The Hong Kong government put a $200,000 bounty on lawyer and outspoken critic Kevin Yam, attracting the concern of the Australian government.
He is one of eight overseas-based activists being pursued through a controversial national security law.
The law cracking down on dissidents in Hong Kong has been widely criticised for crushing free speech as Beijing tightens its stranglehold over the special administrative region.
Mr Yam accused Beijing of having "an ugly ethno-nationalist side" that led the government to believe it had universal jurisdiction over people with Chinese heritage.
"There are all sorts of NGOs and think tanks ... that have spoken out much more vociferously than any of us have," he told an ANU national security podcast.
"But China doesn't go after them, they go after us, they think that just because we are ethnically Chinese, they own us."
He said it was important Canberra continued to engage with China but stressed there needed to be a strong tone when it came to standing up for democratic principles.
"It would be rich of me sitting in a free country now, being well supported and protected by both government and friends, to say all engagement should cease when we've still got (journalist) Cheng Lei and (writer) Yang Hengjun stuck in China in prison," he said.
"When we look at this whole formula about 'agree where we can and disagree where we must', we need to take the bit about disagree where we must seriously."
But Mr Yam said apart from slightly varied tones across the political spectrum, the two major parties had done a good job of calling China out over human rights.
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