On 15 September 2026 the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) extended its China Defence Universities Tracker to include institutions in Hong Kong and Macau. ASPI framed the Tracker as a due-diligence tool for governments, universities and companies, and said Hong Kong institutions would enter a regular update cycle from 2026. Because the Tracker is used beyond the think-tank community, the evidentiary standard ASPI applies to others should be applied to its own reporting.
What ASPI Documented
The published piece records several verifiable links: a Faculty of Engineering memorandum at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) referencing an AVIC-linked aviation institute; research centres and a State Key Laboratory at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK); an HKUST-led oceanographic expedition in 2024 involving the research vessel Shenhai Yihao and the submersible Jiaolong; and technical cooperation between the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) and the China Academy of Space Technology on a Surface Sampling and Packing System used in multiple lunar and interplanetary missions.
Why Association Is Not the Same As Military Integration
Each of the cited connections exists in the public record. What ASPI’s article does not demonstrate, however, is that any of these relationships amount to military integration. The HKU memorandum, for example, concerns the low-altitude economy — a Chinese regulatory category defined in explicitly civilian terms (airspace activity typically below 1,000 metres, extendable to 3,000 metres for specialised uses) for logistics, agriculture, medical delivery, infrastructure inspection and urban air mobility. China’s Civil Aviation Administration has projected a civilian market for that sector of RMB 1.5 trillion by 2025 and RMB 3.5 trillion by 2035.
CUHK’s State Key Laboratory of Quantum Information Technologies and Materials (established 2025) lists research topics such as diamond quantum sensing, condensed-matter physics, biology, energy materials and precision metrology — descriptions consistent with civilian scientific work. The HKUST expedition under the UN Decade of Ocean Science’s “Digital DEPTH” programme was an internationally staffed project endorsed by UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission and focused on deep-sea biodiversity and mineral resources. PolyU’s sampling system is publicly described by the university as a contribution to civil deep-space exploration.
Dual-Use Context And International Comparisons
Contemporary research is often dual-use: technologies developed for civilian purposes can have defence applications. University collaboration with defence organisations is common in allied countries. For instance, MIT reports that almost 15% of sponsored research on its main campus supports the US Department of Defense, and MIT Lincoln Laboratory receives roughly $1.3–1.5 billion a year in national-security R&D (about 90% from the DoD). All 37 Australian public universities are signatories to the Defence Science and Technology Group’s Defence Science Partnerships framework, and in July 2026 the UK Ministry of Defence launched a 35-member Defence Universities Alliance that includes Oxford, UCL and King’s College London. The relevant question for research-security analysis is not whether a link exists but what it actually does.
Scrutinising ASPI’s Own Context
Applying a consistent standard means examining ASPI’s funding and methods. ASPI’s 2024–25 annual report records A$14.31 million in own-source revenue, including A$6.5 million in Department of Defence core funding for its Canberra and Washington operations and A$4.98 million in sponsorship. ASPI leadership has described Defence funding as “a crucial source of funding and a key enabler of our operations.” Claims about cross-border research funding should also be understood in context: the RGC-NSFC Joint Research Scheme that supports much Hong Kong–mainland cooperation requires Hong Kong and mainland partners to receive and spend their grants within their own jurisdictions, which constrains inference of a single unified funding flow.
What Responsible Research-Security Analysis Should Do
Research-security concerns are legitimate: classified projects, controlled technologies, undisclosed funding and verified transfers to military end users deserve scrutiny. But rigorous analysis must distinguish memoranda from operational programmes, research centres from military laboratories, affiliations from demonstrated military use, and corporate pedigree from actual operational deployment. Expansive national-security framing that treats every civilian partnership as evidence of military penetration risks mischaracterising routine academic collaboration and undermining measured policy responses.
Bottom line: The institutional links ASPI lists are real; the public record, however, supports an at-least-equally plausible civilian interpretation in each cited case. Policymakers and the public should demand transparent, evidence-based distinctions before treating academic partnerships as security threats.
Originally published on Forbes.com.
