Illustration: John Shakespeare She was the first ethnic Chinese, and also the first woman, that the British trusted to be Hong Kong's top civil servant. And although she was a British appointment, the Chinese trusted her to stay on to be the top civil servant under the first Chinese regime to rule the city since the Opium Wars. She retired with an outstanding reputation for impartiality and professionalism. Now 76, she could still be enjoying an easy retirement but was goaded into public activism by the encroachments of the Beijing government. She is in Australia with another Hong Kong activist, longtime campaigner for civil liberties Martin Lee, to make the case for Hong Kong's autonomy, and will meet Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop, among others.

The "Iron Lady" of Hong Kong: Anson Chan, in 2007. Credit:AP During a similar visit to the US two years ago, Chinese state media denounced Chan and Lee as mischief-makers, troublemakers and traitors when they met Vice-President, Joe Biden. Yet Chan is no revolutionary: "All we want is to hold Beijing to its promises in the Basic Law," the Hong Kong constitution written at the time of the handback to China in 1997. The Basic Law, promulgated by Beijing, allowed China to resume sovereign ownership of the territory, yet preserved Hong Kong's liberties from the authoritarian boot heel of Beijing for 50 years. It gave force to the concept of "One Country, Two Systems", a brilliant piece of entrepreneurial statesmanship by China's paramount leader of the time, Deng Xiaoping.

By the time China's infiltration of Australia is readily apparent, it will be too late Anson Chan wants his successor, current president Xi Jinping, to return to Deng's vision. "You are destroying Hong Kong if you continue to chip away at 'One Country, Two Systems' and take away its high degree of autonomy." Beijing fails to appreciate that Hong Kong's value is not in its hardware of buildings and infrastructure but in its software, she says. "Why is Hong Kong still the pre-eminent finance centre of China? Because of its software – the rule of law, basic rights such as freedom of speech, a level playing field and transparency and accountability," she says. "China underestimates the depth of feeling in Hong Kong, especially among the younger generation," an attachment to local rights that gave rise to the youth-based Umbrella Movement of 2014, when demonstrators protected themselves against police teargas with umbrellas.

So what is Beijing doing, exactly? "No one should be under any illusions about the objective of the Communist Party leadership – its long-term, systematic infiltration of social organisations, media and government. "Nobody knows how many Communist Party members there are in Hong Kong – there are a lot of underground cadres, their identities secret even from each other. "They have infiltrated into NGOs, into traditional clansmen's associations, into women's welfare societies who were purely interested in doing good, who now roll out the party line, all in direct breach of One Country, Two Systems." Chan cites attempts by Beijing to impose a so-called "national education" curriculum of pro-Communist Party propaganda, and an attempt to assert authority over the Hong Kong courts, both of which collapsed in the face of protests on the streets of Hong Kong.

But most shocking, she says, is the revelation that the mainland authorities have kidnapped Chinese publishers, at least one of whom was taken forcibly and secretly from Hong Kong to the mainland to be disciplined for the crime of publishing books critical of the Beijing leadership. "Until then," says Chan, "everyone in Hong Kong thought that if you don't break the laws of Hong Kong you are safe on Hong Kong soil. People now understand that you are no longer safe in our own beds on home soil." It's an extrajudicial assertion of power that is "a flagrant breach of everything in the Basic Law and the independence of the courts," she says. "We are still waiting for the Chief Executive to give Hong Kong people a guarantee that this will never happen again. "The rest of the world should pay attention to what's happening in Hong Kong." Why?

"Because if China can, with impunity, walk away from its treaty obligations to Hong Kong, what does that say about China's attitude to its treaty obligations to other countries?" Australia should be alert, she says, to Chinese Communist Party infiltration on its soil. The Chinese language media in Australia are dominated by party propaganda organs, their Confucius Institutes are propaganda tools, and "they will try to buy off political candidates and politicians" too with cash and other inducements. It's standard stuff, she says. Chan wants to discourage xenophobia but she wants to encourage wariness of Chinese Communist Party aims and techniques. "You have to define your own strategic and moral line. Consistently and constantly, in private and in public, reaffirm your own values. "You can't ignore China – it's too big to ignore – it's a vast country with vast potential. But what are your rules for engaging with it? It's a country with vastly different core values." How should we understand China's forceful territorial claims on maritime areas also claimed by its neighbours? How does its "soft power" infiltration fit with its "hard power" assertions?

"I think it's all part of a well-thought-through, long-term strategy to dominate." As the aphorism says, forewarned is forearmed. Chan's final word of warning: "By the time China's infiltration of Australia is readily apparent, it will be too late."



Peter Hartcher is international editor.