Mark Harrison

Australian uni sector peak body Universities Australia promotes a keynote at their annual conference by PRC ambassador Xiao Qian using word-for-word CCP slogans.

Taiwan's Martial Law-era archives fully declassified - Focus Taiwan Taiwan's top intelligence agency said Monday that it has completely declassified tens of thousands of political archives it possessed from the Martial Law period and transferred them to the National A...

Vital step in Taiwan's long journey of truth and reconciliation. Authoritarianism and historical trauma continue to shape politics, culture, identities and inter-generational relations in Taiwan very directly.
focustaiwan.tw/politics/202...

Breaking: SA secures Australian MotoGP, world-first street circuit announced The South Australian government has confirmed the Australian MotoGP will move to Adelaide from 2027.

The rules-based international order really is over.

"South Australia secures Australian MotoGP, world-first street circuit announced"
www.abc.net.au/news/2026-02...

Everything described here is true, as some of us had seen some years ago, but there is nothing here about what it means for Australian universities to be integrated into the PRC system in this way, just a market logic that occludes the nature of that system.

Shocking comments by the PRC ambassador to Australia about Taiwan. Disinformation, declaring that Taiwanese who oppose annexation should leave Taiwan, and directly linking Australia's sovereign national debate about regional security and Taiwan to good relations with China.

That isn't signaling. China’s military is seriously rehearsing around Taiwan | The Strategist Analysing China’s military activity around Taiwan often invites a simple question: what triggered it? Analysts tend to assume that spikes in aircraft sorties, naval deployments or coast guard operatio...

Superb analysis from @nathanattrill.bsky.social.

"Put simply, the scale and persistence of Chinese military activity around Taiwan look less like signalling and more like systematic preparation for the use of force, conducted on Beijing’s own timetable."
www.aspistrategist.org.au/that-isnt-si...

An escalation of political warfare by the PRC ambassador Xiao Qian in the national Australian media.

Disinformation, misrepresentation, and a new explicit demand to accept in silence Taiwan's annexation and its catastrophic consequences.

As Rudd leaves his post, questions for Australia's foreign policy swirl One month after Kevin Rudd leaves his post as Australia's ambassador to Washington, Donald Trump will make his first presidential visit to China in almost 10 years.

"...do we back the US or China in a battle over Taiwan."

As always, Laura Tingle unable to conceptualise backing the Taiwanese, so ends up grotesquely suggesting that Australia could actually support a PRC invasion of Taiwan (with troops? materiel? a UN statement?)
www.abc.net.au/news/2026-01...

Shanghai Oceans University with a leadership conference on the 4th Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee, with comments by the dean of the UTAS JV Ai'en College with far-reaching implications for the Australian university sector.
www.shou.edu.cn/2025/1025/c1...

From Geoffrey Robertson, no less. You can really see where a certain block of Australian elite opinion will go in rationalising a PRC invasion of Taiwan, at least until the global economy crashes, the AUD is at USD25c and emergency interest rates are 30%.
www.smh.com.au/national/thi...

University of Tasmania and its Shanghai Oceans University JV Aien College visit the Shanghai office of US-sanctioned PRC AI company SenseTime to sign a partnership.
ien.shou.edu.cn/2025/1211/c2...

In Taiwan you can win lottery just by shopping Most shopping receipts in Taiwan are also tickets for a lottery run every second month by the government to increase tax compliance, and there are some big prizes up for grabs.

"In Taiwan you can win the lottery just by shopping"

www.abc.net.au/news/2025-12...

Japanese ambassador to Australia responds to PRC ambassador's attack.

As Beijing continues military threats and political warfare against Taiwan, PRC Ambassador Xiao Qian warns Australia about "appeasement" of Japan, following PM Takaichi's comments that a PRC war against the Taiwanese would threaten Japan's security.

YouTube video by ABC News In-depth How one man changed the China, Taiwan conflict forever | Foreign Correspondent Archives

For some reason, @abcnews reissues one of its worst reports on Taiwan, from 2005.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTtb...

Yes, that is more than a real possibility.

China is bearing down on Taiwan – enabled by Trump’s weakness and vacillation | Simon Tisdall The US hasn’t just left Ukraine vulnerable; it is also provoking Xi’s intensifying attitude towards what he considers a renegade province, says Guardian foreign affairs commentator Simon Tisdall

"To assure peace and prosperity, secessionists would be crushed, state media declared brightly. It’s obvious – Beijing just doesn’t get it.

Yes, it is. And Beijing is holding the whole world hostage with its Taiwan delusion.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Generous account of our new @aspi-org.bsky.social @defenceaustralia.bsky.social report "Australian Public and Institutional Responses to Taiwan Strait Crises" from Paul Monk in The Australian, with important insights into facing realities of Beijing's threats against the Taiwanese.

Dreadful and irresponsible from @mattbevan.bsky.social's ABC "If You're Listening" series, on China and Taiwan, blithely and glibly imagining that Taiwan has no history before 1949, so believing that China and Taiwan corresponds to the CCP and the KMT and so getting it all wrong.

Japan's PM said the quiet part out loud and unleashed Beijing's fury China was already wary about Japan's new Prime Minister, Sanae Takaichi, a renowned Beijing hawk, before she weighed in on one of its most sensitive issues: Taiwan. Now it's unleashing economic pain.

"But Taiwan is a legacy from the Chinese civil war, a final bastion of the Nationalists that lost the mainland to the communists."

Please, @jamesoaten.bsky.social, Taiwan was a Japanese colonial territory from 1895, the end of the Qing, to 1945.

www.abc.net.au/news/2025-11...

China and Japan are in a war of words over Taiwan – what happens next? Japan’s hawkish new PM has angered Beijing after suggesting her country could become involved in a military conflict between China and Taiwan

Good explainer on a "crisis" in China-Japan relations that has had bizarrely little coverage in Australia.

"Crisis" in quotes because obviously Beijing is using the Japanese PM's remarks as a pretext to test her government early in its term.

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/n...

Inside Scotland’s China campuses: military drills and propaganda Joint ventures between Scottish and Chinese universities have proved lucrative — but controversial, prompting concerns about the involvement of the authoritarian state

Nothing here that surprises anyone who has followed transnational education with the PRC, but highlights that whatever of the overheated hopes or claims by foreign universities, these partnerships are always just relationships with the state.
www.thetimes.com/uk/scotland/...

YouTube video by TaiwanPlus News How TaiwaneseAmerican.org Chronicles Evolving Taiwan Identity｜Zoom In Zoom Out

Interview with the incomparable Leona Chen, eloquent on the work of living, representing and making Taiwanese identity and politics across generations and geographies.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=v15T...

Honda's reusable rocket prototype.

China sharpens its language on Taiwan as part of ‘longer-term’ strategy A series of statements, articles, photos and even a new national holiday indicate a shift in Beijing’s stance over the island, analysts say

Important piece from @heldavidson.bsky.social tracking a shift from Beijing's military warfare to political warfare against Taiwan, as military activity in the Taiwan Strait hit their current threat salience limit just short of a kinetic event.

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/n...

Excellent piece.

Marshall Ye Jianying, who proposed One Country Two Systems in 1982 for Taiwan.

Australia’s Understanding and Preparedness for a Taiwan Strait Contingency - Australian Institute of International Affairs While Taiwan features frequently in Australian strategic and policy discussion and media discourse, overall understanding in Australia’s national life of the implications of a crisis in the Taiwan Str...

Australia’s Understanding and Preparedness for a Taiwan Strait Contingency.

From me, for Australian Outlook.

www.internationalaffairs.org.au/australianou...

UK university halted human rights research after pressure from China Exclusive: Leading professor at Sheffield Hallam was told to cease research on supply chains and forced labour in China after demands from authorities

Important and shocking report from Amy Hawkins in @theguardian.com

Furthermore, foreign universities, including in Australia, have partnerships with inland PRC universities directly involved in the central government campaign against Uyghurs since 2017.
www.theguardian.com/education/20...

"Our Al turned your paper into a shareable comic."

Oh ... no.