Make no mistake, we are right to fear the long arm of the Chinese state. As an Australian of Chinese descent who has been outspoken about the genocide in Xinjiang and other "sensitive" matters, I’m always a little anxious that anything I say might come back to hurt me or my family: what if this article gets me blacklisted by the People’s Republic of China visa office, and I never get to see my grandma again? PRC citizens have been detained for as little as a post in a closed group chat, and for those of us who are Australian citizens, all we can be sure of is that the system of surveillance, censorship and punishment is unpredictable. Loading Still, it’s people of Chinese descent who are doing most of the work of challenging Chinese authoritarianism and fighting for Chinese democracy. If the problem with "Chinese influence" is that it’s not simply Chinese but oppressive, then we should be championing resistance both in China and among the diaspora. Yet, too often in Australia, the conversation about PRC influence drifts into yellow-peril territory, and everyone who looks Chinese becomes the target of suspicion. Chinese international students, in particular, are assumed to be diffident and uncritical nationalists. The idea that Chinese people are incapable of democracy has a long history in Australia. There’s also a wild double standard by which Chinese Australians – like all people of colour – must constantly affirm our gratitude and loyalty to this country to justify even being here, let alone having a say in politics. No matter your citizenship status or how many years or generations in Australia, your nationality is always provisional. Take Liberal MP Gladys Liu. I’m a queer voter in her electorate, Chisholm, and I would love for her to lose her seat. I feel the Australian Electoral Commission was wrong to okay her misleading polling signs and I think she absolutely needs to answer to Parliament regarding her ties with PRC government bodies, as did Labor's Sam Dastyari.

But too many reports imply that Liu has some sort of lingering personal loyalty to China – a country she’s never been a citizen of – and that’s the sort of emotive allegation you can neither prove nor disprove. Often described as Chinese-born, Liu was born in British Hong Kong and became an Australian citizen long before Hong Kong was returned to the PRC. Media reports on her interview with Andrew Bolt emphasised that Liu refused to call President Xi Jinping a dictator but, as far as I know, no other parliamentarian has done that either. Loading Rather than making it personal, we need to develop better systems to strengthen democracy and prevent foreign interference – whether from PRC government agencies, Russian election hackers or the US gun lobby. We need clear and fair guidelines that make it easier for institutions of all sizes to navigate the tricky terrain of globalised trade and information flows. Another step would be passing the Magnitsky bill, as advocated by Uyghur human rights groups, which would create a system of sanctions against individual human rights violators. We need more support for independent investigative media in community languages, more transparency around media ownership, and better oversight of foreign language media in Australia. Chinese-language media in Australia is increasingly funded by and supportive of the PRC government, which not only silences dissent but also sidelines Chinese Australians from Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and elsewhere. I have heard similar concerns about fascist views being aired in Croatian community media. From media and advertising regulators through to the AEC and human rights commission, Australian institutions need to be equipped to handle complex complaints about foreign-language content.