About

The 2025 expansion

In a major new expansion launched in September 2025, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) has added extensive new content about China’s critical and dual-use technology research ecosystem to the Tracker, including:

• global and national critical-technology research rankings for more than 40 universities and institutes, incorporating exclusive data from ASPI’s Critical Technology Tracker 
• Chinese partnerships with Russia’s leading science and technology research institutions 
• partnerships with China’s state-owned defence conglomerates 
• in-depth profiles on the Chinese Academy of Sciences and its affiliated institutes 
• major international joint venture universities 
• detailed information about the vast expansion of new research centres dedicated to dual-use technologies, often in partnership with China’s top technology companies 
• updated risk ratings to reflect the ongoing expansion of defence-relevant research throughout China’s university ecosystem. 

ASPI is also excited to announce an exclusive new partnership with corporate intelligence platform WireScreen, allowing the Tracker to provide new details about university corporate ties and technology procurement for more than 50 universities and institutes. 

The above additions have been applied to more than 60 universities and institutes in the Tracker database, complementing the existing database of nearly 100 civilian universities, 50 People’s Liberation Army institutions, China’s nuclear weapons program, three Ministry of State Security institutions, four Ministry of Public Security universities, and 12 state-owned defence industry conglomerates. From early 2026, regular updates will see new institutions added to the Tracker and research additions extended to more existing institutions. 

The new Tracker website is powered by WhatWorks. 

About the China Defence Universities Tracker

The Tracker illuminates military and security links between Chinese institutions and the state, helping universities, governments and companies make informed and targeted decisions about research partnerships and collaboration. It supports export control compliance, research security assessments, due diligence research, international academic partnerships, investment screening and informed public debate. 

The Tracker was first launched in November 2019, along with a policy report. In May 2021, it was updated with an additional 15 new civilian universities and updates to existing university entries, explained in detail here and an accompanying report here. 

The updated Tracker continues to be a tool that enables universities, governments, the business community and scholars to conduct due diligence as they engage with entities from China. It has attracted a global audience, with enormous traffic coming from both the US and China, followed by Japan, Hong Kong, Australia, Canada, the UK, Germany, Singapore, France, Taiwan, the Netherlands, Russia and India. With that audience, the Tracker aims to build understanding of the implications of China’s expanding military–civil fusion in the global education sector. 

The Tracker is a precision instrument for understanding institutional relationships, not a tool for profiling individuals or supporting wholesale restrictions. The Tracker is not a blacklist. Its goal is to support informed decision-making that protects research integrity while preserving the benefits of international collaboration. 

The Tracker is extensive but not comprehensive. Institutions not included here may still present risk. Similarly, entries in the database might not reflect the full range and nature of an institution’s defence and security links. 

Methodology

Research for the Tracker focused on identifying key indicators of defence and security links at each university and developing reliable methods for evaluating those links. Institutions were included in the project for their military links, security links or known connection to human rights abuses or espionage. This research primarily used online Chinese-language resources from universities and Chinese government agencies, in addition to media reports and foreign government websites. We have attempted to archive all online sources using online archives.  

After the 2019 Tracker was released, some key Chinese government and university websites cited in the Tracker were deleted. We have kept those now-broken links in place, with a footnote stating the link is broken, because in some cases they are the last remaining open-source evidence of certain sensitive information such as security clearance level. 

Risk rating methodology

The Tracker provides a risk rating of ‘low’, ‘medium’, ‘high’ or ‘very high’ for each institution in the database except for the Chinese Academy of Sciences and its affiliated institutions. The ratings are based on the institution’s degree of proximity to China’s military and security apparatuses, thus presenting the risk that potential foreign partners might find their research or resources inadvertently or even covertly redirected towards supporting China’s military modernisation or other strategic goals. 

To formulate the ratings, we created an extensive matrix of risk factors for each institution, including the number of defence research topics and the number of defence labs, the level of partnership with the defence industry, the type of government agency supervising the university, known examples of espionage or other alleged misconduct linked to the institution, and similar factors. We used that matrix to calculate the risk rating for each institution. The first sentence in the overview for each institution includes an explanation of the factors used to assess its risk rating. 

We also incorporated other factors on a case-by-case basis. For example, we assessed Shanghai University as high risk due in part to its strong links to China’s territorial ambitions and major geopolitical controversies in the South and East China seas. In these cases, we’ve included those additional factors in the explanation of the risk rating. 

For more information about our methodology, risk rating matrix, or specific institution ratings, please contact us.

How to use the risk rating

Different organisations may find different uses for the risk ratings. Foreign governments can use the ratings to help formulate and implement policies such as import and export controls. Universities seeking to expand international scientific collaboration can use the ratings to perform due diligence to help ensure that their future research won’t find its way into the hands of China’s military or defence companies. Companies seeking international partners could benefit from the information about sanctions lists. Due diligence companies can use the ratings to assist in supply-chain analysis. 

The ratings should not be considered an automatic blacklist, but rather a tool that can be customised based on the needs of the user. A small liberal arts college in a Western country wishing to find a Chinese university partner for a summer language program for undergraduate students would be likely to feel less concern about the Chinese partner’s ties to military and defence. A large public research university, on the other hand, would need to carefully vet potential partners to ensure research security. 

Areas for further expansion

Beginning in 2026, ASPI will release regular updates to the Tracker. The expansions listed above have been added to more than 60 institutions; future updates will see those expansions also added to the remaining institutions. 

The Tracker now includes 10 major institutes affiliated with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which hosts more than 140 institutes. In future updates, we’ll expand the number of affiliated institutes covered by the Tracker. 

The database includes 12 of China’s defence conglomerates, but their hundreds if not thousands of subsidiaries have not been publicly catalogued. Private companies and other major suppliers of equipment to the military and security apparatus have not been included in this project. 

Acknowledgements

The Tracker is independently produced by ASPI. It operates under ASPI’s editorial standards and governance processes. The original 2019 launch of the China Defence Universities Tracker was supported by funding from the US Department of State’s Global Engagement Center. 

Copyright

© The Australian Strategic Policy Institute Limited 2019

This website 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. 

Please note: Information on this website has been derived from sources reliable and accurate at the time of publication. Readers should note that circumstances may change after a document is published, including as a consequence of changes to government policy or industry practice resulting from a document’s publication. The information is provided on the basis that readers are responsible for making their own assessment of the matters contained or discussed on this site. 

This page updated: September 2025.