Loading That ended the lock domestic students aligned with Labor, the Liberals and the Greens have held on campus for decades. And it mirrors broader trends at Sydney University, where international student numbers have more than doubled since 2012. Those students, a majority of whom are Chinese, constitute about a third of the student population and pay tens of millions of dollars a year to the university on which it increasingly depends on. The largest international student faction on campus is Panda, which is more conservative. It prioritises delivering services to students, wants cheaper transport for international students and generally mistrusts activism. Advance, its more progressive opponent, is more activist, with members decrying racism, opposing the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation and fighting for abortion access. Such is the rancour between factions on campus, including Advance and Panda as well as domestic student groups, that the August SRC council meeting was cancelled because council staff deemed the level of hostility between all sides "unsafe", according to student newspaper Honi Soit.

Michael Rees, a former student union president, said there was a positive side to the division because it showed international students' diversity. "There is this view that international Chinese students are a homogenous political community and it’s just so so wrong," Mr Rees said. And a university spokeswoman said it was pleased to see international students getting involved. "We have a strong history of political debate, activism and advocacy in our student body, and it’s encouraging to see this tradition extending to our international students to ensure our representative bodies are as diverse as our student population," the spokeswoman said. SRC president Jacky He, a Panda leader who is from China but has permanent residency in Australia, said disagreements between his group and the more progressive Advance bloc were like clashes between different Labor factions.

"You know how Labor left and Labor right can't really stand each other. They're still all Labor but you can't figure out why they can't stand each other?" Mr He said. "Sometimes it's like this." Jacky He, an engineering student, is president of the Student Representative Council. Credit:Janie Barrett Mr He's chief antagonist is Decheng Sun, honorary secretary of the student union and an Advance leader. When Panda aligned itself with a Liberal faction on campus, Mr Sun said he "couldn't accept it because it was not my ideology." On the question of democracy in Hong Kong that has rocked other campuses, leading to physical clashes at the University of Queensland and the intimidation of at least one pro-democracy protester via threats to his family in China, both Mr Sun and Mr He are cagey. Mr He said he could not "express any opinion on any of these things" and could not say how other Panda supporters would think about the issue while Mr Sun said he would "encourage representatives from my faction to vote upon their conscience. People have arguments on both sides, so it's complex."