“We are an open-trading nation, mate, but I’m never going to trade our values in response to coercion from wherever it comes,” Morrison told radio station 2GB on Thursday.

China has in recent weeks banned Australian beef imports and imposed tariffs on Australian barley.

The warning for students followed a similar warning last week from Beijing for Chinese tourists to avoid Australia.

In both cases, officials in Beijing said the warnings were due to racist attacks against Asians during the pandemic.

“That’s rubbish. It’s a ridiculous assertion and it’s rejected. That’s not a statement that’s been made by the Chinese leadership,” Morrison said in a separate interview on 3AW.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Thursday Beijing’s advisories warning students and travellers about risks they could face in Australia are based on facts and called on Canberra to take measures to safeguard Chinese citizens’ safety in the country.

Australia lodged a protest with the Chinese foreign ministry in Beijing, and the Chinese embassy in Canberra, about China’s travel and student warnings, said a spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

As China’s beef with Australia hits its economy, will Canberra be cowed?

The Australian government rejected the assertion it was unsafe to visit or study in Australia, a statement said.

“Australia provides the best education and tourism products in the world,” Morrison told 2GB. “The ability for Chinese nationals to be able to choose to come to Australia [has] substantively been their decision. And I’m very confident in the attractiveness of our product.”

The coalition representing Australia’s elite universities, the Group of Eight, has said international education was “being used as a political pawn”.

The Australian National University’s chancellor, Julie Bishop, formerly Australia’s foreign minister, said the university supported students from more than 100 countries with a world-class education.

“Canberra is one of the safest cities in a country widely regarded as one of the safest in the world,” Bishop said in a statement.

Monash University’s vice-chancellor, Margaret Gardner, told ABC Radio it was “very tense times diplomatically between China and Australia and in fact in this case universities and their students from China are part of the collateral”.

China is Australia’s largest trading partner, with two-way trade worth A$235 billion a year.