ជម្លោះកាន់តែអាក្រក់ទៅ ៗ របស់ចិនជាមួយអូស្ត្រាលីទុកឱ្យអ្នកស្រាវជ្រាវបង់ថ្លៃ

- Two Chinese specialists in Australian studies had their visas revoked in 2020, with one of them deemed a ‘risk to national security’

- Polarised views have left Chinese-origin academics in Australia in a difficult situation

Chinese scholars in the field of Australian studies are becoming caught up in the souring of relations between Beijing and Canberra, prompting concerns about the future of academic exchange.

Chinese researchers Chen Hong and Li Jianjun, both specialists in Australian studies, had their visas cancelled last year, with the email to Chen from the Australian Home Affairs Department saying he posed “a risk to … national security”. Other scholars have said polarised views on China were making their work difficult.

Australian media reports suggested Chen, a professor of Australian Studies at the East China Normal University in Shanghai, and Li, director of the Australian Studies Centre at Beijing Foreign Studies University, were drawn into a foreign interference investigation involving New South Wales MP Shaoquett Moselmane, who was investigated last year over “Chinese influence” operations.

Both Chen and Li were found to be members of a WeChat group that included Moselmane and his former staff John Zhang, and was allegedly a platform to encourage the politician to advocate for Chinese government interests.

Li’s visa was cancelled in July last year, and Chen’s about a month later. Chen demanded an explanation from the Australian government but – a year on – has yet to receive a reply.

“My impression of the country, which can be said to be an ‘example of good governance’, has changed a lot since the incident,” Chen said. Some of his students doubted whether Australia was still friendly towards them, he added.

Relations between China and Australia have hit a low point over a wide range of issues – including the probe into the origin of the Covid-19 pandemic, alleged human rights violations in Xinjiang, and China’s military presence in the Indo-Pacific region.

Tensions escalated further following the announcement of a security pact this week between the US, UK and Australia that will see Canberra eventually field nuclear-powered submarines, as the alliance moves to counter Beijing.

“The current China-Australia relationship has reached an unprecedented low point, and promoting understanding would require the efforts of scholars from both countries,” Chen said.

“But if we, as promoters and advocates in China of understanding Australia, are being blamed, to what extent have the relations gone [downhill]? … The atmosphere of normal academic exchange has been destroyed by the Australian side.”

Li said the visa cancellation would affect the completion of his studies, as he planned to go to Australia to research his PhD dissertation after the Covid-19 pandemic abated.

He rejected the allegations relating to the Moselmane WeChat group, saying: “It was a pure chat group between friends, where we shared [comments about] daily life, and merely touched upon politics”.

Worsening bilateral relations had left some academics in Australia with a Chinese background feeling tense, Li said. “This might have a negative impact on them with regard to applying for research programmes,” he warned.

Chen Minglu, a senior lecturer at the University of Sydney’s Department of Government and International Relations, however, doubted whether bilateral relations had affected academic exchanges, and noted that overseas Chinese students were still enrolling.

“Sure, there have been changes [in terms of academic exchange], students and academics are not able to travel between the two countries, but [that is] largely due to travel restrictions related to the Covid-19 pandemic. It is hard to pin it on the changing bilateral relationship,” she said.

However, in an article in May, she wrote that polarised views on China had left academics with a Chinese background, such as herself, between a rock and a hard place.

She was accused of being a “Taiwan independence supporter” by a student describing himself as a “Chinese patriot” – the first time she had encountered such a reaction in 10 years of teaching.

The immediate provocation seemed to be her comment in class that, after the election of Joe Biden as president, issues such as Tibet, Xinjiang and Taiwan were likely to cause tensions between the US and China.

But a non-Chinese student protested that she should have remembered “authoritarianism is evil”, Chen wrote in highlighting her point.

SCMP