James Curran gets a number of things wrong in his Australian Financial Review column on the Varghese Review and the work of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
Above all, ASPI did not ‘work hand in glove with the Morrison government on how to play China as an issue in Australian domestic politics’. This is a baseless accusation, for which Curran provides zero evidence. One can only assume the intention is to make ASPI a political target in the aftermath of the review’s release. ASPI is a non-partisan institute that shouldn’t be painted as working or aligning with any side of politics.
Curran further alleges that ASPI has ‘strayed’ from its founding charter, regarding itself as an ‘ideological font’ for ‘calling out and confronting an assertive China’. ASPI is, and will remain, a non-partisan, independent think tank as stipulated in its charter, laid out in 2001.
He then avers that ‘some of its analysts created an atmosphere in which to question government policy settings on China was deemed unpatriotic’. These allegations are also completely unsubstantiated. Who is he talking about, exactly?
The only person at ASPI that Curran mentions by name is the executive director, Justin Bassi. He accuses Bassi of making a ‘reprehensible’ and ‘juvenile’ comparison between the 14 recommendations in former diplomat Peter Varghese’s report and the 14 grievances against the Australian government, aired by the Chinese embassy in 2020.
Bassi simply noted that there was a ‘grim irony’ in the numerical coincidence, as one of the complaints was widely interpreted as a demand to defund ASPI because it has produced research and commentary critical of the Chinese Communist Party. How is this observation in any sense juvenile? Varghese did not recommend closing down ASPI, but he did recommend that direct government funding for ASPI’s office in Washington DC be discontinued, along with other moves designed to tighten government controls over the sector, including a role for ministers in setting research priorities and appointing government observers to ASPI’s board.
The fact that the government has agreed with most of Varghese’s recommendations is worrying in itself, but especially in light of the Chinese government’s long-running campaign to vilify ASPI. Regardless of the government’s or Varghese’s intentions, Beijing might be forgiven for leaping to the conclusion that ASPI has had its wings clipped in the diplomatic and economic cause of stabilisation—a policy that some ASPI analysts (myself included) have legitimately contested.
The fact that the government coincidentally celebrated the full resumption of the live lobster trade with China the same week it released the Varghese review and its official response can only have strengthened such associations, and perhaps even buoyed the belief in Beijing that its economic coercion of Australia was effective, after all. The timing of this statement, at a minimum, showed poor judgment.
ASPI continues to abide by the guidance in its charter that its main purpose is to provide ‘alternative sources of input to Government decision-making processes on major strategic and defence policy issues’. Also, that it should help to ‘nourish public debate and understanding’.
ASPI’s research output on China is an important part of what we do, though only one part. As an institution, ASPI is proud of the breadth of its China expertise and language skills, which is unsurpassed among think tanks in Australia. ASPI has also provided an outlet for prominent Australia-based academics to publish policy-relevant research on China. ASPI has contributed significantly to Australia’s stock of China expertise. Just this week, the US designated companies, including battery maker CATL, as Chinese military companies after years of research from institutions such as ASPI about links to the Chinese government and military, and about human rights abuses.
Ministers from around the world seek out ASPI analysts for briefings on our research. Datasets we have built over the past decade as a public good have been used by governments and organisations worldwide.
In his report, Varghese was indeed right to point out that Australia has failed to nurture academic expertise on China. But universities, for their own reasons, have long since abandoned the field in the areas that matter most for Australia’s strategic policy—the external behaviours of China’s Communist Party, through its state security apparatus and the People’s Liberation Army. ASPI will continue to do what it can to nurture the talent required to fill that national blind spot and to publish ground-breaking research in these areas. ASPI’s researchers would collegially welcome a greater investment of resources by other think tanks, universities and the government in this regard.
Curran and others are free to criticise ASPI and other research institutes but should focus on evidence, not innuendo. I, for one, would much prefer to be writing about Australia’s regional security environment, defence capability and military strategy. A glance at the international headlines is sufficient to understand there is an urgent and growing appetite for expert analysis in these areas, to inform the general public, and provide alternative policy inputs for the Australian government.