Author: Sandy Gordon, ANU

Australia is not the only country on the receiving end of China’s new-found diplomatic ‘forthrightness’. India too has recently received a sizzling serve from the Beijing end of the court.

As pointed out in South Asia Masala, the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, which is also claimed by China, is the current immovable object in the Sino-Indian relationship. However, on this occasion that tricky problem has been exacerbated by a planned visit of the Dalai Lama to the disputed state and to Tawang, birth-place of the revered Sixth Dalai Lama, which lies within the borders claimed by India. Read more…

Author: Sandy Gordon

Problems with overseas students are not new. Former Prime Minister Bob Hawke famously cried over the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989 and agreed to let 10,000 Chinese students stay. Many of them were on dubious short courses and on visas of doubtful provenance. Nevertheless, those who stayed have mostly made excellent citizens.

Nor are the twin problems of dodgy training providers and violence against overseas students unique to Australia. According to the BBC, ‘Tens of thousands of foreign students may have entered the UK to study at bogus colleges … before the system of accreditation was tightened up this year’. That system was tightened up not because of concerns about providers, but on grounds of security. Ten Pakistani ‘students’ suspected of terrorism were found to be ‘attending’ colleges for various short courses that were clearly little more than an immigration scam.

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