australian Defence Force, the media and the Afghan conflict, Monash University Press, Melbourne, 2013. ↩︎
  42. G Jennet, ‘Operation Augury: Australia’s war on terror goes “dark” in the Philippines, but why?’, ABC News, 21 May 2018, online. ↩︎
  43. Freedom of the press 2017: Philippines profile, Freedom House, 2017, online. ↩︎
  44. Melanie Smith, ‘Archives: Facebook finds “coordinated and inauthentic behavior” in the Philippines; suspends a set of pro-government pages ahead of May elections’, M graphika team, 29 May 2019, online; Rappler research team, ‘Philippine media under attack: press freedom after 2 years of Duterte’, Rappler, 29 June 2018, online. ↩︎
  45. Albert Palazzo, Knowledge, the master program, Australian Army, 2019, online. ↩︎

Mapping conditions in Rakhine State

Executive summary

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s International Cyber Policy Centre has combined open-source data with the collection and analysis of new satellite imagery to assess the current status of settlements in northern Rakhine State, Myanmar, which were burned, damaged or destroyed in 2017. As part of this research project, we have also mapped potential repatriation camps and military bases constructed on the sites of former Rohingya settlements.

Our research does not support assertions that conditions are in place to support a safe, dignified and sustainable return of Rohingya refugees to Rakhine State. Satellite analysis shows minimal preparation for a return of half a million refugees. The preparations that are being made raise significant concerns about the conditions under which returning Rohingya would be expected to live. Ongoing violence, instability, disruptions to internet and communications technologies and the lack of information about the security situation in Rakhine add to those concerns.

This research seeks to add to the evidence base available to policymakers and relevant stakeholders about conditions in northern Rakhine, and Rakhine State more broadly. It also seeks to contribute to informed discussions about the best path towards a safe, dignified and sustainable future for the Rohingya refugees.

Online report

Our findings and research methodology has been compiled as an interactive report which is available here.

Link to online research tool

From board room to situation room. Why corporate security is national security

Corporations are making valiant efforts to protect their assets and capabilities from attacks in the physical and cyber environments. But such attacks are not just matters of commercial concern to companies and their shareholders. They have significant potential to weaken national resilience.

There exists a void between business and national security agencies when it comes to understanding each other’s capabilities and limitations. There are already in place some mechanisms, established by both the Australian government and state governments, for security agencies to “hook up” with business. But the structures are fragmented between and within government departments and agencies and are often based on sector-specific silos.

Developing a secure and resilient nation can only be ensured through mutual obligation whereby both government and business understand and are committed to developing and maintaining the measures required to safeguard Australia. The threats we face don’t recognise the walls that exist between Australian businesses and national security agencies. To safeguard Australia, we need to put more doors in those walls. Today, corporate security is national security.