University student Tony Chang had suspected for months that he was being secretly monitored, but it was a panicked phone call from a family member in China that confirmed his fears.

It was June 2015 and Mr Chang's parents had just been approached by state security agents in Shenyang, in north-eastern China, and invited to a meeting at a tea house. It would not be a cordial catch-up.

As Mr Chang later detailed in a sworn statement to Australian immigration authorities, three agents warned his parents about their son's involvement in the Chinese democracy movement in Australia.

"[The agents] pressed the point that my parents must ask me to stop what I am taking part in and keep a low profile," the statement said.

From a Brisbane share house littered with books and unwashed plates, the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) student told Four Corners the agents had intelligence about his plans to participate in a protest in Brisbane on the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, and also during the Dalai Lama's visit to Australia.

Mr Chang's activities in Brisbane meant that his terrified father in China feared he was being "watched and tracked".

His father, a cautious, apolitical man, had already spent years worrying about his unruly son. In 2008, when Mr Chang was 14, he was arrested for hanging Taiwan independence banners on street poles in Shenyang.

Tony Chang was questioned for several hours when he was a teenager in Shenyang, China.

His family was forced to call on Communist Party contacts to ensure the teenager was released after several hours of questioning.

After Mr Chang was questioned again in 2014 for dissident activities, he decided it was no longer safe to remain in China. He applied for an Australian student visa.

The June 2015 approach to his parents back in China was the second time in two months that security agents had warned Mr Chang's family to rein in his anti-communist activism in Australia.

These threats helped convince the Australian Government to grant Mr Chang a protection visa.

Mr Chang's treatment as a teen is typical of the way the party-state deals with dissidents inside China, as revealed in a joint investigation by Four Corners and Fairfax Media.

But the monitoring of the student in Brisbane and his decision to speak out about the threats to his parents in Shenyang, despite the risk it poses to them, provides a rare insight into something much less well known: the opaque campaign of control and influence being waged by the Chinese Communist Party inside Australia.

An influence-and-control operation by the Communist Party

Part of this campaign involves attempts to influence Australian politicians via political donors closely aligned with the Communist Party — something that causes serious concern to Australia's security agency, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO).

But some of the 1 million ethnic Chinese living in Australia are also targets of the Communist Party's influence operations.

On university campuses, in the Chinese-language media and in some community groups, the party is mounting an influence-and-control operation among its diaspora that is far greater in scale and, at its worst, much nastier than any other nation deploys.

In China, it is known as qiaowu.

Some analysts argue the party's efforts are mostly benign, ham-fisted or ineffective.

Former Australian ambassador to China Geoff Raby stresses that influence operations are conducted by many countries. He singles out Israel as an example.

But the most recent chief of Australia's diplomatic service, Peter Varghese, who is now chancellor at the University of Queensland (UQ), said China's approach to influence-building was deeply concerning, not least because it was being run by an authoritarian one-party state with geopolitical ambitions that may not be in Australia's interests.

"The more transparent that process [of China's influencing-building in Australia] is, the better placed we are to make a judgment as to whether it is acceptable or not acceptable, and whether it is covert or overt," Mr Varghese said.

"This is an issue ASIO would need to keep a very close eye on, in terms of any efforts to infiltrate or subvert our system which go beyond accepted laws and accepted norms."

The depth of the concern at the highest levels of the defence and intelligence establishment can be measured in recent public statements by the departing Defence Force chief and the director-general of ASIO.

Australia's domestic spy chief Duncan Lewis has warned Parliament that foreign interference in Australia were occurring on "an unprecedented scale".

"And this has the potential to cause serious harm to the nation's sovereignty, the integrity of our political system, our national security capabilities, our economy and other interests," Mr Lewis said.

A China expert, Swinburne professor John Fitzgerald, agrees.

"Members of the Chinese community in Australia deserve the same rights and privileges as all other Australians, not to be hectored, lectured at, monitored, policed, reported on and told what they may and may not think," he said.

The coercion category

The definitive text on Beijing's overseas influence operations is Qiaowu: Extra-Territorial Policies for the Overseas Chinese by China expert James To.

Citing primary documents, Mr To concludes the policies are designed to "legitimise and protect the Chinese Communist Party's hold on power" and maintain influence over critical "social, economic and political resources".

Those already amenable to Beijing, such as many student group members, are "guided" — often by Chinese embassy officials — and given various benefits as a means of "behavioural control and manipulation", Mr To said.

Those regarded as hostile, such as Mr Chang, are subjected to "techniques of inclusion or coercion".

Australian academic Feng Chongyi is another who falls into the "coercion" category.

Feng Chongyi has made it his life's mission to democratise China.

In March, Dr Feng travelled to China to engage in what he called the "sensitive work" of interviewing human rights lawyers and scholars across China.

He told Four Corners he expected to be closely watched and harassed when he arrived in Beijing, but accepted it simply as an irritating feature of his job.

"It's an open secret that our telephone is tapped, we are followed everywhere. But that is a little thing that we have to accept if we want to work in China," the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) China scholar and democracy activist said.

Dr Feng is a small, energetic man who has retained his Communist Party membership in the hope that he will live long enough to see some results from what has become his life's mission: democratising China.

But he is also a realist, which meant he was initially unconcerned when, on March 20 and after he had arrived in the city of Kunming, he was approached by agents from the Ministry of State Security (MSS).

Dr Feng was driven to a hotel three hours away to be questioned.

He expected the matter to end there but, a day later, he realised he was being followed by security agents to the sprawling port city of Guangzhou. There he was told his interrogation would continue.

"That's the time when I really realised something serious is happening," he recalled.

'I was in deep trouble'

Sorry, this video has expired Professor Chongyi Feng has arrived in Sydney, says he will return to China

In a Guangzhou hotel room, the security agents subjected Dr Feng to daily six-hour questioning sessions, all of it videotaped.

Many of the questions were about his activities in Sydney, including the content of his lectures at UTS, the people in his Australian network of Communist Party critics, and his successful efforts to stop a concert glorifying the Communist Party founder, chairman Mao Zedong.

Then the agents turned their attention to his family, asking him specific questions to show him that his wife and daughter were also being closely watched.

He described the change in tactics as a means of getting him to fully submit to his inquisitors' demands.

It was the only part of his story that the wily academic hesitated to recall, as if emotion might have overtaken him.

"I can suffer this or that but I'll not allow ... my wife and my daughter and my other family members [to] suffer from my activities," he said. "That is the thing that's quite fearful in my mind."

When his inquisitors demanded Dr Feng take a lie detector test on March 23, he called his wife who told him to make a run for it.

A few hours later, after midnight, Dr Feng crept out of his hotel, hoping to board a 4:00am flight.

But as he sought to check in, an airport official told him he could not leave China because he was suspected of endangering state security.

"At that point, my wife told my daughter that I was in deep trouble," Dr Feng said.

His daughter immediately called a foreign affairs specialist in the Australian Government and asked for help.

Dr Feng's questioning continued for six more days until his daughter was contacted by an Australian Government official and told he would be permitted to board a flight back to Australia.

In his final interrogation session, the MSS agents presented Dr Feng with a document to sign that forbade him from publicly discussing his ordeal.

But by then, his detention had already been covered by several Australian media outlets. When he landed at Sydney airport on April 1, a small group of supporters was waiting for him with banners.

Dr Feng believes his treatment in China was designed to send other academics, along with his supporters in the Chinese-Australian community, a message to "stay away from sensitive issues or sensitive topics".

"Otherwise they can get you into big trouble, detention or other punishment," he said.

Dr Feng was greeted by a small crowd of supporters when he arrived back in Australia in April. ( ABC News: Lily Mayers )

Campus patriots

Mostly though, the Communist Party's influence on Australian university campuses takes a subtler form, and works through the Chinese Students' and Scholars' Associations.

The Communist Party targeted these patriotic associations after the Tiananmen Square student uprising as a way of maintaining control over overseas students.

In Australia, which has 100,000 Chinese students, the associations are "sponsored" by Chinese embassy and consular officials.

One student involved in an Australian CSSA explained to Four Corners and Fairfax Media how Chinese embassy officials played an active role in organising a large student rally to welcome Premier Li Keqiang when he visited Australia in March.

Malcolm Turnbull with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang during his March visit to Australia. ( AAP: Andrew Meares )

On the day, the rally had two shifts, the first starting at 5:00am.

The CSSA insider insisted it was students rather than the embassy calling the shots.

"I wouldn't really call it helping," the student said of the embassy's role, while confirming it provided flags, transport, food, a lawyer and certificates for students that would help them find jobs back in China.

"It's more sponsoring."

Whoever was really pulling the strings did so effectively. Students were willing to assemble at 5:00am to welcome Premier Li. Some, said the student, were proud of China's economic rise.

Other factors that helped mobilise the students include an early education system that extols the virtues of the Communist Party and the reality that positive connections with the Government can help a person land a job in China.

Federal police officers still describe with awe events in 2008 at the Olympic torch rally, when hundreds of chartered buses entered Canberra from NSW and Victoria, delivering 10,000 Chinese university students "to protect the torch".

"If the Aussie embassy in London issued a similar call to arms to Australian students in London, there would be two students and a dog," an officer said.

There was another means to inspire students to assemble before dawn: a CSSA member stressed the importance of blocking out anti-communist protesters.

Would the CSSA member who spoke to Four Corners go so far as to alert the embassy if a human rights protest was being organised by dissident Chinese students?

"I would definitely, just to keep all the students safe," the student said. "And to do it for China as well."

The extent to which this student nationalism is directed and monitored from Beijing, and what this means for academic freedoms, is uncertain.

Former China ambassador Geoff Raby played it down, saying Australian universities were "pretty much aware this activity goes on".

But last year, ANU Emeritus Professor and the founding director of the Australian Centre on China in the World, Geremie Barme, was so concerned he wrote a lengthy letter to chancellor Gareth Evans.

Professor Barme's fears were sparked by a series of viral nationalistic videos created and posted by a Chinese ANU student Lei Xiying.

One of Mr Lei's videos, "If you want to change China, you'll have to get through me first", attracted more than 15 million hits.

"I would opine that Mr Lei is an agent for government opinion carving out a career in China's repressive media environment for political gain," Professor Barme wrote.

The ANU defended the student's activities on free speech grounds, but Professor Barme said the university was ignoring Mr Lei's likely sponsorship by an authoritarian government that routinely threatens scholars and journalists.

"Make no mistake, it is officially sanctioned propaganda," Professor Barme said.

He urged the university to confront the issue by debating it openly. His supporters have said that request was ignored.

'We are real media'

A gracious host, Sam Feng is in a gregarious mood when he invites us to the headquarters of Pacific Times, the once proudly independent community Chinese-language newspaper he founded in the 1980s.

Over Chinese tea, he scoffs at suggestions that his paper is involved in financial dealings with an arm of the Chinese Communist Party that shapes its coverage.

"It is false. It is fake ... they don't need to do that," he said, while insisting that questions of bias should be directed to Western media outlets whose coverage supports the US version of the world.

"We are real media," Mr Feng explained of his small team of staff.

But corporate records suggest his paper is less independent than he claims.

Subsidiaries of the Communist Party's overseas propaganda outlet, the Chinese News Service, own a 60 per cent stake to Mr Feng's 40 per cent in a Melbourne company, the Australian Chinese Culture Group Pty Ltd.

The results of this joint-venture deal appear evident in the newspaper's content, vast chunks of which are supplied direct from Beijing where propaganda authorities control the media.

UTS associate professor Dr Feng describes Pacific Times as one of several Australian Chinese-language media outlets that have forgone any semblance of editorial independence in exchange for deals offered by the Communist Party's propaganda apparatus.

"It used to be quite independent or autonomous," he said. "But ... you can see the newspaper now is almost identical [to] other newspapers that exclusively focus on the positive side of China."

In a backroom in Sam Feng's West Melbourne headquarters is evidence suggesting his Beijing dealings extend beyond what is placed in his newspaper.

A well-placed source leaked to Fairfax Media photos of dozens of placards resting against a wall of the room.

"We Against Vain Excuse for Interfering in South China Sea," reads one of the placards.

To a casual observer, the placards would barely warrant a glance.

But along with other information provided by the source, they point towards what Australian security officials suspect: that the Chinese Communist Party has had a hand in encouraging protests in Australia.

"The Chinese would find it unacceptable if Australia was to organise protests in China against any particular issue," former DFAT chief Peter Varghese said.

"Likewise, we should consider it unacceptable for a foreign government to be [encouraging], organising, orchestrating or bankrolling protests on issues that are ultimately matters for the Australian community or the Australian Government."

The placards stored at Pacific Times were handed out to hundreds of protesters who marched in Melbourne on July 23, 2016, to oppose an international tribunal ruling — supported by Australia — that rejected Beijing's claim over much of the South China Sea.

Of Pacific Times owner Sam Feng, the source said the newspaper owner sought to keep the Chinese Communist Party onside for commercial reasons: "He is a nationalist, but he just cares about business."

A review of the corporate records of other large Chinese-Australian media players reveals the involvement of Communist Party-controlled companies.

Those who turn down offers to become the party's publishing partners and seek to print independent news face the prospect of threats, intimidation and economic sabotage.

Overseas forces

Don Ma, who owns the independent Vision China Times in Sydney and Melbourne, said 10 of his advertisers had been threatened by Chinese officials to pull their advertising.

All acquiesced, including a migration and travel company whose Beijing office was visited by the Ministry of State Security every day for two weeks until they cut ties with the paper.

Mr Ma said he was happy to speak publicly because he had already been blocked from travelling to China.

Don Ma embraces freedom of the press.

His journalists, though, request their names and images not be used when we visit his Sydney and Melbourne offices. They are fearful of retribution.

Ex-DFAT chief Mr Varghese and Swinburne's Professor Fitzgerald said Australia should require more accountability and transparency around the way the Communist Party and its proxies are operating in the media and on university campuses.

Professor Fitzgerald has warned Communist Party influence operations in Australia not only risk dividing the Chinese community, but sparking hostility between it and other Australians.

"The Chinese community is the greatest asset we have in this country for managing what are going to be complex relations with China over the next decades — in fact for centuries to come — and we need them to help us in managing this relationship," he said.

"If suspicion is sown about where their loyalties lie, then we lose one of our greatest assets in this country now."

Mr Ma has not only endured economic sabotage from the Communist Party, but a campaign of vilification from pro-Beijing members of the local Chinese community.

Yet he keeps publishing, not only because he embraces freedom of the press but because many members of the disparate Chinese community urge him to keep doing so.

"I felt that the media here, all the Chinese media, was being controlled by overseas forces," he said.

"This is harmful to the Australian society. It is also harmful to the next generation of Chinese. Therefore, I felt I wanted to invest in a truly independent media that fits in with Australian values."

Editor's note (29/03/2018): This article has been amended for legal reasons.