Australia's top-ranked global university is moving to lower its proportion of Chinese international students, a group it describes as "dominating" international student numbers.
Documents unearthed in a freedom of information request reveal the Australian National University has since 2015 quietly implemented a "diversification strategy" in an attempt to lower its share of Chinese enrolments.
ANU has the largest proportion of Chinese students in the Group of Eight universities. Over 60 per cent of its commencing international undergraduate enrolments were from China in 2016.
The documents, obtained by ANU student newspaper Woroni, reveal the university has been concerned about the financial risk of heavy dependence on the Chinese market.
There was a need to "mitigate potential risk exposure in the event of market downturn," Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) Professor Marnie Hughes-Warrington is recorded as saying in the minutes of a February 2016 ANU Council meeting.
The diversification strategy aims to recruit students from other nations such as India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and Singapore.
But the documents reveal mixed success for this strategy, with enrolment from only Singapore and India growing since the implementation of the diversification plan in early 2015. Enrolments from those countries grew by 8 per cent and 24.7 per cent respectively.
However, in the past five years, enrolments from Chinese students have grown from 42.1 per cent of the international student intake to 59.1 per cent in 2016.
"The University remains exposed to the Chinese international market," a report dated May 2015 said. "Diversification strategies at College and Central level are addressing this issue, but will take time to make a meaningful impact," it said.
Anne Baly, Director International for ANU, told Fairfax Media the university was motivated mainly by creating a diverse, internationalised student body.
"I suspect ANU is not totally alone in this," she said. "We welcome and actively recruit the best and brightest students from around the world. For us, having a student body that is reflective of the global community at large is great for all students."
Ms Baly said over-reliance on any one country for international students "in itself is not a great business model, but I think that the driver behind this is about diversity. It's not like we're moving away from recruiting students from China. They are overwhelmingly great students to have."
There had been no particular problems with racial tension between groups on the campus, Ms Baly said.
But she said concentrations of students from any one country makes it "hard to provide them with the international experience", because they tended to socialise and work within their language group.
"We would be looking to encourage a broader group of students across all disciplines as well."
The uni was pursuing its diversification strategy through marketing in other countries and pursuing student exchanges through partnership agreements, she said.
ANU International Students department president Harry Feng said he was unaware of the diversification strategy, but said "I am not concerned as long as all the applicants… are treated fairly with the same set of standards."
ANU has agreements with hundreds of overseas education agencies who act as middlemen in the recruitment of ANU international students. One of the FOI documents, a May 2015 report on the diversification strategy, indicates the university management was aware of the need to improve the management of such agents.
In 2015, an ABC Four Corners investigation exposed the sometimes corrupt and fraudulent activities of Chinese education agents, including some representing ANU.
Ms Baly said the university worked through reputable education agents and managed such relationships very carefully.
Several issues involving pro-Beijing Chinese students at ANU have made the news this year, including an incident where the head of a Chinese student group allegedly bullied a campus pharmacy worker over displaying the Falun Gong-linked paper The Epoch Times in the shop.
Chinese dissident and ANU maths student Wu Lebao told the Australian Financial Review he was forced to move out of a flat he sublet from fellow Chinese students after they discovered his political views. A Chinese PhD student at ANU drew attention for creating a pro-Communist party nationalist video that went viral online.
The university also launched an investigation into students using essay cheating services advertising online in Mandarin in January.
Andrew Norton from the Grattan Institute said universities were exposed when overly dependent on international students from a single market.
"As a general rule, heavy financial reliance on an international source country does have risks – we saw this with Indian students a few years ago, when bad publicity about crime in Australia, a high dollar and changes to visa rules combined to reduce student numbers," he said.
"There is also the risk that political factors overseas make it harder for students to travel overseas or economic problems in their country make foreign education less affordable."
ANU was Australia's top-ranked global university in the 2016 QS World Rankings and second highest in this year's Times World University Rankings. International students' enrolment decisions are typically influenced heavily by global rankings.
