Australia’s most influential STEM research increasingly depends on collaboration with China, yet excessive security settings risk pushing universities and researchers away from work that serves the public good. When conducting due diligence on potential partners in China, Australian universities are often advised to consult various lists of Chinese universities with military ties that have been produced or funded by the US government. But STEM researchers in mainland China have appeared on 55 per cent of the world’s top-tier STEM papers since 2020, triple the US share and 11 times that of Australia. It is also important to understand what researchers at Australian universities actually do. In contrast, the bread and butter of STEM research at universities is what is known as “fundamental research”.