Australia is confronting a live case of transnational repression on its own streets, with the ABC reporting that HungryPanda food delivery riders in Australia are receiving threats they believe originate from Chinese law enforcement.
HungryPanda is a food delivery platform that primarily serves Chinese-speaking communities and operates extensively in Sydney, Melbourne, and other major Australian cities. Its workforce skews heavily toward Chinese nationals on student and working visas — people who, by definition, maintain connections to family and institutional structures inside China and who may be acutely vulnerable to pressure from Chinese state actors.
The ABC's AM program reported on February 18 that riders are alleging Chinese police have been making threats. The precise mechanism of those threats — whether through direct contact, through family members in China, or through intermediaries operating in Australia — is a critical detail for law enforcement, but regardless of mechanism, the allegation is serious: that agents acting on behalf of a foreign government are attempting to coerce Chinese nationals on Australian soil.
This is not a novel phenomenon globally. Transnational repression — the practice of authoritarian governments extending coercive reach beyond their borders to surveil, intimidate, harass, or silence diaspora communities — is documented by Freedom House in dozens of countries. China is consistently identified as among the most active practitioners, alongside Russia, Iran, and Saudi Arabia.
In Australia's specific context, the stakes are high. The Albanese government has invested considerable political capital in stabilising the Australia-China relationship after the deep freeze of the Morrison years. Bilateral trade has recovered. Ministerial contacts have resumed. Diplomatic messaging from both sides has been deliberately measured.
But transnational repression does not pause for diplomatic calendar management. And the specific vulnerability of gig economy workers — who lack the employment protections, union representation, and institutional backing of mainstream workforces — makes them a particularly soft target. A delivery rider on a student visa, with family in Sichuan or Fujian, receiving a threat from someone identifying as Chinese police, has very limited options for recourse.
Australia's foreign interference laws, strengthened significantly through the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme and the National Security Legislation Amendment Acts of 2018 and 2019, theoretically cover precisely this kind of conduct. The question is whether the laws are being applied to protect vulnerable workers — or whether the cases are falling through the gap between national security enforcement and workplace regulation.
DFAT has not publicly responded to the ABC's reporting as of publication. The AFP has not confirmed whether an investigation is underway. The Chinese Embassy in Canberra, as is standard practice with such allegations, has not acknowledged the claim.
For the delivery riders involved, the silence from Canberra is not academic. They are working on Australian streets, and they are being told — by someone — that Chinese police have reach into their lives here. Mate, that is a foreign interference problem. It is also a labour rights problem. And it is also, frankly, a test of whether Australia's carefully managed relationship with Beijing leaves any room for the government to defend its own residents from coercion.
Australia's Pacific Island neighbours are watching how Canberra handles Beijing's behaviour at home. It is hard to champion rules-based order across the Pacific if you cannot enforce your own rules inside Sydney.
