Tag Archive for: Asia & the Pacific

Losing our agnosticism. How to make Australia’s foreign influence laws work

Country agnosticism, under which Australia’s laws treat all foreign influence efforts in the same way, regardless of their source country, is the key failing of Australia’s statutory response to foreign governments’ influence activities.

It has imposed sweeping, unnecessary regulatory costs. It has caused waste of taxpayer-funded enforcement resources. It has diverted those resources from the issues that really matter. And it has brought unnecessary legal complexity. Yet for all that, nobody believes that the laws are truly country agnostic. Not the Australian media, which routinely describe them as ‘aimed at’ China. Nor, presumably, the media’s audience. Nor, certainly, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which regards itself as the target, explicitly citing the laws as a key grievance.

Perhaps the greatest cost of country agnosticism is that the current statutory framework isn’t as effective as it needs to be. Why? In adopting a country-agnostic stance, we blinded ourselves to the very factor that matters most in evaluating and responding to foreign influence—its source country.

It’s time to remove the blindfold. We should recognise this basic truth: foreign influence transparency requirements must be more stringent in relation to some source countries than others.

Mitigating the risk of a China–India conflict

More than a year has passed since Chinese troops began to occupy previously Indian-controlled territory on their disputed border in Ladakh. The crisis has cooled and settled into a stalemate. This report warns that it could escalate again, and flare into a conflict with region-wide implications.

The report assesses the risk of conflict by analysing its likelihood and consequences. A possible war would be costly for both India and China. But a possible war could also risk stirring Indian distrust of its new partners, especially in the Quad – Australia, Japan, and the United States. The report outlines some conditions under which a war would disrupt or dampen those developing partnerships.

The report concludes by offering a framework for policymakers to shape India’s expectations and the strategic environment before and during a possible war.

France’s Indo-Pacific Strategy and its overseas territories in the Indian and Pacific oceans: Characteristics, capabilities, constraints and avenues for deepening the Franco-Australian strategic partnership

The report analyses France’s military capabilities and cooperation activities in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, underlining its strengths and limitations. In terms of its economic presence and official development assistance commitments, it is clear that the French strategy suffers significant limitations. However, these may be offset by a growing commitment from the EU and through strategic partnerships allowing France to pool efforts at all levels to meet regional and global challenges.

To deter the PRC …

This Strategic Insights report is the first in a series of essays, workshops and events seeking to better understand the nature of deterrence, particularly from the viewpoint of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

The series is a joint project between the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) and the US China Aerospace Studies Institute (CASI).

Over the coming months, ASPI and CASI, along with our research associates, will examine the concept of deterrence, how both democratic countries and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) approach deterrence, what liberal democracies are doing to deter China and what China is doing to deter them, and assess the impacts of those efforts.

The series will culminate in an in-person conference that will put forward policy options for Australia, the US and our allies and partners. These publications will draw heavily from original PRC and PLA documents, as well as interviews and personal experiences, to help understand the framework that the PRC uses when it thinks about what we call here ‘deterrence’.

What if …? Economic consequences for Australia of a US-China conflict over Taiwan

What if China were to attempt to seize Taiwan by force and the US and allies responded militarily? One consequence would be the disruption of China’s trade with many countries, including Australia. While strategic analysts have been working over such scenarios for years, there’s been little study of the likely economic consequences.
 
This study is focused on the short-term shock to Australia’s economy. The objective is to contribute to an understanding of the nature of Australia’s economic relationship with China and the likely paths of adjustment should that trade be severed. It also explores the options available to the Australian Government to ameliorate the worst of the effects of what would be a severe economic shock.
 
The conclusion of this report is that the disruption to the Australian economy would be significant. There would be widespread loss of employment, along with consumer and business goods shortages that would be likely to necessitate rationing.

What If, data files

Collaborative nation building: Port of Townsville case study

The theme for this report is nation building, not the kinds of one-off investment ‘announceables’ we’re familiar with that connect cities with roads. Instead, this is the kind of nation building that’s big picture and courageous, and reminiscent of the past—the kinds of initiatives that build the infrastructure from which economic, social and national security opportunities grow.

The Port of Townsville has embarked on a forward-leaning journey that started a decade ago with a vision, planning and initial environmental approvals, and that’s now being pursued through collaborative engagement of a type not common in the ports sector. While the sector does take a long-term view on management and expansion, it’s still very unusual for individual ports to actively engage with trading partners in a strategic way and beyond the boundaries of specific projects.

This special report looks at what’s happening today in the Townsville region, using the Port of Townsville as an example of what’s possible, and looks at what others at the regional, state and national levels can pursue beyond one-off investments to drive nation building that fosters economic, social and environmental prosperity.

A collaborative approach to nation building isn’t new. It’s more that we haven’t engaged in this way for several decades now and as a nation, and we’re out of practice.

Nation building in Australia must move beyond investment in major highways between large cities and investment in inner urban infrastructure. It must be underpinned by a framework that drives economic, social and environmental prosperity and that’s pursued collaboratively with persistence and courage. It must also move beyond a focus on short-term energetic infrastructure construction and economic ‘sugar hits’.

The Port of Townsville provides a case example of how that’s being done today.

Family De-planning: The Coercive Campaign to Drive Down Indigenous Birth-rates in Xinjiang

In this report, we provide new evidence documenting the effectiveness of the Chinese government’s systematic efforts to reduce the size of the indigenous population of Xinjiang through a range of coercive birth-control policies.
 
Using the Chinese government’s own publicly available statistics, we have compiled a dataset of county-level birth-rates (natality) across 2011-2019. We then marshal this data to analyse trends across nationalities and spatial regions in Xinjiang, before and after the 2016 crackdown, and comparatively with other countries as recorded in the UN population dataset. Finally, we place these statistics in context through our analysis of county-level implementation documents and other official Chinese language sources which have been previously overlooked.
  
In 1979, Deng Xiaoping launched the “one child policy” and created a complex set of bureaucratic institutions and practices for controlling population growth. Party officials rather than women would decide what they did with their bodies.
 
The one-child policy has seen a dramatic drop in China’s fertility rate and unleashed new concerns about a looming demographic crisis. Yet the instinct to control remains. As Party officials are loosening family-planning rules on Han women, they are simultaneously cracking down on the reproductive rights of Uyghur and other indigenous nationalities in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) over perceived fears of instability and uneven growth.
 
In the name of stability and control, the CCP under President Xi Jinping is seeking to fundamentally transform the social and physical landscape of Xinjiang. This includes the construction of hundreds of prison-like detention centres and the mass internment of Uyghurs, Kazakh and other indigenous nationalities; a regime of highly intrusive and near constant surveillance; the erasure of indigenous culture, language and religious practices and sites; and mandatory job assignments that are indicative of forced labour; among other now well-documented human rights abuses.
 

Key Findings

Beginning in April 2017, Chinese Communist Party authorities in Xinjiang launched a series of “strike-hard” campaigns against “illegal births” with the explicit aim to “reduce and stabilise a moderate birth level” and decrease the birth-rate in southern Xinjiang by at least 4.00 per thousand from 2016 levels. This followed years of preferential exceptions from family-planning rules for indigenous nationalities.
 
The crackdown has led to an unprecedented and precipitous drop in official birth-rates in Xinjiang since 2017. The birth-rate across the region fell by nearly half (48.74 percent) in the two years between 2017 and 2019.
 
The largest declines have been in counties where Uyghurs and other indigenous communities are concentrated. Across counties that are majority-indigenous the birth-rate fell, on average, by 43.7 percent in a single year between 2017 and 2018. The birth-rate in counties with a 90 percent or greater indigenous population declined by 56.5 percent, on average, in that same year.
 
In 2017, the Chinese government’s approach to birth control among minority nationalities shifted from “reward and encourage” towards a more coercive and intrusive policing of reproduction processes. Hefty fines, disciplinary punishment, extrajudicial internment, or the threat of internment were introduced for any “illegal births.” Family-planning officials in Xinjiang were told to carry out “early detection and early disposal of pregnant women found in violation of policy.”
 
While the Chinese government argues it has adopted a uniform family-planning policy in Xinjiang, the county-level natality data suggests these policies are disproportionately affecting areas with a large indigenous population, meaning their application is discriminatory and applied with the intent of reducing the birth-rate of Uyghurs and other religious and ethnic minorities. This policy also stands in stark contrast to the loosening of birth control restrictions elsewhere in China.
 
Policy implementation documents from Xinjiang explicitly set birth-rate targets that are among the lowest in the world, and the birth-rate has declined from a rate similar to those in neighbouring countries such as Mongolia or Kazakhstan to only slightly higher than that of Japan, where the low birth-rate is seen as a “national crisis.” 
 
The sharp drop in birth-rates in Xinjiang (a region with a population of nearly 25 million) is proportionally the most extreme over a two-year period globally since 1950. Despite notable contextual differences, this decline in birth-rate is more than double the rate of decline in Cambodia at the height of the Khmer Rouge genocide (1975-79).
 
The 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, to which China is a signatory, prohibits states from “imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group,” as an aspect of the physical element to genocide. Our analysis builds on previous work and provides compelling evidence that Chinese government policies in Xinjiang may constitute an act of genocide; however further research is required to establish the intent and mental element of this crime. We call for the Chinese government to give researchers, journalists and human rights experts full and open access to Xinjiang.

Download full report

Readers are encouraged to download the report to access our full findings.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank our external peer reviewers, Dr Timothy Grose, Dr Adrian Zenz, Dr Stanley Toops, and Peter Mattis, for their comments and helpful suggestions. Darren Byler, Timothy Grose and Vicky Xu also generously shared with us a range of primary source materials. We’re also grateful for the comments and assistance provided within ASPI by Michael Shoebridge, Fergus Hanson, Danielle Cave, Kelsey Munro and Samantha Hoffman and for crucial research assistance from Tilla Hoja and Daria Impiombato. This research report forms part of the Xinjiang Data Project, which brings together rigorous empirical research on the human rights situation of Uyghurs and other non-Han nationalities in the XUAR. It focuses on a core set of topics, including mass internment camps; surveillance and emerging technologies; forced labour and supply chains; the CCP’s “re-education” campaign and deliberate cultural destruction and other human rights issues.

The Xinjiang Data Project is produced by researchers at ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre (ICPC) in partnership with a range of global experts who conduct data-driven, policy-relevant research. The project is predominantly funded by a January 2020-October 2021 US State Department grant. The Xinjiang Data Project also hosts ASPI ICPC projects funded by the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (such as ‘Uyghurs for Sale’ in March 2020) and projects with no core funding (such as ‘Strange Bedfellows on Xinjiang’ in March 2021). The work of the ICPC would not be possible without the financial support of our partners and sponsors across governments, industry and civil society.

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’s sources of funding are identified in our annual report, online at www.aspi.org.au and in the acknowledgements section of individual publications. ASPI remains independent in the content of the research and in all editorial judgements.

ASPI International Cyber Policy Centre

ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre (ICPC) is a leading voice in global debates on cyber, emerging and critical technologies, issues related to information and foreign interference and focuses on the impact these issues have on broader strategic policy. The centre has a growing mixture of expertise and skills with teams of researchers who concentrate on policy, technical analysis, information operations and disinformation, critical and emerging technologies, cyber capacity building, satellite analysis, surveillance and China-related issues. The ICPC informs public debate in the Indo-Pacific region and supports public policy development by producing original, empirical, data-driven research. The ICPC enriches regional debates by collaborating with research institutes from around the world and by bringing leading global experts to Australia, including through fellowships. To develop capability in Australia and across the Indo-Pacific region, the ICPC has a capacity building team that conducts workshops, training programs and large-scale exercises for the public and private sectors.

We would like to thank all of those who support and contribute to the ICPC with their time, intellect and passion for the topics we work on.

If you would like to support the work of the centre please contact: icpc@aspi.org.au

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 2021

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.

First published May 2021. ISSN 2209-9689 (online), ISSN 2209-9670 (print).

Funding statement: Funding for this report was provided by the US State Department.

Island voices and Covid-19: Vulnerability and resilience Views from The Strategist

This Strategic Insights report is being published as part of an ASPI project that focuses on the vulnerabilities of Indo-Pacific island states in the Covid-19 era. It presents a series of views on ways that insiders and external observers have viewed the vulnerabilities and resilience of island countries in the Pacific and Indian Oceans in dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic.

All of these contributions have appeared as posts on The Strategist. They don’t try to offer a sequential account of events or perceptions but represent a collection of responses to the crisis. The authors were not asked to address a single issue but, rather, were encouraged to focus on issues of relevance to them. The result is a mosaic rather than a portrait of nearly a year of living with the tensions posed by the pandemic. Two key themes do tend to dominate this mosaic. One concerns the way vulnerabilities are expressed as challenges. The second identifies the opportunities that resilience can create.

Next step in the step up: The ADF’s role in building health security in Pacific Island states

The ADF has long had an important role in providing humanitarian assistance to Pacific island countries (PICs). The force has extraordinary capabilities—people, expertise, training and equipment—in delivering necessary assistance quickly and efficiently.

From Australia’s perspective, the ADF is one of our most important agencies in engaging with our PIC partners, particularly in helping them to develop capabilities to address a range of security challenges. In Australia’s new strategic environment, the ADF can also play an important role in helping to build regional health security as part of a new phase in Australia’s Pacific Step-up.

This paper argues that the Australian Government should consider a new role for the ADF in the Pacific through developing mutually beneficial enduring military health partnerships.3 That would involve the regular rotation of ADF health professionals through partner medical facilities where they would have the opportunity to gain unique frontline experience from local experts, while also sharing their own knowledge and skills. The mutuality of benefits inherent in such an arrangement means that they shouldn’t be considered as traditional humanitarian assistance.

An enhanced role for the ADF in regional health security, properly structured, might ultimately come to be seen alongside the Pacific Patrol Boat Program as a successful example of mutually beneficial partnerships between the ADF and our Pacific neighbours.

The influence environment

A survey of Chinese-language media in Australia

What’s the problem?

In the past two decades, Australia’s Chinese-language media landscape has undergone fundamental changes that have come at a cost to quality, freedom of speech, privacy and community representation. The diversity of Australia’s Chinese communities, which often trace their roots to Hong Kong, Southeast Asia and Taiwan as well as the People’s Republic of China, isn’t well reflected in the media sector.

Persistent efforts by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to engage with and influence Chinese language media in Australia far outmatch the Australian Government’s work in the same space. A handful of outlets generally offer high-quality coverage of a range of issues. However, CCP influence affects all media. It targets individual outlets while also manipulating market incentives through advertising, coercion and WeChat. Four of the 24 Australian media companies studied in this report show evidence of CCP ownership or financial support.

WeChat, a Chinese social media app created by Tencent, may be driving the most substantial and harmful changes ever observed in Australia’s Chinese-language media sector. On the one hand, the app is particularly important to Chinese Australians and helps people stay connected to friends and family in China. It’s used by as many as 3 million users in Australia for a range of purposes including instant messaging.1 It’s also the most popular platform used by Chinese Australians to access news.2 However, WeChat raises concerns because of its record of censorship, information control and surveillance, which align with Beijing’s objectives. Media outlets on WeChat face tight restrictions that facilitate CCP influence by pushing the vast majority of news accounts targeting Australian audiences to register in China. Networks and information sharing within the app are opaque, contributing to the spread of disinformation.

Australian regulations are still evolving to meet the challenges identified in this report, which often mirror problems in the media industry more generally. They haven’t introduced sufficient transparency to the Chinese-language media sector and influence from the CCP. Few Australian Government policies effectively support Chinese-language media and balance or restrict CCP influence in it.

What’s the solution?

The Australian Government should protect Chinese-language media from foreign interference while introducing measures to support the growth of an independent and professional media sector. WeChat is a serious challenge to the health of the sector and to free and open public discourse in Chinese communities, and addressing it must be a core part of the solution.

The government should encourage the establishment and growth of independent media. It should consider expanding Chinese-language services through the ABC and SBS, while also reviewing conflicts of interest and foreign interference risks in each. Greater funding should be allocated to multicultural media, including for the creation of scholarships and training programs for Chinese-language journalists and editors. The government should subsidise syndication from professional, non-CCPcontrolled media outlets.

On WeChat, the government should hold all social media companies to the same set of rules, standards and norms, regardless of their country of origin or ownership. As it does with platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, the government should increase engagement with WeChat through relevant bodies such as the Department of Home Affairs, the Australian Cyber Security Centre, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, the Australian Communications and Media Authority, the eSafety Commissioner, the Australian Electoral Commission and the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications. The aim should be to ensure that WeChat is taking clear and measurable steps in 2021 to address concerns and meet the same sets of rules, standards and norms that US social media platforms are held to. This effort should be done in tandem with outreach to like-minded countries. If companies refuse to meet those standards, they shouldn’t be allowed to operate in Australia.3

The government should explore ways to amend or improve the enforcement of legislation such as the Broadcasting Services Act 1995 and the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme Act 2018 to increase the transparency of foreign ownership of media in any language, regardless of platform.

Introduction

Australia’s Chinese‑language media sector is an important part of our democracy, yet its contours and its challenges are poorly understood.4 Australia is home to large and diverse Chinese communities. According to the 2016 Census, nearly 600,000 Australians spoke Mandarin at home, and more than 280,000 spoke Cantonese.5 Only a minority of Australians with Chinese heritage were born in mainland China—many were born in Australia, Taiwan, Hong Kong or Southeast Asia.6 However, individuals born in mainland China are probably the largest group of WeChat users. Migration from mainland China is likely to remain high, and Australia has been home to large numbers of visiting Chinese students and businesspeople.

It’s been claimed that most Chinese‑language media in Australia are controlled or influenced by Beijing.7 While that’s broadly accurate, past research hasn’t systematically examined the extent and mechanisms of CCP influence over Australian media.8 In particular, the pervasive effects of WeChat on the Chinese media sector haven’t been widely appreciated. Our research identified no significant influence in Australian Chinese‑language media from governments other than China’s.

Growing concerns about the lack of Chinese‑Australian representation in Australian politics, CCP interference in Australia and Australia–China relations highlight the need for policymakers to understand the Chinese‑language media environment. For example, Australian politicians and scholars have questioned WeChat’s role in elections, called out disinformation on the app and complained about the past absence of relevant security advice from the government.9 Marginal seats such as Chisholm and Reid have large Chinese communities, among which Chinese‑language media, particularly through WeChat, have been an important factor in some elections.10

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The full document “The influence environment” is available for downloaded here.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank John Fitzgerald, Danielle Cave, Louisa Lim, Michael Shoebridge, Peter Jennings and several anonymous peer reviewers who offered their feedback and insights. Audrey Fritz contributed research on media regulation and censorship.

Funding: The Department of Home Affairs provided ASPI with $230k in funding, which was used towards this report.

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’s sources of funding are identified in our annual report, online at www.aspi.org.au and in the acknowledgements section of individual publications. ASPI remains independent in the content of the research and in all editorial judgements.

ASPI International Cyber Policy Centre

ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre (ICPC) is a leading voice in global debates on cyber, emerging and critical technologies, issues related to information and foreign interference and focuses on the impact these issues have on broader strategic policy. The centre has a growing mixture of expertise and skills with teams of researchers who concentrate on policy, technical analysis, information operations and disinformation, critical and emerging technologies, cyber capacity building, satellite analysis, surveillance and China-related issues.

The ICPC informs public debate in the Indo-Pacific region and supports public policy development by producing original, empirical, data-driven research. The ICPC enriches regional debates by collaborating with research institutes from around the world and by bringing leading global experts to Australia, including through fellowships. To develop capability in Australia and across the Indo-Pacific region, the ICPC has a capacity building team that conducts workshops, training programs and large-scale exercises for the public and private sectors.

We would like to thank all of those who support and contribute to the ICPC with their time, intellect and passion for the topics we work on. If you would like to support the work of the centre please contact: icpc@aspi.org.au

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 2020

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.

First published December 2020.

ISSN 2209-9689 (online),
ISSN 2209-9670 (print)