Australia a safe haven for foreign students in a crisis

Right on cue, Beijing has inadvertently provided a boost to Australia’s higher education system. Late on Tuesday, the Ministry of Education advised Chinese students to be cautious in either coming to study in Australia or returning to study. “The spread of the new global pneumonia outbreak has not been effectively controlled, and there are risks in international travel and open campuses,” the statement said. “During the epidemic, there were multiple discriminatory incidents against Asians in Australia. The Ministry of Education reminds all overseas students to do a risk assessment and is currently cautious in choosing to study in Australia or return to Australia.” Beijing authorities put out a similar warning a few days earlier to potential tourists — not that restrictions on overseas visitors are going to be lifted by Canberra any time soon.

Let’s run through the risks. Together with Israel, Taiwan, New Zealand and a few others, Australia is in the top tier of nations in curbing the coronavirus. Daily numbers of new infections are routinely zero in several jurisdictions; community transmission is negligible. The overwhelming proportion of new COVID-19 cases are people returning from overseas, and they are required to be in 14-day quarantine. So a huge tick for us, in flattening the curve, putting in place extensive testing, tracing and extra intensive care unit capacity. Universities are working on protocols to make campuses fully operational. We are in a staged reopening of a COVID-safe economy by next month, notwithstanding the ultra-cautiousness of some premiers and weekend protests by tens of thousands on our streets under the Black Lives Matter banner.

What about safety? Tick: 95 per cent of foreign students say they choose to study in Australia because it is a safe country. Our social and economic success is based on tolerance and respect for all cultures; Australia has welcomed migrants from all over the world for generations; at the last census, 1.2 million residents identified as having Chinese ancestry. There are already 170,000 Chinese students in a country even opposition politicians say is one of the safest countries for international students to be based in right now. The “multiple discriminatory incidents”, if any, are most likely fanned by Beijing’s diplomats, who urged Chinese people to boycott our wine and beef, and to not send their children for education in a “not so friendly, even hostile” country. The warrior envoys who cried wolf!

As we saw with the 80 per cent tariff imposed on Australian barley and bans on beef producers, the penalty falls not only on our farmers, but on Chinese industry and consumers. For instance, at a stroke, Chinese brewers are less competitive due to higher ingredient costs or by being forced to use inferior alternatives. It’s lose-lose, because China has chosen coercion rather than maturely dealing with conflict, which is inevitable in global affairs. These are wanton acts of self-harm, eroding the mutuality and trust that should be the basis for a “comprehensive strategic partnership”, whatever that is in these deep-freeze days of estrangement. Chinese students choose Australia for a life-changing experience, but the ultimate prizes are a new way of critical thinking, experience of working in teams, friendships and networks, and a credential that will improve their global career prospects and life chances.

International rankings can be fickle and misleading, and a sucker’s game for revenue-obsessed vice-chancellors. Nevertheless, our elite universities are holding their places in the published pecking order. Positive word of mouth in China, feedback of graduates and current students, will carry more weight than Beijing’s puffed-up mandarins about safety and quality in education. University administrators, already under enormous financial strain due to border closures and local disruption, are looking to governments to solve the problem. Yet the pandemic and trade spats should be a wake-up call for institutions to diversify their target markets and rely less on overseas fee income; they’d been warned for years of the dangers in this model. As well, they must trim excesses in administrative staffing, focus on core competencies, cut back on trophy buildings, and raise teaching and research standards.

Business as usual is over for higher education. A new path could lead to university specialisation, rather than “full service”, and research primacy in areas where we lead the world, such as geoscience and medicine. Adjusting won’t be pretty, but neither is the strategic dance with a wounded dragon. Australia is being singled out for leading the push for a global inquiry into COVID-19, our stance on Hong Kong and more robust screening of foreign investment. Perhaps this is only the tip of the iceberg of retribution. Yet conflict is unavoidable, because our sovereignty, alliances, values and liberal social order are antithetical to China’s authoritarian state. Nor can we stop a grasping, belligerent regime from punishing its people or defaming ours.