AUSTRALIA’S top diplomat has waded into the row over alleged Chinese interference in Australian universities, telling students that silencing debate was “an affront to our values.”

Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade secretary Frances Adamson made the remarks during a speech to a Chinese Government-funded academic institute in Adelaide over the weekend, the ABC reported.

Ms Adamson told “international students” at the University of Adelaide’s Confucius Institute that “silencing of anyone in our society — from students to lecturers to politicians — is an affront to our values”.

She asked students to engage in respectful debate rather than spread propaganda.

“No doubt there will be times when you encounter things which to you are unusual, unsettling, or perhaps seem plain wrong … so when you do, let me encourage you not to silently withdraw, or blindly condemn, but to respectfully engage,” she said.

Her comments come after a Four Corners investigation earlier this year revealed the influence of the Chinese Communist Party on international students studying in Australia.

That investigation showed Beijing’s influence in directing Chinese student associations, threatening Australian-based dissidents and its attempts to control academia and Chinese-language media.

At the time Australia’s spy chief Duncan Lewis told Parliament that foreign interference and spying in Australia was occurring on “an unprecedented scale”.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has also warned about Chinese aggression in the region.

He used a key speech on security in Singapore in June to warn against “a coercive China”, saying such a move would find its neighbours becoming resentful and looking for alliances elsewhere.

Mr Turnbull’s government is set to introduce new laws to counter foreign interference and espionage.

In her speech Ms Adamson urged universities to “remain true” to their values. “We have seen attempts at untoward influence and interference,” she said.

“When confronted with awkward choices, it is up to us to choose our response, whether to make an uncomfortable compromise or decide instead to remain true to our values, ‘immune from intolerance or external influence’ as Adelaide University’s founders envisaged.”