While Australian universities depend on good foreign relations at the governmental level to help guarantee healthy flows of international students, the reverse is also the case.

High-profile journalist and political commentator George Megalogenis said that by increasingly forcing universities to fund their own operations ¨C typically, by boosting their international enrolments ¨C the government has obliged them to host tens of thousands of people from the countries ¡°that are going to determine our fate in an Asian century¡±.

Events that alienate these students could have dire consequences for university budgets. But the risks were arguably greater for the country as a whole, Mr Megalogenis said.

¡°This is not a campus issue so much as it¡¯s a political and societal issue,¡± he told?Times Higher Education.

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Mr Megalogenis cited the 2010 Melbourne murder of Indian student Nitin Garg as the sort of incident that could damage the broader national interest more seriously than universities¡¯ narrow pecuniary interests.

Such events¡¯ influence on the victims¡¯ fellow students could have the opposite effect of last century¡¯s Colombo Plan, when Australia educated a generation of future Asian leaders who turned out sympathetic to Australia¡¯s interests.

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The risk now was that Australian diplomats could find themselves negotiating with a new generation of graduates who resented their former hosts. ¡°Why would they listen to us?¡± he asked. ¡°In the national security space, we¡¯re worrying about this already.¡±

Another concern was that Australia, like other Western nations, was increasingly dependent on the skills of migrants ¨C including international students ¨C as its domestic population aged.

He said that similar motivations offered arguably the biggest threat to enrolments from Australia¡¯s top source country for international students. ¡°China¡¯s ageing equation is diabolical,¡± he said.

¡°Their one-child policy has mucked up their breeding generation, for want of a better term. Their incentives in the next few years are to retain as many young people as possible?¨C not send them out.¡±

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Mr Megalogenis said that unlike previous source nations of Australian migrants, China was ¡°the first mother country that feels it has a say¡± in its citizens¡¯ post-migration experiences.

¡°Most migrants in the 20th?century were literally breaking off from the mother country,¡± he said. ¡°My parents¡¯ generation didn¡¯t have the Greek colonels looking over their shoulders.

¡°This is a different relationship. The risk is not so much whether we can draw the line with the mother country. The risk is what happens when the mother country decides it¡¯s losing too many of its kids.¡±

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com