On August 13, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong cancelled collaborations between the Australian National University and China's Shandong University and between the University of Queensland (UQ) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the first such order under the country’s 2020 Foreign Relations Act.
The UQ agreement with the Chinese Academy of Sciences was set to study how to use proteins from a native Australian plant for pain-relief purposes, according to Times Higher Education.
China’s foreign ministry opposed “the generalization of the national security concept to suppress international educational and research co-operation.”
In July, the U.S. formally added Shandong University to a “blacklist” of universities engaging in “problematic activities.” Canada’s version of a “blacklist,” called the Named Research Organizations, lists 103 institutions, 85 of which are based in China (including the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Computing Technology). For now, exchange opportunities remain between Shandong University and select Canadian universities.
Like Ottawa, Canberra has recently looked to manage international student enrolment, designating 295,000 new slots for 2026 — up 25,000 from 2025, but down eight per cent from the post-COVID peak.
As of this year, fifty-seven per cent of international students in Australia hail from China (23%), India (16%), Nepal (9%), Vietnam (5%), and Bangladesh (4%).
