This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

“I’m not wearing this to make a political statement, I want to show my face,” says a masked man, from Hong Kong, now standing beneath the sandstone of the University of Queensland’s great court.

“But even in Australia now we cannot be seen here at a protest. We are not out of sight of China’s government. They have made that clear.”

Last week, the Brisbane campus of the 110-year-old university became a flashpoint for the ongoing international backlash against the Chinese state, its influence on Hong Kong and its mass detention of its Muslim Uighur population.

A protest last Wednesday, organised by Hong Kong international students against the controversial extradition law, turned violent. Pro-Chinese government students interrupted the sit-in, tearing down banners, punching and shoving.

Nilsson Jones (@nilssonjones_) Tensions escalated halfway through the protests #uqprotest #china #hongkong #uq pic.twitter.com/RWKmhwyCsT

But it’s the fallout from that protest, the quiet intimidation that followed – death threats, surveillance – that has many Hong Kong students, particularly those with family connections to mainland China, scared to show their faces.

Attendees, who believe they were identified by videos of the protest, were subsequently targeted online in doxxing attacks; in one case a Hong Kong student had his driver’s licence, marriage certificate, student ID and other identifying information published on Chinese social media site Weibo.

On Wednesday this week, a second protest was held. Smaller, more focused on the university’s links to China, and organised by Australian students, there was an undercurrent of fear among those who – unlike their domestic counterparts – were most vulnerable to the state’s capacity for retaliation.

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A masked woman, who did not give her name, addressed the crowd. She said she was from Hong Kong and feared for the safety of her family.

“All in all, we are just protesters forced by an authoritarian government to protect ourselves,” she said, her voice trembling and then booming into the microphone.

“Some protestors whose identities are disclosed will be stopped by police at the Hong Kong airport. So why am I now hiding my identity? Because I don’t want to be disappeared after showing up on this stage.”

Why UQ?

As the situation in Hong Kong becomes more fraught, unrest continues and fears grow that the Chinese military might intervene, the sprawling riverfront campus of the University of Queensland is an unlikely focal point for questions about China’s actions and its influence. But the punches thrown last Wednesday have placed the university, and its links to China, in the spotlight.

Last Friday, the South China Morning Post revealed that the Brisbane Chinese consul-general, Xu Jie, who had praised the “patriotic behaviour” of the violent counter-protest, had been made an adjunct professor of language and culture by the university on 15 July.

The debate over foreign influence at universities is not new, and not limited to China. It has been previously reported that some Chinese international students studying in Australia are monitored by the state and punished back home.

Recently, the focus has turned to the presence of Confucius Institutes, government-sponsored organisations that are hosted by universities and promote Chinese culture and teach Mandarin. A recent legislative change means universities with the centres must now register them as potential sources of foreign influence.

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This also affects groups such as the United States Studies Centre, at the University of Sydney, which is part-funded by a US-based group that aims to strengthen the Australia-US relationship.

Ji Davis, one of the organisers of the most recent protest, told Guardian Australia that UQ had become the focal point because of links between the vice-chancellor, Peter Høj, and Hanban – part of China’s education ministry that oversees Confucius Institutes globally. In 2015, Høj was named Hanban’s “outstanding individual of the year”.

Davis said he believed the university’s agreement with Hanban is more restrictive than at other institutions and influences what is being taught. In July, the Sydney Morning Herald revealed that UQ was one of only four universities whose Confucius Institute contract had a clause that allowed headquarters to assess the teaching quality of the Australian branches.

A spokeswoman for UQ told the SMH the contract had already expired in April and they were negotiating a new version. “The draft specifies that the agreement does not limit UQ’s autonomy in any way,” she said.

The union representing the university’s teachers, the National Tertiary Education Union, says it is all external influence – not just foreign, and not just China – that is the issue.

“What is critical is that this is not used as a China-bashing exercise,” says Michael McNally, the NTEU Queensland division secretary.

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“The [second] rally at UQ, which was very poorly attended, questioning the Confucius Institutes and Chinese influence in Australian universities, seems to focus on one aspect of influence in Australian universities, ignoring all the other corporate or international interests.”

Just two months ago, UQ students turned out in huge numbers to protest the Ramsay Centre – a much-criticised degree program that would teach the achievements of “western civilisation”.

The Australian National University had previously rejected the degree over concerns it would override and influence teaching, and academics at the University of Sydney said it would turn the university into an “intellectual backwater”.

The issue at UQ, says McNally, goes bigger than China.

“Unfortunately, UQ doesn’t have a good track record in mitigating the impacts of external influence. Compared to what the Ramsay Centre is trying to do, I think the Confucius Institute is pretty tame by comparison. I think the focus should be on a code of conduct for all Australian universities that limits the extent of all external influence.”

The day of the second rally proved McNally’s concerns valid. Organisers formally disinvited a speaker at the last minute after criticism the event was veering into anti-Chinese racism.

Andrew Cooper, the Australian organiser of CPAC, the conservative conference featuring Nigel Farage and former editor-in-chief of Breitbart Raheem Kassam, had been slated to speak.

Drew Pavlou (@DrewPavlou) I made a bad mistake, did not do my homework and I am sorry. Did not know Andrew Cooper associated with alt right figures. I am of the left and strongly opposed to alt-right racism. So I have immediately disinvited Cooper as speaker today. @Dave_Brophy thank you for informing me

On the ground, the attendants circulated, from Tibetan and Uighur Australians, Falun Gong members, Socialist Alliance activists and young Liberals. One man held up a sign about Xi Jinping that said he had “pooped his big boy pants”.

And for many, the issue is not just the Confucius Centre, or the university or their education. It’s the actions of the Chinese counter-protestors and, by extension, the state itself.

Høj tells Guardian Australia that he wants his campus to be a place where all students can protest and share their views, without violence or racism.

“By their nature, universities bring people with differing views together to exchange ideas and learn from one another”.

“UQ, like other Australian universities, encourages the respectful and lawful expression of views, and makes every effort to provide a safe environment for mature debate.

“We do not tolerate hate speech, racism, violence and intimidation, and it would be disappointing if the unacceptable actions of a few detracted from the open and inclusive nature of our university communities.”

On Friday, Høj has just returned from Papua New Guinea, in a neat coincidence that highlights again how everything is not just China. Former international UQ students include the PNG finance minister.

“In a climate of declining federal funding as a share of total university funding, international students subsidise our universities, especially our research programs,” he says. “They also deepen our regional and international links, broaden the horizons of domestic students, and strengthen Australia’s own ‘soft power.’”

‘Basic human rights’

Guardian Australia spoke to Chinese students among the 9,000 studying at the university and including those who were involved in courses run by the Confucius Institute, who did not want to be named.

One student said he did not believe those involved in the pro-China counterprotest last week were students.

“No, I have not seen them,” the engineering student said. “They’ve come from somewhere, I don’t know. I do not protest, I am here to study.”

Many said they believed protesters had misunderstood the nature of programs at the Confucius Institute.

“It helps us to have a focus on Chinese culture here. It makes us settle quickly,” one woman said.

Play Video 0:49 Hong Kong police officer threatens protesters with shotgun – video





Jason, an Australian IT student, said he participated in a Confucius Institute program during high school and was advised by his teacher “don’t talk about” subjects that might be sensitive to China.

“It’s more of a subtle censorship, where basically they’re making us self-censor,” Jason said.

“They don’t tell us to censor, we do it ourselves. We are accepting that.”

His friend, Sam, a dual Australian-Hong Kong national who wore a mask, said the university needed to be transparent about its relationship to the institute, including how it was funded.

“You have to understand, that American and Canadian universities banned the Confucius Institute for a reason,” Sam said.

“In light of the events that happened last week, how pro-democracy and peaceful protesters who support Hong Kong were attacked by pro-Chinese nationalists, we feel this trampling of our basic rights, our basic Australian rights, basic human rights of freedom of speech have been encroached on by this foreign institute that has been receiving money form the Chinese Communist Party. This is the sort of foreign interference that we cannot tolerate in Australia.”

Davis said he felt the university had attempted to silence further protests, telling organisers to move to a quiet part of the campus and threatening that students would be held liable for any unruly behaviour.

But that seemed only to compound anger towards the university; a further attempt to mask dissent, at a time when many of its Kong Hong foreign students have been emboldened to participate, but remain too scared to show their faces.

Standing on four milk crates, wearing a black mask and a black cap, the student from Hong Kong speaks about the recent experiences of people there, who she says have met with consequences after they shared experiences from the protests on social media.

“It is no longer a political issue about extradition. It’s a moral issue now. However, I’m not truly able to say any of this. Between you and I, this can just be a dream, or a story.

“And why am I so emotional? Because Hong Kong is my home.”