Campus Conundrums: Clashes and Collaborations

IT WAS A TYPICALLY MILD and sunny winter’s day on 24 July 2019 in Brisbane, the capital city of the state of Queensland in eastern Australia. At the weekly Market Day on the University of Queensland (UQ) campus, a group of students from Hong Kong had set up a makeshift Lennon Wall in sympathy with the protests occurring back home. At first, students from the mainland of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) who approached them seemed more curious than agitated. But around midday, another group of protestors, including Australian students, assembled nearby. They supported the Hong Kong protests but were also demonstrating against the mass detention of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang, as well as UQ’s hosting of a Confucius Institute (CI)