David vs. Goliath

Turnbull says Australia will stand up to China

By Christopher Knaus and Tom Phillips in Beijing

Malcolm Turnbull has spoken of China when introducing the foreign interference legislation to parliament.

The Australian prime minister has hit back at China over the issue of Chinese interference, speaking Mandarin and invoking a famous Chinese slogan to declare Australia will “stand up” against meddling in its national affairs.
Beijing issued a stinging rebuke of Turnbull on Friday, saying his allegations of Communist party interference had poisoned the atmosphere of bilateral relations and undermined mutual trust.
But Turnbull stood his ground on Saturday, using strong language to reject the criticism and maintain there was evidence of Chinese interference. 

Turnbull said Labor senator Sam Dastyari – who has twice stepped down from the Senate over China-related controversies – was a “classic case”.
Switching between Mandarin and English, Turnbull then said: “Modern China was founded in 1949 with these words: ‘The Chinese people have stood up’. It was an assertion of sovereignty, it was an assertion of pride.”
“And we stand up and so we say, the Australian people stand up.”
Beijing has lodged a “serious complaint” with Australia over the allegations of Chinese interference.
During a regular briefing on Friday, China’s foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang expressed shock at Turnbull’s remarks during the parliamentary debate on Australia’s new Chinese interference laws this week.

Coalition to ban Chinese donations to political parties and activist groups

Turnbull introduced the foreign interference laws to parliament on Thursday. 

The laws, among other things, ban foreign donations and require former politicians, executives, and lobbyists who work for foreign interests, to register if they intend to attempt to influence Australian politics.

Under the proposed legislation, it would become a crime for a person to act on behalf of a foreign principal to influence a political or governmental process in a manner that is either covert or involves deception.
Turnbull spoke of China while introducing the legislation to the lower house.
“Media reports have suggested that the Chinese Communist party has been working to covertly interfere with our media, our universities and even the decisions of elected representatives right here in this building,” he said. 

"We take these reports very seriously."
China is Australia’s largest trading partner and its biggest source of foreign political funds. Australian law has never distinguished between donors from Australia and overseas.

Beijing’s emphatic push-back reflects an increasingly forceful – some say hectoring – posture from China and Chinese state media towards foreign governments or journalists who dare to question its actions or policies.
Foreign leaders, including former British prime minister David Cameron, who have met the Dalai Lama have been punished with lengthy diplomatic freezes. 

The Norwegian government faced an almost complete suspension of diplomatic relations after the 2010 Nobel prize was handed to Liu Xiaobo, the Chinese dissident who recently became the first Nobel peace prize laureate to die in custody since German pacifist Carl von Ossietzky died at the hands of the Nazis.
Experts say Chinese efforts to browbeat its international critics have become more aggressive in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and Xi Jinping’s rise to power in 2012. 

In October, Xi, now widely seen as China’s most powerful leader since Mao, kicked off his second term in office proclaiming the start of a new era in which China was a “mighty power” at the centre of world affairs .
This week one Communist party-run tabloid attacked “the superiority and narcissism of the Canadian media” after one Canadian newspaper, the Globe and Mail, referred to the country as an “absolute dictatorship”. 

Last year Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, expressed “dissatisfaction” with China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, after he launched an angry tirade against a Canadian journalist who had challenged him on human rights.

On Saturday, the Australian reported that Asio had identified about 10 ­political candidates at state and local government elections whom it believed had close ties to Chinese intelligence services. 

Sec­urity officials were assessing this as a deliberate strategy by Beijing to wield influence through Australian politics.

Australia's Chinese fifth column: Bob Carr (L), Huang Xiangmo (R).

Those whom security services identified as having close ties to Chinese intelligence ser­vices and the Communist party were candidates at local government elections, but concerns had been raised about state and federal figures as well, it said. 

“The Weekend Australian ­understands that at least one of those candidates successfully ­obtained elected office, and ­remains there today,” it added.

On Saturday, the Labor MP Pat Conroy accused the government of leaking intelligence information about Chinese influence to damage the opposition.
“You just have to look at who leaked the supposed Asio briefing to the press,” Conroy told the ABC. “It has come from someone from the government – the intelligence agencies would never do that – someone from the government has leaked classified intelligence in an attempt to embarrass the Labor party.”
The Liberal MP Craig Kelly said foreign governments would not be able to trust Australia if Dastyari were part of the government. 

“How can the US and how can the UK be prepared to share sensitive intelligence information if they think that Dastyari could potentially sit in the government?” he told the ABC.

Teenager versus Superpower: Who is Joshua Wong, the Hong Kong wunderkind taking on Beijing?

The 20-year-old is the poster boy for Hong Kong's democracy movement.

By Brendan Cole

Joshua Wong pictured in October 2016 after he was detained in Thailand following a request from China. He had been due to address a top university about democracy

Born only nine months before Hong Kong left British rule, prominent activist Joshua Wong has spent most of his young life trying to realise the aspirations of that heady handover of 1 July 1997.
At primary school, his teachers would tell him how Hong Kong now was part of country with two systems. 

He heard how it would still retain a high degree of autonomy and that the values of freedom of expression, freedom of speech and universal suffrage could be replicated under Beijing's stewardship.
But he felt that the gap between that rhetoric and reality became too stark when the Hong Kong government said it would introduce a "moral and national education" programme in schools. 

It would entail students being taught to show their loyalty to Beijing.
He and his peers saw it as a "brainwashing" programme and it was the catalyst for Wong to set up the group Scholarism and campaign against Beijing's interference in the territory's education system.
It led to protests in which more than 100,000 people took to the streets. 

The "moral and national education" programme was dropped but the long arm of Beijing was still felt.
China's top legislative committee reneged on a pledge for direct elections and ruled that Hong Kong's leader, known as the chief executive, would be drawn from candidates effectively pre-screened by Beijing.
Between September and December 2014, students staged a number of street protests, dubbed the Umbrella Revolution with thousands of people blocking roadways in the centre of the city.
Persuading the authorities that the general public should choose their chief executive and not a 1,200 pro-Beijing elite would be a tough task but the movement captured the headlines internationally.
In 2014, he was named in Time magazine's most influential teenagers and the following year, was recognised by Fortune as one of the world's 50 greatest leaders. 

He is also the subject of a Netflix documentary which in January 2017, premiered at the Sundance film festival, titled Joshua: Teenager versus Superpower.
But his activities have come at a cost. 

Due to address a Thai university, he was detained at Bangkok airport in November 2014 on what he says was an order from the Chinese government. 

As well as Thailand, he says he is blacklisted from mainland China, Singapore and Malaysia.

Joshua Wong, secretary general of the political party Demosisto, is pictured in May 2016 in Hong Kong after he tried to to intercept the motorcade of top official Zhang DejiangGetty

He has now established the political party Demosisto although he is too young to run for office. However, his party colleague, Nathan Law, who is 23 was among six young lawmakers elected to Hong Kong's legislative council.
While politically precocious, he still has an eye on the time when he is a lot older, and hopes he will still be around when the Sino-British joint declaration, signed in 1984 guaranteeing freedoms and autonomy, which expires in 2047.

Facing demands for greater autonomy in regions like Tibet and Xinjiang, Beijing says it wants to maintain unity and in a white paper in 2014 says Hong Kong's autonomy "is not an inherent power, but one that comes solely from the authorization by the central leadership".

But addressing an audience at the UK parliament's committee rooms on 8 February, Wong articulated the hopes of many of Hong Kong's young generation.
"While Beijing claimed that there would be prosperity under one country, two systems, the fact is that it exists in name only. From the young generation's perspective, 'one country, two systems', has turned into 'one country 1.8 systems' and then 'one country 1.5 systems' in recent years.
"We have waited for more than 20 years. What I hope for, is to urge the international community to keep their eyes on Hong Kong.
"Sometime we feel down-hearted, and depressed. We have found a lot of limitation and restriction but we will continue the fight until the day we get back democracy," he said.