Chinese tourists take pictures as they pose in front of the Sydney Opera House in Sydney. Photo: CFP

 Australian immigration authorities told the Global Times on Wednesday that the national security check for visa applicants, which has delayed applications for more than 100 Chinese PhD candidates and visiting scholars, is not specific to Chinese nationals.

However, 135 Chinese PhD candidates and 30 visiting students sent an email to the Global Times saying they were suffering from politically motivated setbacks, which have severely affected their studies. 

Of the students, 105 have been waiting for their visas for more than five months, or three times as long as a standard visa application period; nine have been waiting more than one year; one student has been waiting for more than 17 months. According to the official website of Australia's Department of Home Affairs, 75 percent of applicants for postgraduate research are granted visas within 51 days and 90 percent within four months.

The spokesperson for Australia's Department of Home Affairs said in the response e-mail to the Global Times that the authorities have to run complete health, character and national security checks for the applicants. 

The spokesperson said that the checks are not specific to Chinese nationals and said "any suggestion otherwise is incorrect," apparently in response to the Tuesday report by the Global Times saying Chinese students believed the delay was politically motivated.

The spokesperson noted that the student visa grant rate for Chinese postgraduate applicants was 98.9 per cent from July 1, 2019 to December 31, 2019, higher than the overall rate for the same period. 

However, Liu Yue, a PhD candidate who has been waiting for his visa for more than half a year, was skeptical. He said that the Australian authorities neither refuse nor grant the visas, but keep people waiting for abnormally long, which could drive students to withdraw their application.

The long wait wastes students' time and messes up their plans, while they have to spend a lot of money on applications, insurance and wasted rent, Liu said.

"The Australian authorities lose nothing. They can ensure the visa grant rate is stable in this way," Liu noted.

Many students attributed the abnormally long delay to tensions between Australia and China.

Si Shangyu, who was accepted by the University of New South Wales to study materials science and engineering, accused the Australian side of politicizing academic exchanges. 

Academic exchanges are supposed to be apolitical and scientific research needs more international cooperation in the 21st century, Si noted.

Another student surnamed Rao said his tutors in Australia told him the country's credibility among Chinese people has declined in recent years, and the national security checks result in a long visa grant period for applicants, especially in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) fields. 

Most of the students who suffer from the visa delays are in the STEM fields.

According to the website of the Australian Security Intelligence Organization, the organization is responsible for the visa security checks.

According to Western media reports in November, the organization has hyped up rumors about a Chinese plot to spy in Australian campuses, and the organization admitted that self-proclaimed Chinese spy Wang Liqiang was not a highly trained intelligence operative dispatched by China.

Australian media and politicians have been slammed by Chinese officials for unnecessary paranoia in handling China-related issues and hyping cases of so-called Chinese spies.