More than 100 Chinese students 'escape' Victoria for NSW en route to China before border closure
By Bang Xiao
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Posted 4hhours ago, updated 4hhours ago 6park.com
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Leo Xu urged the NSW authorities to consider international students' departure as a reasonable option for exemption.(Supplied: Leo Xu)


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At least 100 Chinese international students have "escaped" from Melbourne to Sydney ahead of the Victoria–NSW border closure, due to fears of being "stranded" and unable to catch flights home to China, according to travel agencies from the Chinese community.
Key points:
Students travelled to NSW in chartered cars because of limited Melbourne to Sydney flightsSome parents have asked scalpers for flight tickets from Sydney to Shanghai costing up to $12,000An expert says Australia should "fundamentally rethink" its efforts to engage Chinese students
Many Chinese students who "fled" Victoria told the ABC they paid between $200 and $800 to travel agencies to ferry them to NSW in small groups by car, just days before NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian announced her decision to close the state's border on Monday.
The border closure between NSW and Victoria went into effect for the first time in a century from midnight last night.
The move was driven by efforts to slow the spread of coronavirus, which has also seen stage three restrictions reimposed for six weeks in metropolitan Melbourne and the Mitchell Shire from midnight tonight.
Earlier this year, Chinese international student Sue Li, 22, had to transit through Thailand for 14 days to be allowed to travel to Melbourne to study her master's degree, after Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced a ban on all foreign travellers from mainland China in February.
She had been forced to study remotely due to physical distancing measures and decided to return to China after hearing about the border closure.
"I really like Melbourne… but I think Australia has a terrible Government, which put restrictions into effect immediately again, and failed to provide a respite for international students," she said.
"Those immediate restrictions gave rise to hardships on us again and again, which could reflect the Government's lack of compassion."
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Ms Li had originally booked a flight from Melbourne to Guangzhou in southern China via Sydney in mid-July, which she had to give up in order to "escape" to Sydney quickly in order to board a return flight there to China.
She decided to book a chartered car using a Chinese online forum immediately after hearing the border closure news on Monday morning.
Like other students, she found flights between Sydney and Melbourne were limited and thought driving would be safer to reduce the risk of contracting COVID-19, even if it meant spending about 10 hours on the road.
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Ms Li's journey from Melbourne to Sydney on Monday.(Google Earth)
Chinese student Judy Jia, who arrived in Sydney on Monday, told the ABC she had to leave Melbourne urgently because her student visa was due to expire in about 20 days.
"I am currently in a circumstance where I can't get any flight ticket to China, but I knew I had to go because my visa is due to expire soon," Ms Jia said.
The recent graduate in patisserie from Melbourne's TAFE school Le Cordon Bleu found a driver who could take her to Sydney on Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu — an equivalent to Instagram — after seeing a spike of more than 120 new cases in Victoria on Saturday.
"We were very close to the Victoria–NSW border, when [NSW] announced [they would] close their border," Ms Jia said.

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Ms Jia said like many other Chinese international students, her parents had been very worried about her and were begging scalpers for international airline tickets, with one-way economy flights from Sydney to Shanghai costing between $5,000 and $12,000.
"My mum had tried everything she could to get me a flight ticket home, but it was impossible," she said.
"I can only rely on scalpers who promised to get me a ticket by the end of the month.
"Mum said I should leave once we get one, no matter how much it will cost."
Ms Li and Ms Jia's dash to return to China comes just weeks after the Federal Government announced it would allow international students back into the country in a "pilot basis" from July.
More Chinese students stranded in Melbourne waiting for exemptions
Melbourne travel agency owner Zhijie An told the ABC he had transported more than 50 students to NSW over the past week.
Another business owner — who only wanted to be known as Mitchel — said he had sent about the same number of students over the same time period.
"I have received another 400 requests from Chinese students since the border closure was announced," Mr An told the ABC.
"But I can only arrange two students and two drivers in a car for each trip, due to the order for social distancing."
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Sue said she hadn't attended a single class on campus since starting her master's degree in Australia.(ABC News: Jarrod Fankhauser)
The Victoria-NSW border restrictions were put in force during the semester break, a peak time for Chinese students returning home.
Leo Xu, a graduate from a master's degree in marketing at the University of Melbourne, urged the NSW authorities to consider international students' departure as a reasonable option for exemption, especially for those who would see their visas expire soon.
"I need to get back to China for work as soon as possible … and my student visa expires on August 30," Mr Xu said.

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From today, anyone without an exemption won't be able to enter NSW from Victoria, and fines will apply to those who breach Public Health orders, or who falsify information in their application for exemption, according to a statement from NSW Police.
"A large-scale police operation will be in place to ensure compliance with the Public Health Order, with officers assisted by personnel from the Australian Defence Force, and other government agencies," the statement said.
"Exemptions for those wishing to cross the border from Victoria to NSW are now available online via the Service NSW website."
Mr Xu said students "stranded" in Melbourne "didn't have much choice" except flying from Sydney, as popular transition places such as Hong Kong and Singapore also rolled out new restrictions on passengers transiting for destinations in mainland China since last month.
"I had to cancel my flights from Melbourne to Hong Kong, and booked a new trip via Singapore," he said.
"But now my trip to Singapore might get cancelled due to their latest restrictions. Sydney could be the only place for my departure.
"Otherwise I will be stranded in Melbourne. It's such a difficult path towards home."
Mr An emphasised his concerns about the public's perception of the students who travel from Victoria to other states.
He said students who had recently done so might become "objects of hatred" in those states.
"The latest increase of 191 new cases is concerning, but we also have to remember not everyone in Victoria is sick.
"I would never allow my team to pick up any students from hotspot suburbs, because I am also responsible for my staff's safety."
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Owners of two travel agencies estimated that at least 100 Chinese students travelled from Victoria to NSW in the past seven days.(AAP: Dean Lewins)
Ms Li said she wouldn't be returning to Australia because she was disappointed with the Government's handling of the pandemic and believed there was also a lack of support for international students.
She said she had withdrawn from her course from her university in Melbourne and had applied for a similar course in the UK.
"I am too disappointed with this country ... so I changed my mind," Ms Li said.

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Last month, China issued a warning for students travelling to Australia, delivering a blow to the Australian education industry as relations between the two countries deteriorated further.
"The Australia–China relations reached such an icy point, which has caused lots of worries for my family," Ms Li said.
"They are worried if I would be subject to discrimination or bullies here."
She's not alone. In an unpublished survey recently conducted by Swinburne University, more than 40 per cent of Chinese students said Beijing's warning to be cautious about studying in Australia due to COVID-19 and "discrimination" against Chinese people would be critical to their decision on whether they should return to Australia to study.
Dr Fran Martin, an associate professor of cultural studies at the University of Melbourne, recently completed a five-year study following the experiences of 50 Chinese students in Australia.
She said her research found that even before the COVID-19 crisis, life for Chinese students in Australia was not rosy, citing limited access to reliable local information and vulnerability to misinformation, racism and social exclusion, and restricted opportunities for intercultural mixing.
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Dr Martin urged the Australian Government to "fundamentally rethink" international students as part of the country's national youth population, especially when some of them became residents and citizens after graduation.
"[The Government] could also serve them as part of the youth population and integrate them into the lives of our cities in a much more systematic and effective way," Dr Marin said.
She said many Chinese students became clearly aware of their economic function for Australian higher education institutions during the COVID-19 crisis this year.
"Tens of thousands of Chinese students stuck in China and unable to come back to Australia … they felt they were being differentially singled out," she said.
"The cash cow was sort of like … 'You will let us in when we bring fees, but as soon as it's inconvenient, or there's any diplomatic problem, you'll just sacrifice us.'"
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