SYDNEY, Australia — As tensions have swelled on Australian university campuses over the democracy movement in Hong Kong, the battle lines seem to have been neatly drawn: Chinese students on the side of China, and Chinese-Australian students on the side of Hong Kong.

But inside the halls, the reality is more complicated. Views are often less absolute, and loyalties not so predictably traced. Some students from mainland China shout their allegiance to their homeland; others privately voice sympathy for the Hong Kong protesters. Some conservative Chinese-Australians oppose greater autonomy for Hong Kong; others fear being lumped in with mainlanders they disagree with. Most feel a new glare of public scrutiny.

Australia has a particularly complicated economic and geopolitical relationship with China, a dynamic that shapes its views toward Hong Kong. As these issues now come to the fore on Australian campuses where international students are a large presence and a financial lifeline, students of Chinese descent say they are feeling a deepening sense of anxiety, leaving them unsure whom to believe and whom to trust.