The University of Queensland was threatened and dealt with the challenge like most institutions used to exercising almost-unchallenged power over their own affairs: with a ruthless and overwhelming deployment of resources.

Late Friday evening – timing probably born out of cynical self-interest, like almost every action in the messy, self-indulgent affair – one of Australia's great educational institutions suspended 20-year-old undergraduate Drew Pavlou, who had conducted a noisy, and often offensive, campaign against university authorities and their cosy relationship with the Chinese regime.