As China tries harder to collect data, we must try harder to protect data

China is stepping up efforts to force foreign companies to hand over valuable data while strengthening its own defences. Some of the information it’s looking for would give it greater opportunities for espionage or political interference in other countries.

Australia and other countries need to follow the lead of the United States, which on 21 October proposed rules that would regulate and even prohibit transfers of data containing the personal or medical information of its citizens to foreign entities.

Recent developments from inside China support the idea that the country is refocusing on bulk data, both to aid its intelligence operations and to protect itself from potential adversaries.

China has reformed its domestic legal environment to both protect itself and collect information with intelligence value. A new Data Security Law allows Chinese officials to broadly define ‘core state’ data and ‘important’ data while also banning any company operating inside China from providing data stored in China to overseas agencies without government approval. Firms over a certain size must also have a cell of the Chinese Communist Party to more closely integrate ‘Party leadership into all aspects of corporate governance’, including cybersecurity and data management.

The Communist Party’s Central Committee and the State Council have decreed that the National Data Administration will manage every source of public data by 2030.

The Ministry of State Security has prohibited Western companies from receiving geospatial information from Chinese companies and required companies to take down idle devices to reduce the threat of Western espionage. And Chinese nationals will shortly be unable to access the internet without verifying their identity by facial recognition and their national ID number.

In early October, a report by the Irish Council of Civil Liberties (ICCL) exposed the world of real-time bidding data, where the ads displayed when you go online are the result of an automated bidding process based on your browsing history and precise location. The ICCL report raised concerns that these kinds of analytics could identify people’s political leanings, sexual preferences, mental health state and even the drinks they like. That data has then been sold to companies operating in China.

Beijing’s recent activities in the digital world remind us that even the most mundane and trivial data about a person can have intelligence value—for example, in recruiting agents, guessing passwords and tracking the movements of targets. China’s expansive spying regime, which mobilises countless private entities and citizens, threatens to overwhelm Western intelligence services. That spying regime now has access to more information to inform decisions.

China’s latest moves draw our attention to the peculiar vulnerability of Australia in the region, especially among the AUKUS triad. Australian privacy law does not carry the same type of protections as British and US laws. Australia has neither a constitutional nor statutory right to privacy, and its key piece of legislative protection has provisions dating back to the 1980s. Despite receiving the results of a comprehensive review of the Privacy Act more than 18 months ago, the government has been sluggish to adopt any reforms that might help protect us from China’s data-harvesting practices.

The motivation for China to collect personal data in Australia has risen since we entered the AUKUS agreement in 2021. But the government isn’t showing enough interest in securing it against foreign manipulation and theft. Consider, too, that other intelligence players, such as India and Russia, are just as likely to join in.

Australia should take a leaf out of the US playbook on countering Chinese interference in its sovereign data. Since February 2024, the United States has been keen to regulate the sharing of information with foreign entities, starting with an executive order signed by President Joe Biden. The rules that Biden proposed on 21 October would ban data brokerage with foreign countries and only allow certain data to be shared with entities that adopt strict data security practices.

Beyond that, there is a growing need for industry and especially academia to adopt stronger security postures. Posting travel plans or political views on Facebook or Instagram might seem innocuous, but if it’s done by someone in a position of power or with access to valuable information, the individual’s vulnerability to espionage dramatically increases. As a society, we all need to take a little more notice and a little more care with what we are sharing online.

It’s not too late to regulate persuasive technologies

Social media companies such as TikTok have already revolutionised the use of technologies that maximise user engagement. At the heart of TikTok’s success are a predictive algorithm and other extremely addictive design features—or what we call ‘persuasive technologies’. 

But TikTok is only the tip of the iceberg. 

Prominent Chinese tech companies are developing and deploying powerful persuasive tools to work for the Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda, military and public security services—and many of them have already become global leaders in their fields. The persuasive technologies they use are digital systems that shape users’ attitudes and behaviours by exploiting physiological and cognitive reactions or vulnerabilities, such as generative artificial intelligence, neurotechnology and ambient technologies.   

The fields include generative artificial intelligence, wearable devices and brain-computer interfaces. The rapidly advancing tech industry to which these Chinese companies belong is embedded in a political system and ideology that compels companies to align with CCP objectives, driving the creation and use of persuasive technologies for political purposes—at home and abroad.  

This means China is developing cutting-edge innovations while directing their use towards maintaining regime stability at home, reshaping the international order abroad, challenging democratic values, and undermining global human rights norms. As we argue in our new report, ‘Persuasive technologies in China: Implications for the future of national security’, many countries and companies are working to harness the power of emerging technologies with persuasive characteristics, but China and its technology companies pose a unique and concerning challenge. 

Regulation is struggling to keep pace with these developments—and we need to act quickly to protect ourselves and our societies. Over the past decade, the swift technological development and adoption have outpaced responses by liberal democracies, highlighting the urgent need for more proactive approaches that prioritise privacy and user autonomy. This means protecting and enhancing the ability of users to make conscious and informed decisions about how they are interacting with technology and for what purpose.  

When the use of TikTok started spreading like wildfire, it took many observers by surprise. Until then, most had assumed that to have a successful model for social media algorithms, you needed a free internet to gather the diverse data set needed to train the model. It was difficult to fathom how a platform modelled after its Chinese twin, Douyin, developed under some of the world’s toughest information restrictions, censorship and tech regulations, could become one of the world’s most popular apps.  

Few people had considered the national security implications of social media before its use became ubiquitous. In many countries, the regulations that followed are still inadequate, in part because of the lag between the technology and the legislative response. These regulations don’t fully address the broader societal issues caused by current technologies, which are numerous and complex. Further, they fail to appropriately tackle the national security challenges of emerging technologies developed and controlled by authoritarian regimes. Persuasive technologies will make these overlapping challenges increasingly complex. 

The companies highlighted in the report provide some examples of how persuasive technologies are already being used towards national goals—developing generative AI tools that can enhance the government’s control over public opinion; creating neurotechnology that detects, interprets and responds to human emotions in real time; and collaborating with CCP organs on military-civil fusion projects. 

Most of our case studies focus on domestic uses directed primarily at surveillance and manipulation of public opinion, as well as enhancing China’s tech dual-use capabilities. But these offer glimpses of how Chinese tech companies and the party-state might deploy persuasive technologies offshore in the future, and increasingly in support of an agenda that seeks to reshape the world in ways that better fit its national interests. 

With persuasive technologies, influence is achieved through a more direct connection with intimate physiological and emotional reactions compared to previous technologies. This poses the threat that humans’ choices about their actions are either steered or removed entirely without their full awareness. Such technologies won’t just shape what we do; they have the potential to influence who we are.  

As with social media, the ethical application of persuasive technologies largely depends on the intent of those designing, building, deploying and ultimately controlling the technology. They have positive uses when they align with users’ interests and enable people to make decisions autonomously. But if applied unethically, these technologies can be highly damaging. Unintentional impacts are bad enough, but when deployed deliberately by a hostile foreign state, they could be so much worse. 

The national security implications of technologies that are designed to drive users towards certain behaviours are already becoming clear. In the future, persuasive technologies will become even more sophisticated and pervasive, with the consequences increasingly difficult to predict. Accordingly, the policy recommendations set out in our report focus on preparing for, and countering, the potential malicious use of the next generation of persuasive technologies. 

Emerging persuasive technologies will challenge national security in ways that are difficult to forecast, but we can already see enough indicators to prompt us to take a stronger regulatory stance. 

We still have time to regulate these technologies, but that time for both governments and industry are running out. We must act now. 

China’s strategic shift to ‘small but beautiful’ projects

Amid an economic downturn and intensifying competition in the Pacific, China is refining its foreign investment strategy, increasingly starting projects it calls ‘small but beautiful’.

Although modest in scale, they can quietly build influence and can catch foreign policymakers off guard. With this shift, China can foster economic growth and deepen geopolitical ties across the Pacific region.

The phrase ‘small but beautiful’ (‘xiao er mei’) has become prominent in Chinese business, emphasising the value of customised, flexible, focused and efficient products.

On 19 November 2021, at the Third Symposium on the Construction of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Chinese President Xi Jinping used the phrase to describe foreign cooperation projects for which he wanted prioritisation. In October 2023, he re-emphasised the point as a key action for China to support high-quality BRI construction projects, undertaken jointly with the governments of the investment-destination countries.

To this end, Beijing has tightened capital controls and investment regulations amid growing concerns over investment risk, political instability, corruption and project quality. The average scale of projects has declined.

Applying the small-but-beautiful idea to BRI projects reflects Xi’s evolving strategic approach to enhancing cooperation and mutual understanding with other countries. Big BRI projects in the Pacific have been promoted as efforts to enhance sustainability and improve lives, but they have been tainted by corruption, suffered from defaults by debtors in the target countries and provoked foreign wariness of China’s intentions.

Xi clearly hopes shifting the focus to smaller and better targeted projects will improve foreign public sentiment towards China.

In May 2022, China reaffirmed its commitment to enhancing comprehensive strategic partnerships in the Pacific island countries. Since then, projects have included promoting planting and using juncao, a kind of economically productive grass, and proposals to offer 2500 scholarships for government officials and training in human resources for 3000 people from Pacific island countries from 2020 to 2025. This has been intended to demonstrate dedication to the region’s development.

Some small but beautiful projects have been technology transfers, which have attracted little attention. Sharing the knowhow for using juncao has been an example. Since February 2024, there’s been notable activity at the China-Pacific Island Countries Juncao Technology Demonstration Center in Fiji. The chairman of the China International Development Cooperation Agency, Luo Zhaohui, surveyed the centre and spoke highly of its contribution to promoting friendly China–Fiji cooperation and future expansion into the South Pacific region.

In March 2024, 34 representatives from across the Pacific region attended a one-week course to learn how to use juncao. Some participants expressed gratitude towards China for helping their communities.

China has set up Luban Workshops in Asia, Europe and Africa. These offer vocational education programs to cultivate locally sourced technical personnel trained in operating Chinese technology and equipment, and match Chinese companies with skilled labour.

The training programs also help to improve perceptions of China among attendees. For example, teachers, students and alumni of Luban Workshops held in Indonesia, Ethiopia and South Africa have expressed gratitude towards China and dismissed criticism of Beijing’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic and its treatment of Uyghur Muslims.

Building on this success, China may seek to expand its Luban Workshop network and range of small but beautiful project offerings in the Pacific to gain influence. China’s public messaging will no doubt prioritise the merits of sustainable development for local communities while subtly strengthening its presence and sway. These seemingly modest initiatives may be easy to overlook, but they are an important element of China’s strategy to increase its standing in the Pacific.

The populist backlash against global institutions may be good for them

Multilateralism is not necessarily under threat from populist anti-globalism.

The rise of populism in democracies does not inevitably threaten the rules-based international order (that tired but vital staple of Australian policy-speak). On the contrary, this populist moment creates opportunities to make international institutions more legitimate and effective by pushing for long-overdue reforms.

In theory, and where they are capable and neutral, global governance bodies from the well-known (such as World Health Organization) to the less high-profile (such as the UN International Telecommunications Union) can coordinate action and set standards on shared global challenges. They are also vital to advancing Australia’s own interests as a relatively vulnerable and trade-dependent power. Yet the purpose and value of multilateral bodies is probably not evident to the average voter. The ‘rules-based international order’ has become an easy but lazy phrase routinely rolled out in our policymaking.

If nothing else, popular scepticism about global governance is an opportunity—even within Canberra policy circles—to work smarter at always making a compelling, practical and positive case for why multilateral engagement matters.

‘Populism’ can signify many things. In foreign policy terms, it refers to domestic political portrayal of global governance bodies as illegitimate technocratic elites, foreign anti-sovereign impositions frustrating the will of the people. Scholars write of a populist ‘backlash’ against the international order, beginning in the mid-2010s, one that is strongest in the very Western powers that have long championed and benefited from that order.

Think of how pro-Brexit advocates scapegoated the European Court of Human Rights—which Britain helped establish and which has no connection to the EU—as a bunch of patronising ‘foreign’ judges out of touch with ordinary Britons’ reasonable concerns about deporting murder-preaching radical clerics.

In his first term as president, Donald Trump pulled the US out of the UN Human Rights Council and the World Health Organisation for domestic political gain. Arch-populist Rodrigo Duterte withdrew the Philippines from the International Criminal Court during his presidency. From Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil to Viktor Orban in Hungary, the prevailing view is that the past decade’s notable rise in populist rhetoric creates something of an existential crisis for multilateralism.

Yet this prevailing view is questionable. Research from the Australian National University shows that populist political rhetoric at the national level does not necessarily result in actual disengagement at the supra-national level. Even when it does, withdrawal or de-funding (or threats of both) may have unexpected positives. It may catalyse much-needed reform, or stimulate previously complacent partners to revitalise their institutional engagement. For instance, when the US left the Human Rights Council in 2018, northern European countries realised that if they were to draw the US back in, they needed finally to take long-standing (pre-Trump) US claims about imbalance and hypocrisy in the council’s agenda seriously.

Beyond their questionable validity, many commonly held criticisms of populism are also problematic. They caricature populists as bad and international institutions as good, passive victims of some irrational reactionary external pathology. Ironically, intellectual and bureaucratic elites who hold these views fulfil the stereotype (powerfully deployed by populists) of being patronising and unempathetic. Such people dismiss the populist backlash as nonsensical, inexplicable and backward.

This is unhelpful, because policymakers should be asking a very different set of questions. How did such institutions become so vulnerable to populist critiques? How have processes of global law-making, decision-making and governance come to be perceived as remote, as having lost touch with the concerns of ordinary people, their supposedly universal values taken as self-evidently superior? How did the operation and messaging of global governance itself lead to populism? How have international institutions overreached their mandates, underperformed them, or rendered them hostage to powerful undemocratic states?

Finally, the prevailing view is also misleading and distracting. Yes, populism in the West sometimes calls into question or even directly attacks the legitimacy of multilateral bodies. But while populism is a hot topic, it simply isn’t the greatest objective threat to the future of principled, effective and cooperative problem-solving, standard-setting and dialogue-enabling institutions grounded in UN Charter values. In fact, the greater risk, from an Australian and Pacific perspective, is being passive and naive in multilateral arenas while autocratic powers capture and re-shape the institutions and agendas of the post-1945 order.

If populist attacks help to break this Western sleepwalk and to catalyse much-needed engagement, reform and revitalisation of parts of that order, they might unintentionally offset some of the damage their own rhetoric may do the legitimacy of those bodies. At very least, the backlash will force Canberra policymakers to unpack assumptions, orthodoxies and value-propositions currently lazily wrapped in the familiar ‘rules-based international order’ mantra.

Climate security is an opportunity in Australia’s regional strategy

From Pacific leaders to regional intelligence analysts, climate change is consistently identified as the foremost security issue for the Pacific island region. Yet Australia’s current defence and intelligence approach to regional engagement, focused mainly on traditional defence, fails to adequately address this existential concern, leaving a gap in its strategy.

Greater integration of climate security issues into Australia’s defence and intelligence establishments, drawing inspiration from the United States’ approach, could improve Australia’s Pacific reputation. It would demonstrate that Australia takes the threat of climate change seriously and streamline regional mitigation, adaptation and preparedness efforts. With growing geopolitical competition in the region and the likely US retreat from climate-security leadership, this has never been of greater strategic importance.

Australia’s National Defence Strategy is clear that deepening Pacific relationships is key to our strategy of deterrence by denial. We seek to build and maintain these relationships mainly through traditional security arrangements, particularly by delivering what the strategy calls a ‘comprehensive package’ of maritime security infrastructure, equipment and training.

However, this approach doesn’t seem to be greatly enhancing our strategic influence in the Pacific. This should come as no surprise, as the strategy fails to account for the full breadth of security priorities and threat perceptions of its subject countries.

Since the early 1990s, Pacific island leaders have made it clear that climate change is their greatest security challenge. As the high commissioner of the Solomon Islands to Australia said in 2020, ‘climate change, not Covid-19, not even China, is the biggest threat to our security’—a threat, and plea for action, that Australia is perceived to have largely ignored.

Australia remains one of the largest greenhouse gas emitters per capita. Considering this—along with sentiments such as Palau President Surangel Whipps Jr’s statement that world leaders who remain inactive on climate issues ‘may as well bomb’ Pacific nations—how can Australia expect to be the Pacific’s partner of choice?

In contrast, the US has been a global leader when it comes to matters of climate security. It was an early advocate and placed climate change ‘at the heart’ of its national security. With the recent US Framework for Climate Resilience and Security, the 2022 National Security Strategy and the 2021 National Intelligence Estimate, the US’s defense and intelligence community leads the way in monitoring, analysing and assessing climate security threats. This information is crucial to streamlining mitigation and adaptation policies, identifying priority areas of investment and ensuring adequate preparedness not only domestically, but for partners across the globe.

Climate security leadership gave the US a significant and under-recognised advantage in the Pacific: it demonstrated its commitment to, unity with, and genuine respect for the people of the region and advanced the US’s status as the preferred partner.

But with an incoming president who has previously called climate change a hoax, US climate security leadership is likely at its end.

With China’s domination in almost every aspect of the renewable energy transition likely to win Beijing favour throughout the Pacific, climate security is an emerging gap in the West’s regional strategy.

If Australia wants to maintain regional strategic balance, it must urgently step up and lead in the climate security space. Leaving this area uncontested risks further compromising Australia’s regional influence, ceding the upper hand to other players in the region.

Australia’s capacity to engage with matters of climate security is much smaller than that of the US, so identifying and acting upon leverage points will be necessary. Australia should adopt a climate security strategy based on what has been the US strategy—one that considers how Australia’s National Intelligence Community can best be mobilised to monitor and assess climate security threats.

To facilitate this process, Australia should establish a climate intelligence working group.

This group should be a partnership between relevant scientific and intelligence agencies, similar to the United States Climate Security Advisory Council. It should identify and advise the government on priority areas of focus, which should be resourced and supported accordingly. Group output may, for example, include an annual net assessment, from which public and partner products could be produced.

This enhanced incorporation of climate security issues into our defence and intelligence establishments will demonstrate the seriousness with which Australia considers climate security threats. By affirming our commitment to and partnership with Pacific island nations in overcoming these threats, Australia may garner substantial favour throughout the region.

Furthermore, Australian leadership in this space would highlight Pacific islanders’ calls for urgent global climate action. As stated by Whipps, ‘the hardest challenge, I think, is sometimes you get drowned out—people denying that it actually is happening ….’

Australia can ensure that our neighbours’ voices are amplified, not drowned out.

If we want to persist with our current strategy, rather than adopt one that relies less on our Pacific partners, it’s time to take climate security seriously.

As former Samoan prime minister Tuila’epa Sa’ilele Malielegaoi said, ‘We all know the problem, the solutions. All that is left would be some courage to tell people there is certainty of disaster.’

Conflicting interests and geopolitical competition in Pacific deep sea mining

Deep sea mining is emerging as a new frontier of resource extraction. A race is underway for underwater resources with important economic, environmental and geopolitical implications.

For Pacific island countries, deep sea mining offers economic opportunities and international leverage but risks severe ecological damage. It could reshape regional alliances and traditional power dynamics as China advances its activities to secure critical minerals and bolster its influence. The US faces challenges in maintaining stability and countering Beijing’s influence.

In the Pacific Ocean there are vast reserves of critical minerals, such as cobalt, nickel and other rare earth elements, that raise national security concerns due to their technological uses. For example, these minerals have applications in such renewable technologies as electric vehicles, solar panels and wind turbines, and in defence technologies such as missiles, aerospace parts, magnetic systems and radar. Competition for critical resources complicates American and Chinese tussles for influence in the Pacific and regional and global concerns about energy transitions and environmental degradation.

With rich deposits of minerals in their exclusive economic zones, deep sea mining promises Pacific islands wealth, enhanced international status and leverage—for example, through influence in negotiations or economic bargaining power. Experts have determined that the value of seabed minerals could reach up to US$20 trillion.

However, the potential economic benefit must be weighed against ecological damage and natural resource depletion. Studies have shown that the disruption of deep-sea ecosystems, whether on abyssal plains or hydrothermal vents, could harm deep ocean biodiversity and affect fisheries, such as tuna stocks, that local communities rely on for food and income. Also, sediment plumes and waste from mining activities could diminish water quality, posing risks to tourism, a vital economic sector for many island nations.

Deep sea mining is dividing the region and may impede cooperation. Nauru and Tonga have each granted exploration licenses to subsidiaries of The Metals Company, a Canadian company that specialises in deep sea mining exploration. Kiribati’s state minerals exploration company has an agreement to sell deep-water tenements to The Metals Company.

Cook Islands is moving cautiously, still looking at the feasibility of deep sea mining. And the Melanesian Spearhead Group, which includes Fiji, PNG, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, has instituted a moratorium on it. Its members worry about environmental degradation and damage to marine ecosystems, which are at the heart of their cultural identity and livelihoods.

The International Seabed Authority is the multinational organisation responsible for creating a regulatory framework and overseeing deep sea mining. Other stakeholders, including Pacific governments, mining corporations and environmental advocacy groups also play roles in shaping the region’s approach to deep sea mining.

China has positioned itself as a leader in deep sea mining for access to resources and to gain favour with Pacific island states. Beijing’s strategic engagements with Tonga and Nauru on infrastructure investments and financial aid, and with Kiribati on fisheries and maritime domain access, reflect China’s efforts to expand its Belt and Road Initiative into the Pacific to develop economic dependence. Increased influence would allow China to shape international seabed mining regulations, secure and dominate access to minerals necessary for green energy technologies and defence systems, control strategic maritime routes and potentially establish a military presence in the region.

From a US perspective, China’s activities in the Pacific threaten its regional influence. Its growing presence has implications for US interests and military operations. The US needs to monitor China’s activities and develop strategies to counterbalance Beijing’s influence and reassess its own approach to deep sea mining to maintain competitiveness and sustainability.

Developing precautionary deep sea mining policies would allow the US to lead responsibly and in doing so strengthen Pacific partnerships. Through collaboration that balances economic opportunities with environmental responsibilities, the US and the Pacific islands can align policies and mutual interests, fostering relationships built on mutual respect. This strategy would not only ensure that resource extraction supports long-term regional stability, environmental preservation and partnerships, but would counter Beijing’s influence.

Australia needs a coastguard to meet modern maritime threats

The maritime domain is increasingly contested. From attacks on shipping and undersea cables in Europe to grey zone threats in the South China Sea, risks to maritime security are mounting. China’s use of maritime militias and reports last week of a China-flagged tanker breaking subsea cables highlight the blurred lines between civil and military threats.

With the third-largest exclusive economic zone in the world, Australia must ask itself the question: is our maritime security architecture ready to deal with the increased threats? My new paper Time for a Coastguard with the Australian Naval Institute argues it is not and it’s time to consider setting up an Australian coastguard.

Australia differs from many of its Southeast Asian, Indian Ocean and Pacific neighbours in not having a coastguard. Several agencies execute Australia’s civil maritime functions. Notably, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority coordinates Australia’s maritime search and rescue functions, while the Maritime Border Command (MBC) coordinates and executes Australia’s civil maritime security operations.

MBC is a multi-agency taskforce under the Department of Home Affairs that relies on Australian Defence Force and Australian Border Force (ABF) assets in executing its role. Importantly, the MBC does not have its own assets or personnel; instead, its structure relies on support from the relevant maritime security agencies.

This is an important distinction, as the MBC is often referred to as ‘like a coastguard’ or a ‘de facto coastguard’. However, the similarities are limited: it is fundamentally a coordination body. Staffed primarily by personnel from the ADF and ABF, the MBC directs assets from those forces.

The Defence Strategic Review recommended that ‘Defence should be the force of last resort for domestic aid to the civil community, except in extreme circumstances.’ Relying on the ADF for maritime constabulary work is another example of resorting to it for civil functions.

The ABF maritime unit workforce is about 550 personnel, and it presently has 11 patrol vessels, one large-hull vessel and two fast-response boats. To assist in its maritime surveillance role, the ABF leases 10 Dash 8 aircraft and two helicopters. This is a small civil maritime footprint for a country with the third-largest exclusive economic zone in the world.

There have been reports of billion-dollar warships being used for constabulary functions. The MBC drawing on Royal Australian Air Force aircraft is just as inappropriate—for example, when $250 million P-8A Poseidon aircraft designed for anti-submarine warfare are needed for supplementing ABF aerial surveillance. Not only is this uneconomical, but it will not be feasible in the event of regional crisis or conflict. The National Defence Strategy is clear that the ADF must be focused on high-end warfighting.

Compounding the MBC’s over-reliance on the ADF is the structure and capabilities of the ABF’s maritime element, which has regularly struggled to meet government-directed targets for sea patrol days and aerial surveillance hours, among other issues.

Maritime security trends in the region suggest these pressures will only intensify, placing more strain on the current structure.

The ABF, as a law enforcement organisation, has been unable to develop the expertise needed to maintain maritime capabilities and execute complex maritime operations. In most regional countries, these responsibilities fall to a coastguard paramilitary organisation.

Despite the secrecy surrounding Australia’s maritime border operations, there has been enough anecdotal media reporting to show that the structure has not worked effectively. This includes reporting on concerns around professionalism, maintenance issues and capacity.

The ABF is a civilian law enforcement organisation that lacks the capability, flexibility and training to manage the nature of grey zone and hybrid maritime threats that Australia will likely face. This is a different level of threat than traditional law enforcement and will require different capabilities and skillsets.

The answer is not simply bolstering the maritime unit of the ABF through increased funding. The structures of the ABF maritime unit are not such that they could readily support such an increase in capability, as it was not designed or trained to undertake the full burden of civil maritime security roles in the absence of the ADF.

The MBC multi-agency command structure relies on ADF skillsets that could not easily be replaced by a bolstered ABF maritime unit. A complete restructure would be required—a coastguard.

Given the reduction in warning time for crises and the increasing complexity of maritime security threats, it is time to rethink Australia’s maritime security structure.

My paper Time for a Coastguard advocates for a layered defence model, including the establishment of a coastguard to address Australia’s civil maritime security and maritime home defence. This would enhance our capabilities while relieving pressure on the RAN and ADF.

We must address Australia’s maritime security structural issues now to strengthen our maritime resilience.

Central and Eastern Europe’s bid for AI dominance

While the world’s attention remains focused on Ukraine’s heroic stand against Russian aggression, a quieter revolution is reshaping Central and Eastern European (CEE) economies.

CEE countries have emerged as vibrant innovation hubs in recent years, generating a wave of new tech unicorns. Romania’s UiPath, for example, has become an automation leader, enhancing workplace efficiency by freeing workers from repetitive tasks. Poland’s Docplanner is revolutionising health care access by leveraging artificial intelligence to connect millions of patients with doctors. And while Croatia’s Infobip, with its AI-enhanced communication platform, facilitates seamless interactions between businesses, governments and citizens, Bulgaria’s Payhawk is transforming corporate finance by streamlining expense management.

Together, these companies show that AI can be a powerful force for good, driving rapid advances in health care and finance and increasing workplace productivity. The next major tech innovation could well come from a startup incubator in Warsaw, a university lab in Bucharest, or a co-working space in Kyiv—probably developed at a fraction of Western costs.

Some might say that this wave of innovation is building despite the numerous challenges facing the region; others would say it is fuelled by them. As they strive to maintain their competitive edge in traditional sectors like auto manufacturing, CEE economies are also grappling with post-pandemic financial pressures, exacerbated by the European Union’s revised budget rules. Meanwhile, the war in Ukraine has introduced a new set of threats, from relentless Russian cyberattacks targeting supply chains and vital infrastructure to AI-assisted disinformation campaigns.

AI has the potential to help CEE countries tackle these complex challenges, generating tremendous value across traditional public sectors such as health care and education while enabling governments to counter foreign interference and safeguard critical energy networks.

Encouragingly, CEE countries have a strong foundation upon which to build a thriving tech sector, with a critical mass of engineers and STEM graduates. Company valuations in the region increased more than sevenfold between 2017 and 2022. Moreover, the share of investment from outside the EU rose from nine percent in 2022 to 21 percent in 2023, highlighting these economies’ growing global appeal.

To be sure, significant challenges remain. Notably, recent research shows that CEE economies still lag behind their Western European counterparts in both infrastructure and investment. With a population of more than 150 million and a combined GDP of nearly €2.5 trillion, the region has vast potential. Yet, total private-equity investment fell by 40 percent in 2023, to €1.7 billion. Consequently, launching a startup in the region can feel like trying to build a spaceship with spare parts from a bicycle shop.

The rise of populist parties poses another serious challenge, threatening to undermine responsible macroeconomic management and deter partners and investors. Instead of addressing fiscal pressures through spending cuts, many CEE governments have opted to raise corporate and value-added taxes, prioritising short-term relief over long-term economic stability.

A more forward-looking strategy would embrace AI’s transformative potential to drive economic growth and innovation across the region. To unlock this potential, CEE countries should take three key steps.

First, policymakers should focus on expanding STEM education and retaining top talent. The region’s main obstacle to becoming the next Silicon Valley is a shortage of skilled professionals. While hundreds of promising biotech, finance and robotics startups have emerged in recent years, they cannot grow—let alone become unicorns—without a robust talent pool. And, although education is a public good, the sluggish pace of reform in CEE countries means that the private sector must also focus on human-capital development.

Second, deeper European integration could fuel innovation by facilitating the cross-border exchange of ideas, talent and capital. With this in mind, the European Commission recently unveiled its AI Factories initiative, offering developers access to the computing power, data, and other resources needed to train advanced AI models. Several CEE countries have also started exploring structured technological partnerships with other European governments to promote shared strategic priorities.

Lastly, governments must boost inward foreign investment. Despite the geopolitical turmoil of the past two years and subsequent decline in private-equity inflows, the region has demonstrated remarkable resilience. While CEE economies are poised to play a pivotal role in Ukraine’s reconstruction, they must first address infrastructure gaps, funding shortfalls and regulatory uncertainty that could deter potential investors. Enhancing the region’s appeal is essential not only for the tech sector but also for advancing digital infrastructure projects, including 5G networks, data centres and quantum computing facilities.

As CEE economies confront these challenges, it has become abundantly clear that they must act swiftly to harness AI’s potential, or risk watching a generation of talent seek better opportunities elsewhere.

Chinese electric vehicles are a rolling security threat

Senate estimates earlier this month heard the remarkable revelation that Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke has had to take ‘precautions’ based on warnings from his own department to protect himself and the nation’s sensitive information from Burke’s own Chinese-made electric car.

The risks with such cars, according to Home Affairs officials, might include having data collected from the owner’s phone if it were connected to the car, voice calls eavesdropped on, image collection from the car’s external cameras and geolocation tracking—meaning that if Burke drove to a sensitive government location the car’s manufacturer would be able to see.

The United States has announced plans to ban Chinese technology in American cars over surveillance and sabotage concerns. Australia should do the same. Moreover, with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese meeting China’s President Xi Jinping in Brazil on the sidelines of the G20 meeting overnight, he had the chance to raise this issue directly, consistent with the kind of frank diplomatic engagement for which Australia should be using these face-to-face opportunities.

Indeed, Australia needs a comprehensive strategy to address the rolling security threat of high-risk foreign vendors to critical infrastructure. Our current approach—not addressing risks until Chinese firms dominate their markets, as BYD is doing now in electric cars—is woefully inadequate. We are trapped in a game of whac-a-mole.

Australia has previously addressed risks from China’s Huawei, TikTok and camera-maker Hikvision. New technologies will keep coming, bringing risks of malicious use by Beijing.

Australia must see the US ban on Chinese tech in cars not as an escalation in the US–China trade war but as a wakeup call: technological advance is core to strategic competition and presents real security threats that need to be confronted.

China’s technological dominance across hardware and software allows smart cars, for instance, to serve as tools for surveillance, propaganda and sabotage. But this isn’t just about cars. Internet-connected medical devices, for example, can be used for surveillance of patients.

Most countries could not interfere with and hack into foreign technology without covert activity. But Chinese companies control globally prevalent technology that Beijing—and its intelligence agencies—could exploit directly.

Just this year, seven Chinese departments, including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, called for innovation and industrial development in such areas as 6G communications, satellite internet and direct satellite-to-mobile connectivity. This is to be done by advancing current technology that is already raising foreign concerns: 5G, internet of things, satellite communications and internet-connected vehicles.

This aggressive push for leadership highlights the risk of continuing to rely on technology from a country that seeks to do us harm—a country that is using a military-civil fusion strategy to ensure all of its society works for the regime’s military ambitions.

Australia needs a strategic framework that moves beyond a whac-a-mole approach that will fail in a plague of moles. Ideally this would involve a coalition of like-minded democratic partners taking collective action. But in the meantime, Australia must develop its own framework.

We need a policy that lists critical infrastructure and sectors from which suppliers of concern—from both China and Russia—are prohibited. Excluding those suppliers would be based on the scale of the potential threat and our inability to mitigate that threat.

This would provide certainty and avoid having to manage fallout from imposing bans after the suppliers were already in the market. Government agencies could still assess specific cases for mitigation. But the presumption that high-risk vendors are banned would end the current approach of waiting for them to achieve a potentially harmful position before we act, as with TikTok.

Australia’s ban on Chinese suppliers in the 5G network in 2018 proved the value of this approach. Australia considered carefully whether the risk of Chinese suppliers in its 5G network could be mitigated. A vendor’s control of the 5G network gives it the capability to turn the network off. Even if China had no immediate plan to take such a dramatic step, its objectives could quickly change in any future conflict or crisis. Australia therefore made the assessment that a full ban was the only option.

While awaiting a national strategy, the same principle should determine the individual case of cars. Just as there was a distinction between 4G and 5G networks, there should be a distinction between traditional, unconnected cars and the new, connected ones. If Chinese technology is too dangerous for our critical infrastructure but not for cars that connect with that critical infrastructure, the government should explain why.

TikTok was deemed a national security threat, but Australia did not ban it outright, opting instead to ban it from government devices. If an outright 5G-style ban on cars is assessed as unnecessary, surely consistency means prohibiting government employees and politicians from buying or travelling in those with Chinese technology. After all, these cars would connect to the devices, such as phones, that the government has said must not be linked to untrusted technology. It was a surprise, therefore, when Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen in September ruled out a ban because he wanted ‘Australians to have more choice’. Choice cannot be the principle upon which security decisions are made. Nor can price.

Australia needs a comprehensive strategy. And Australians should be told why Chinese tech can’t be in the 5G network, nor in government devices, but can be in the cars that connect to both.

Greater transparency will enhance space governance

To solve the ongoing difficulties in framing new rules for space governance, states must revitalise existing measures and consider them in international space policy debates.

In particular, they should look at The Hague Code of Conduct against Ballistic Missile Proliferation (HCoC). The HCoC commits states to openness and transparency in space activities, helps codify responsible behaviours and, in doing so, constrains irresponsible ones.

Space governance has been under considerable stress for a while now. Growing space security threats in the form of anti-satellite weapons, cyber and electronic warfare in space have demonstrated the weaknesses of the existing outer space regime. These contemporary challenges are not effectively addressed by existing measures, which points to the urgent need for new regulations. Major powers have struggled to agree on regulation, and the war in Ukraine has made it worse.

Established in 2002, the HCoC is primarily designed to limit ballistic missile proliferation and includes only good-faith commitments to specific types of responsible behaviour. But it does contain commitments related to civil space activities, which are useful in bolstering international space governance.

For example, the 145 subscribing states agree that they will not divert space launch vehicles to the development of ballistic missiles and that they will adhere to transparency measures for space programmes, particularly in relation to space launch vehicles. States also agree to comply with international space laws such as the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, the 1972 Liability Convention and the 1976 Registration Convention. Additionally, states submit an annual declaration of policies on ballistic missiles and space-launch vehicles.

These measures have remained critical in maintaining the sanctity of outer space but they are proving to be inadequate in dealing with more contemporary challenges. Efforts in measured openness and limited transparency of this nature can help build confidence in the international space sector, assuming that states honour the voluntary commitments. The HCoC encourages subscribing states to become accustomed to collaboration and openness on outer space issues, which can then facilitate further dialogue and transparency.

In order to build on existing measures, states must consider the HCoC in international space policy debates and highlight its potential for advancing space governance. Given the ongoing deadlock in negotiating new mechanisms, they must focus on strengthening existing ones and encourage other countries to sign up to the HCoC, particularly China, North Korea, Pakistan, Israel and Iran.

There must also be more focus on compliance. This can be achieved through revitalising the Registration Convention and encouraging states to comply with their commitment to provide full information on their launches. This has the potential to be a huge transparency measure that helps lessen mutual suspicions and ease the security dilemma that states face when they consider each other’s actions.

The HCoC is also important as a viable transparency and confidence building measure (TCBM). TCBMs are not given much importance in international security discussions, because they are seen as weak efforts, lacking any enforcement mechanisms. While many criticisms of TCBMs are valid, they have remained an integral part of space policy conversations and should be recognised for their key strengths.

Although some states are sceptical of TCBMs because they cannot replace legal measures, pragmatism is needed in the current global landscape. Sceptical states must recognise what is feasible in the near term to address the growing threats in space, and they must pursue existing tools, such as the HCoC. States should appreciate the benefits of TCBMs, with their broad goal of improving transparency and openness and their role in reducing anxieties and concerns that states have about each other’s space agenda.

There is another advantage of TCBMs such as the HCoC. Legally binding measures such as international treaties with verification measures may be ideal, but they are not viable options within the domestic political context of many states in the Global South.

Such states view legally binding international treaties, especially those with verification protocols, as intrusive. Most have a long history of colonialism and are extremely suspicious of measures seen as threats their sovereignty, such as the Responsibility to Protect. These countries have accepted some treaties that include verification measures such as the Chemical Weapon Convention, but that was at a time when the US could persuade these countries to do so. This is no longer the case.

Cold War history also provides examples of how TCBMs can be useful when other measures are not available. During those years, there was international cooperation between adversaries on voluntary measures, particularly in the nuclear domain. At the peak of the Cold War, the US and the USSR agreed to a hot line for exchange of information in an emergency, which helped increase confidence between the two sides.

Fast forward to the present, TCBMs and other similar measures can now play a significant role in increasing confidence among global powers on issues of space management. Given the high levels of distrust, it is unlikely that they would sign on to legally binding mechanisms. Bolstering existing TCBMs such as the HCoC will provide pragmatic alternatives and offer a useful modus vivendi for building global governance measures on outer space.