Aaron organized a protest in Australia and then Chinese police visited his parents.

Aaron, an international student studying in Sydney, knows only too well that the industrial-scale surveillance deployed by the Chinese government on its citizens does not stop at the border.

In March, ahead of Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s visit to Australia, Aaron received a deluge of missed calls from his parents in China. When he responded, his voices were strange and unusually monotonous.

Chinese international student Aaron dressed as Winnie the Pooh as part of his protest against Chinese President Xi Jinping at a bus stop outside the entrance to the University of Sydney in February 2023.Credit:

“It was like they were reading a script. I was told not to attend or organize any protests and not to use Twitter on weekdays,” said Aaron, a University of Sydney student who prefers to be known only by his Western pseudonym.

He suspects that a Chinese police officer was with his parents while they gave him instructions.