Chinese investor buys land near AUKUS ports, sparking security fears

As AUKUS subs prepare to dock, Chinese-linked firms quietly buy land nearby — and no one in Canberra seems to notice, writes Vince Hooper.

HERE WE ARE, pouring billions into the AUKUS submarine project — a grand plan to make Australia the Indo-Pacific’s nuclear-powered “pivot”. We’re told this is about defending our sovereignty and deterring adversaries.

And yet, right under our noses, Chinese-linked investors have been quietly buying up land around some of the very ports likely to host those submarines.

You couldn’t make it up.

Reports in The Australian and Baird Maritime revealed that companies tied to Chinese businessman Wang Yongxin – who has known links to Chinese state networks – have bought big parcels of land near Port Kembla and Newcastle, both shortlisted for future AUKUS infrastructure.

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We’re talking hundreds of thousands of square metres of waterfront property — and not a peep from Defence, Treasury, or the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) about whether anyone even looked twice before signing off.

Meanwhile, ministers in Canberra keep patting themselves on the back for “taking national security seriously”.

Strategic? Or Just Sleepwalking?

Let’s be blunt: this isn’t just a property issue. It’s a national security blind spot the size of a dry dock.

Owning land near defence infrastructure means access, visibility and influence. It doesn’t take a Cold War spy to see the potential risks — surveillance, data interception, or just the simple ability to observe what’s going in and out of a port designed to host nuclear-powered subs.

In the old days, even sticking a camera near a naval base would get you a chat with the Australian Federal Police (AFP). Now, apparently, you can buy the land next door if the paperwork looks tidy.

FIRB: The watchdog that sleeps through the night

The FIRB was supposed to be our safety net, the body that makes sure strategic assets don’t quietly drift offshore. But when it comes to land near military sites, it’s still playing catch-up.

The Government did tighten the rules a few years back, but they’re reactive and opaque. FIRB mostly relies on deals being flagged rather than proactively scanning for trouble. If no one rings the bell, the gate stays open.

It’s not hard to see how this happens. Property deals move fast, Defence moves slow, and Treasury doesn’t want to spook investors. The end result? Everyone looks the other way while the country gets sold off in slices.

The Americans would never tolerate this

Look across the Pacific. In the United States, they’ve got the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) — a body with real teeth. A few years ago, when a Chinese-owned company bought land near an Air Force base in North Dakota, Washington stepped in and blocked it. No hand-wringing, no “case-by-case basis” nonsense.

They simply said: “Not happening.”

Here, we call that sort of decisiveness “unfriendly to investment”. We’d rather take the cheque, mutter something about “balance” and hope the intelligence agencies are keeping an eye on things.

Spoiler: they’re not — or not enough.

Canberra’s cognitive dissonance

What’s truly staggering is the mixed messaging.

On one hand, AUKUS is sold as the linchpin of our defence future — billions in spending, deep tech sharing, nuclear propulsion, the works. On the other hand, our own system lets foreign buyers purchase land near those same bases with little more than a title search.

It’s like buying a top-of-the-range security system, then leaving the front door open because you didn’t want to offend the neighbour.

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AUKUS without anchors

If AUKUS is about defending Australia, then control of the land around those bases has to be part of the plan.

Here’s what should happen — and should’ve happened yesterday:

Declare strategic buffer zones – say, 5 kilometres around any AUKUS-linked site – where all foreign purchases trigger automatic review.
Make FIRB publish summary data on who’s buying what near defence assets. Sunlight is a deterrent.
Force beneficial ownership disclosure — no shell companies, no nominee directors hiding who’s really behind a deal.
Give Defence a legal veto, not just an advisory role, on property purchases in critical zones.
Coordinate with AUKUS allies so we’re all enforcing the same standard, not leaving gaps for adversaries to exploit.

If we’re serious about sovereignty, we can’t have one hand waving the AUKUS flag while the other hands out land titles.

It’s not paranoia — it’s common sense

Some will say this is alarmist. It’s not. It’s called learning from history.

Foreign influence doesn’t always arrive with warships; sometimes it comes with lawyers, shell companies and smiling real estate agents.

Australia has a right – and an obligation – to draw the line between being open for business and being open to exploitation.

Right now, that line looks very blurry.

The bottom line

AUKUS was sold as a once-in-a-generation security guarantee. But unless we wake up to what’s happening around those bases – literally around them – it risks becoming another billion-dollar illusion of safety.

Because sovereignty isn’t lost overnight. It’s lost deal by deal, port by port, and paddock by paddock, until one day you realise the coastline you’re defending doesn’t really belong to you anymore.

Vince Hooper is a proud Australian/British citizen and professor of finance and discipline head at SP Jain School of Global Management with campuses in London, Dubai, Mumbai, Singapore and Sydney.