Beijing has refused entry to two Australian scholars deemed “influencers of anti-Chinese sentiment,” state-run media has reported amid increasing tensions with Canberra.

Public ethics professor Clive Hamilton and Australian Strategic Policy Institute researcher Alex Joske failed to enter mainland China this week, two weeks after Australia revoked the visas of two Chinese scholars over “alleged infiltration” and arranged for the urgent departure of two of its journalists.

Hamilton had repeatedly slandered China for allegedly stealing intelligence through hacking and other means, and had hyped up Chinese infiltration into Australia, the Global Times newspaper reported on Thursday.

Joske was said to have defamed Chinese universities by accusing them of harboring “military purposes” in their cooperation projects with foreign institutes, according to the report.

The Chinese foreign ministry did not explain in its daily press conference why the two scholars were turned away, but said that entry approvals for foreigners were “entirely within China’s sovereignty.”

China “opposes any dissemination of false information under the guise of academic exchange, attacks that deliberately discredit China and behaviors that endanger China’s national security,” ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said, reminding Australia to “jettison its Cold War mentality and ideological prejudices.”

Bilateral relations between the two countries have recently hit a new low. A pair of journalists, Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Bill Birtles and Australian Financial Review’s Michael Smith, flew out of mainland China on short notice two weeks ago after being interrogated by mainland law enforcement officers.

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