International education is Australia's third largest export industry, and diplomatic tensions between Australia and China in the past six months have raised concerns the lucrative market may be at risk. The head of Australia's domestic intelligence agency, ASIO Duncan Lewis, warned in October that the Australian government needed to be "very conscious" of foreign interference in universities. Under the headline "Under Suspicion", the Chinese newspaper The Global Times reported that around 20 students who have been accepted to study mechanical engineering at the University of NSW have been waiting more than six months for a visa outcome. It quoted one 22-year-old from Jiangxi province, who was accepted by UNSW in August to do a PhD, but was yet to receive any information about her visa eight months later. She is now considering studying in Britain. She said she knew of another 100 students, who had applied for science, robotics, chemistry or engineering PhDs who were facing visa delays in Australia.

The Chinese Scholarship Council issued advice on its website at the weekend stating "due to the adjustment of Australian visa policy, some overseas students in Australia have encountered difficulties applying for visas... The review has taken a long time, and the Australian side has failed to explain the visa process." But a Home Affairs spokeswoman rejected the Global Times claim that Chinese students were being targeted. "The Australian government places a very high priority on its long-standing research and scientific relationship with China. The depth of cooperation is reflected in the fact that Australia is ranked third in terms of scientific publications jointly authored with China and vice-versa," she said. The federal government had been working with the China Scholarship Council to "identify and track scholarship recipients applying for Temporary Activity (subclass 408) visas". The spokeswoman said the research scholars were seeking short term activity visas allowing them to participate in Australian research – they were not seeking student visas.

Home Affairs and the Australian Embassy in Beijing have been working with the council on around 40 scholars facing delays in security checks, which applied to all 408 visa applicants. "They are not specific to Chinese nationals," the Home Affairs spokeswoman said. Security screening for visas is conducted by ASIO. The student visa grant rate for Chinese postgraduate applications is 99 per cent, higher than the 98 per cent grant rate across the postgraduate sector, she said. The Chinese student who contacted Fairfax Media said visiting scholars staying for one year in Australia were granted a "408" visa, while the larger group of 100 PhD applicants facing waits of over 7 months had applied for a "500" visa, which is required for a student to undertake a full PhD and graduate with an Australian qualification.

He said figures from Home Affairs were misleading, because they described self-funded students and coursework masters program students, who generated cash for universities. The number of PhD scholarship students was smaller, he said. Another Chinese student awarded a scholarship by an Australian university said they had been waiting nine months for a visa and were "really depressed by the visa delay". A stream of frustrated stories from Indian and Chinese PhD applicants writing on one of the largest online forums for expatriates appears to confirm the delays were not confined to Chinese students. Students in India are also claiming there are delays in gaining visas to study in Australia. Credit:Graham Crouch An Indian PhD applicant wrote on AustraliaForum.com that he didn't understand why students had to undergo the same security checks as asylum seekers.

"I had offers from UK and other European countries before taking up this offer. I chose Australia as the university was ranked quite high in research. But I never thought that I will land in this situation.Waiting for more than eight months with this kind of uncertainty morally breaks people," he wrote under a pseudonym. Another Indian student said he was in the same boat and the department was "playing with our careers". "Either you say yes, or no, but give a decision so we can move on with life," he wrote. He questioned why the process of security screening was so secretive. A Chinese student who had been accepted to do a science PhD in Australia, but has been waiting on a security check for seven months, said he was "really desperate". Another Chinese student was worried his scholarship would expire. The Home Affairs website said 90 per cent of research applicants for a 408 visa had their application processed in 49 days.

But migration agents on the online forum reported it was common for PhD students to wait four months.