Chen Hong and Li Jianjun have been banned since Australia’s crackdown on covert foreign interference in domestic politics and institutions.
Legislation created in 2018 has played a major role in the deterioration between Australia and China.
Lately, Australians have also been banned from leaving the country because of the coronavirus pandemic unless the government grants them exemptions.
Alex Joske, an analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said he had stopped or applied for a Chinese visa in years.
“Although I grew up in China and would love to return to better times, Chinese government movements have made the private threat of traveling to China too high,” Joske said in a statement.
Similarly, Charles Sturt University professor of public ethics, Clive Hamilton, said he had implemented a visa.
“I made the decision two or three years ago that it would be too damaging for me to China, as the government becomes increasingly paranoid and vindictive,” Hamilton told Australian Broadcasting Corp.
Hamilton said the article gives the impression of being retaliatory for Australia’s ban on the two Chinese academics.
“This turns out to be the way Beijing says, “Well, if you need to, we will too,” Hamilton said.
“It’s a petty answer, I think. But that’s the kind of mentality of the Beijing government,” he added.
The Global Times describes Hamilton as an “anti-China scholar” and says Joske “unfortunately for spreading anti-Chinese propaganda and making anti-Chinese problems. “
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