A Country Under the Influence

Australia’s China Challenge

With Beijing pushing as far as it can wherever it can in the era of Xi Jinping, Australia has become a global case study in Chinese influence.
By Damien Cave

Australia's Chinese fifth column: Beijing Bob and his gang

SYDNEY, Australia — In a gold-curtained meeting room in Sydney, the Chinese consul general appealed to a closed-door gathering of about 100 people, all of them Australian residents and citizens of Chinese ancestry.
He called on the group to help shape public opinion during a coming visit of China’s prime minister, Li Keqiang, in part by reporting critics to the consulate. 

Rallies in support of China should be coordinated, he suggested, and large banners should be unfurled to block images of protests against Beijing.
“We are not troops, but this task is a bit like the nature of troops,” said the diplomat, Gu Xiaojie, according to a recording of the session in the consulate obtained by The New York Times and verified by a person who was in the room. 

“This is a war,” he added, “with lots of battles.”
The previously unreported meeting in March 2017 is an example of how the Chinese government directly — and secretly — engages in political activity in Australia, making the nation a laboratory for testing how far it can go to steer debate and influence policy inside a democratic trade partner.
It is a calculated campaign unlike any other Australia has faced — taking advantage of the nation’s openness, growing ethnic Chinese population and economic ties to China — and it has provoked an uncomfortable debate about how Australia should respond.
Many countries face the same challenge from China, an authoritarian power pushing its agenda inside and beyond its borders.
In Asia, China has been funneling funds to the campaigns of preferred presidential candidates in Malaysia and Sri Lanka. 

In the United States, there is concern about Beijing’s efforts to stifle dissent on college campuses. And in Europe, Chinese companies and organizations tied to the ruling Communist Party have held events for political leaders and donated millions of dollars to universities.
China once sought to spread Marxist revolution around the world, but its goal now is more subtle — winning support for a trade and foreign policy agenda intended to boost its geopolitical standing and maintain its monopoly on power at home.
The contours of its playbook are especially visible in Australia, where trade with China has fueled the world’s longest economic boom. 

Australian intelligence agencies have warned of Beijing’s efforts, and the issue is likely to be contentious for Australia’s conservative prime minister, Scott Morrison, who won a surprise victory in elections Saturday.

Labor Party senator Sam Dastyari did China’s bidding at the behest of Chinese donors.

Chinese representatives routinely lobby Australian politicians behind closed doors without disclosing their activities, often by threatening economic punishment and persuading Australian business and academic leaders to deliver their message.
The Chinese and their supporters have also sought to suppress criticism and elevate its views in the Australian news media, by suing journalists and publishers for defamation, financing research institutes and using advertisers to put pressure on Chinese-language outlets.
Beijing has even promoted political candidates in Australia with these outlets as well as via the United Front Work Department, the party’s arm for dealing with overseas Chinese, and with campaign contributions made by proxies.
Last year, after a scandal involving donors with ties to Beijing forced a senator to resign, Parliament approved an overhaul of espionage laws making it illegal to influence Australian politics for a foreign government.
Australia’s new government — led by Mr. Morrison, who has been vague about his plans for foreign policy — must now decide what to do next at a time when the public is divided: Many Australians fear China but also favor good relations to maintain economic growth and regional stability.
“There is a lot to unravel with the China story here,” said Mark Harrison, a China scholar at the University of Tasmania.
The Communist Party, he said, is essentially trying to enforce the same bargain with Australia that it has with the Chinese people: a promise of prosperity in exchange for obedience and censorship.

The new master: Xi Jinping addressed the Australian Parliament in 2014.

Weaponized Economics
China’s economic bonds with Australia can be traced to the 19th century, when a gold rush drew Chinese immigrants to the continent. 

Now, China is an engine of economic growth for the country and its largest trading partner by far, accounting for 24 percent of Australian imports and exports.
With that reliance comes an implied threat: China can take its money elsewhere.
The problem, current and former Australian officials say, is the Chinese government rarely discloses its lobbying activities. 

Australian businesses linked to China often lean on politicians without public scrutiny, leading security agencies to warn about Beijing manipulating politics.
“In no country is there such a profound rift between business community and security,” said Linda Jakobson, founding director of China Matters, a nonprofit policy group based in Sydney.
China has exploited that rift — and even tried to use its economic leverage to punish Australia for adopting the new law requiring those working on behalf of a “foreign principal” to register their activities.
In June, Australian winemakers said they were facing problems with their exports to China, and a major deal to expand chilled beef exports into China — negotiated during Li’s visit — stalled. 

In January and February, China also delayed coal imports from Australia at some ports.
It hardly the first time Beijing blurred the lines between business and politics.

In 2009, the Australian government rejected a bid by a Chinese state-owned firm to purchase 18 percent of Rio Tinto, the Anglo-Australian mining giant, after officials argued privately that the sale would give China too much power to set prices.
Beijing’s response was an early version of what has since become common in the relationship: a campaign to pressure the Australian government via China’s business partners.
Chinese officials and investors “put the weights on the relevant Australian executives,” Kevin Rudd, the prime minister at the time, recalled in an interview. 

“The whole idea at that stage was to maximize business lobby pressure on the government.”

Chau Chak Wing, a billionaire property developer with Australian citizenship, is one of at least two wealthy political donors who have filed lawsuits against media companies in Australia for reporting on donations and links to the Chinese government.

Silencing Dissent
In May 2018, two children in Rockhampton, a rural capital of beef production, painted tiny Taiwanese flags on a statue of a bull during an event celebrating the town’s diversity. 

There were flags from many countries, but the local government painted over those from Taiwan to avoid offending Beijing, which says the self-governing island is part of China.
“What they want are pre-emptive concessions to Chinese interests,” said Peter Varghese, a former head of Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
Beijing tries both to suppress speech in Australia that undercuts its priorities — such as the diplomatic isolation of Taiwan — and to promote its own agenda.
One prominent example is the Australia-China Relations Institute, a research organization in Sydney led until recently by Bob Carr, a former foreign minister and outspoken defender of China’s positions. 

The institute was established with a gift from Huang Xiangmo, a Chinese real-estate developer who had donated generously to both of Australia’s main political parties.
Australia recently rejected his citizenship application and revoked his residency.
China has also had success shaping news coverage in Australia, especially in Chinese-language outlets.
Maree Ma, general manager of the company that owns Vision China Times, a newspaper in Sydney and Melbourne, said Chinese officials successfully pressured businesses in 2015 and 2016 to pull their ads because of its critical coverage.
And before Saturday’s election, on WeChat — the Chinese social media platform, which is also popular in Australia — accounts affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party mocked the conservative government, disparaging Australia as “a country whose head has been kicked hard by kangaroos.”
English-language outlets are not immune to the pressure. 

In 2017, Australia’s largest independent publishers delayed publication of a book examining Chinese influence in Australian institutions.
Because Australian law favors plaintiffs in defamation suits, such cases — including a large payout in February to Chau Chak Wing, a Chinese-born property tycoon and political donor — have had a chilling effect on reporting and public protesting that might anger Beijing or its allies.
At the Chinese consulate in 2017, organizers showed photos of pro-China activists in Australia roughing up protesters from the Falun Gong spiritual movement, which is banned in China.
The audience applauded.

Running for Office
China’s playbook prioritizes one particular group: Australia’s growing ethnic Chinese population, a group of more than one million people, about half of whom are immigrants from mainland China.
The Chinese government treats Australian citizens of Chinese ancestry as if they’re still subject to its rule. 
Critics of Beijing are pressured.
In January, Yang Hengjun, an Australian writer and former Chinese official, was arrested on dubious charges of espionage while visiting China.
More often, Beijing tries to woo people like Yongbei Tang.
Tang moved to Australia 23 years ago with her husband, an electrical engineer, settling in Hobart, the capital of Tasmania, where she started editing a newspaper called Chinese News Tasmania. 
Last year, she ran for the City Council.
“All the people in the community know me,” she said, when asked why.
“I’m a media person. Influential.”
Tang had also helped start a local chapter of the Australian Council for the Promotion of Peaceful Reunification of China, which promulgates Beijing’s position that Taiwan is part of China.
The group was established by Huang, the donor whose residency was revoked, and it is an arm of the party’s overseas influence efforts.
That connection and others made Tang, an Australian citizen, a subject of intense debate during the campaign, which she lost.
Several local Chinese leaders published an open letter condemning her “hiding of titles of many organizations including her association with the Chinese Government.”
Cassy O’Connor, the leader of the local Greens Party, accused her of being part of an attempt by Beijing to dominate the Tasmanian tourism and property investment. 
“The Chinese government actually picks off smaller states like Tasmania, with smaller economies,” she said.
What Tang actually reveals is the Chinese party’s ability to recruit sympathizers around the world, many of whom gravitate to Beijing’s orbit less because of ideology than the potential for wealth and influence.
Even after her loss, she received favorable coverage on state television in China.

Australia's Chinese Fifth Column

Beijing Bob enlists Labor in new China influence row
By Nick McKenzie & Nick O'Malley

Chinese agent Bob Carr, aka Beijing Bob

Former Labor Foreign Minister Bob Carr, aka Beijing Bob, is using ALP senator Kristina Keneally to quiz the prime minister and senior officials about Malcolm Turnbull’s key former adviser on Beijing’s espionage and interference operations in Australia.
Fairfax Media has confirmed that Carr, who heads a think tank created by a Chinese businessman closely connected to Beijing, has asked Senator Keneally to use parliament to find out details of the employment, job title, and contract of government adviser John Garnaut.
Mr Garnaut is a China expert and former Fairfax Media China correspondent who was tasked by the prime minister in August 2016 to conduct a highly classified inquiry with ASIO into Beijing’s clandestine activities in Australia.

China's fifth column: Beijing Bob (L) and Huang Xiangmo (R)

The inquiry, which has never been released, is understood to have examined the activities of Huang Xiangmo, the same Chinese businessman who created Carr’s Australian China Relations Institute, and who separately headed a Sydney lobbying organisation aligned with the Chinese Communist Party.
Carr first suggested in a phone call to Senator Keneally and her office on the evening of February 27 that she use the parliament to ask questions about Mr Garnaut, according to sources familiar with the matter. 

He subsequently asked Ms Keneally on at least one other occasion to use parliament to scrutinise Mr Garnaut’s work.

ASIO chief Duncan Lewis sounds fresh alarm over Chinese interference threat

Carr’s role in pushing for questions to be asked was only disclosed to many in the ALP after Senator Kimberly Kitching quizzed senior bureaucrats on May 22 about Mr Garnaut, relying on questions scripted by Labor staffers.
Labor sources said that Senator Kitching, who could not be reached for comment, was later told by Senator Keneally that Carr had requested the questions be asked.
Two Labor sources who spoke to Senator Kitching said she was “furious”. 

She also revealed to ALP colleagues that Senator Keneally had told her that Carr “will owe you a favour” for having asked the questions.
Carr and Ms Keneally told Fairfax Media that the questions about Mr Garnaut were not written by Carr, with Ms Keneally stating that it was "legitimate to ask questions on notice or in estimates about staffing and contractual arrangements to determine who is providing advice to government". 

Carr said he had never met Senator Kitching.
After he was quizzed by Fairfax Media, Beijing Bob released a statement describing Mr Garnaut as one of ''the leaders of the recent anti-China panic in the Australian media" who should not be "carrying on the campaign" while on the Prime Minister's payroll.
Senator Keneally also placed questions on notice to Mr Turnbull on May 18 that mirror those suggested by Carr and later asked by Senator Kitching.
Ms Keneally has asked in what “capacity” Mr Garnaut worked for the government between September 2015 and June 2017.
“What was his job title, to whom did he report, and what were the dates of his employment,” Ms Keneally asked in her question on notice.
Fairfax Media has confirmed that between August 2016 and September 2017, Mr Garnaut was responsible for what is known in national security circles as the Garnaut-ASIO inquiry.
The inquiry probed efforts by Beijing to influence Australian political parties, academia and the media. 

It is understood to have examined the activities of, among others, Huang Xiangmo, the former financial backer of Carr’s think tank, a Chinese billionaire and big political donor.
Huang previously provided generous funding to the Carr-led ACRI and has boasted about hiring Carr to head the pro-China think tank.
Huang’s relationship with NSW senator Sam Dastyari led to Dastyari’s resignation from parliament in December 2017, paving the way for Senator Keneally to take his spot.
The revelations about Carr come with Labor divided over whether to support reforms proposed by Mr Turnbull to counter what ASIO has described as "unprecedented" levels of Chinese interference in Australia. 

Mr Garnaut helped shape the reforms.

Former Turnbull policy adviser John Garnaut.

Mr Garnaut's involvement in a classified inquiry has been well known in Canberra for 12 months, although the findings of the inquiry have never been released.
In March, Fairfax Media reported Mr Garnaut delivered incendiary testimony about clandestine Chinese government interference operations in Australia before a US Congress national security committee in Washington DC.
Mr Garnaut was described in this story as “Mr Turnbull’s China specialist in 2016 before shifting to the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet to work on China-related policy."
The story also stated that Mr Garnaut was "a private consultant... assisting western government agencies, including in the US, to deal with influence operations.”
While denying he had any role in pushing Ms Keneally to ask questions about Mr Garnaut, Beijing Bob said on Monday night it was reasonable to scrutinise Mr Garnaut. 

In response to the questions asked by Ms Kitching, the department of prime minister and cabinet said that he was currently contracted as a specialist speechwriter.
Beijing Bob said in his statement of Mr Garnaut: “Fuelling a campaign against a friendly foreign country is incompatible with an advisory and speech writing role on the Prime Minister’s staff.
"When the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister give the impression of reining in rhetoric on China, the revelation that Mr Garnaut has been on the Prime Minister’s payroll is decidedly unhelpful.”
Last week, the foreign interference laws were back at the centre of political debate after an explosive speech in federal parliament by Liberal MP Andrew Hastie and which explored allegations Beijing was interfering in Australian politics.

Australia's Chinese Fifth Column

Julie Bishop steps up warning to Chinese students on Communist Party rhetoric
By Andrew Greene and Stephen Dziedzic

Ms Bishop said freedom of speech was crucial for all those living in or visiting Australia.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has issued a blunt warning to Chinese university students affiliated with the Communist Party, urging them to respect freedom of speech in Australia.
There are mounting anxieties about the way the Chinese Government uses student groups to monitor Chinese students in Australia, and to challenge academics whose views do not align with Beijing's.
Australia's security agencies are now pushing allies — including the US, the UK, Canada and New Zealand — to hammer out a collective strategy to resist Chinese Government intrusions into Western universities.
Ms Bishop said Australia welcomed international students, but added that people came to study in Australia because of its "openness and freedom".
"This country prides itself on its values of openness and upholding freedom of speech, and if people want to come to Australia they are our laws," Ms Bishop said.
"That's who we are. And they should abide by it."
Earlier this year a Four Corners investigation revealed the extent of influence by the Chinese Communist Party on international students studying in Australia.
The issue came into sharp focus earlier this month, after the head of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Frances Adamson, warned Australian universities they need to be resilient to foreign interference.
The Foreign Minister backed Ms Adamson's comments, and said freedom of speech was crucial.
"We want to ensure that everyone has the advantage of expressing their views whether they are at university or whether they are visitors," Ms Bishop said.
"We don't want to see freedom of speech curbed in any way involving foreign students or foreign academics."
One of the most senior national security figures in Australia says there is now a "like mindedness and shared understanding" among Five Eyes allies of how China's influence has penetrated universities.
And Australia's intelligence and diplomatic organisations are increasingly concerned about the way the Chinese government uses student groups to push its agenda.
"Australia is giving China what it wants in terms of education for its students — so it's time for the Federal Government to insist the Chinese comply with Australia's values and interests," one senior foreign diplomatic figure told the ABC.

Chinazism

Our universities are a frontline in China's ideological wars
By John Garnaut

Students in Sydney: China's ideological reach goes far beyond its shores. 

Xi Jinping is returning politics to the commanding heights of Chinese education.
He's told teachers to "educate and guide their students to love the motherland, love the people, and love the Communist Party of China".
He's rallied lecturers to "guard the party's ideology" and "dare to unsheath the sword".
And, most challenging for us, Xi has made clear that his primary enemies are the liberal values that undermine his political system but underpin our own.
"There is no way that universities can allow teaching materials preaching Western values into our classrooms," Xi's Education Minister explained.
The liberal values of freedom, equality and individual dignity are under greater strain in China than they have been for decades.
The room for rational debate and open, evidence-based critical inquiry is shrinking.
And the political rewards for blind patriotism – a racialised patriotism that conflates "the motherland" with "the party" – are high and rising.
The challenge for the democratic world is that Xi's deepening struggle against liberal values does not end at China's borders.
To the contrary, Xi has been rebuilding and reinvigorating the old revolutionary machinery – core institutions like the United Front Work Department and its myriad platforms – to export his ideological battle to the world.
"Overseas Chinese have red-hot patriotic sentiment," as Xi told delegates to the Seventh World Get-Together Meeting of Overseas Chinese Social Groups, early in his tenure.
The Communist Party's war against liberal values and its growing international reach presents Australia with challenges we've not seen before.
Last year the Ministry of Education issued new instructions to its counsellors at diplomatic missions around the world: "Build a multidimensional contact network linking home and abroad – the motherland, embassies and consulates, overseas student groups, and the broad number of students abroad – so that they fully feel that the motherland cares."
And nowhere are the challenges greater than at our universities.
In recent months we've seen denunciations of Australian university lecturers who have offended Beijing's patriotic sensibilities.
A lecturer at the the Australian National University was excoriated on Chinese language social media channels for "insensitively" displaying this warning – "I will not tolerate students who cheat" – in both English and Chinese.
He was forced to issue a long apology for any implication that the offenders spoke Chinese.
A lecturer at the University of Sydney was castigated for using an online map of the world which, if you looked extremely closely, showed an Indian demarcation of the Himalayan border.
The lecturer apologised after being found guilty by a Wechat group called "Australian Red Scarf" – which focused on the lecturer's Indian-looking name.
And then there was the convoy of Bentleys and Lamborghinis that wound its way past Sydney University and UTS before revving engines outside the Indian consulate on August 15, India's Independence Day.
"Anyone who offends China will be killed," said one of the car door slogans, quoting from China's biggest grossing film, Wolf Warrior 2.
Racial chauvinism is only one of the challenges that Beijing is exporting to universities.
Look at recent controversies involving Cambridge University Press and its experiment with mass censorship. 

Or the enormous private donations to Harvard. 

Or the attacks on a Chinese student for praising the "fresh air" at the University of Maryland.
Singapore has just expelled a pro-China professor of international relations – a Chinese-born US citizen – because he "knowingly interacted with intelligence organisations" and "co-operated with them to influence the Singapore government's foreign policy and public opinion in Singapore".
This case has implications for the integrity of academic systems everywhere. 

The professor's work, for example, features on the cover of the current edition of an influential Australian university magazine.
There can be no doubting the pressure on universities to fill classrooms with full fee-paying foreign students, generate private donations, and rise up the research rankings.
But they will need to find a way to reconcile their scholarly values and principles with the political objectives of their dominant customer.
How should university leaders respond to the party's latest instructions to "set up party cells in Sino-foreign joint education projects" – as set out in an edict from the Ministry of Education cited by the Beijing-based advisory China Policy. 

The edict goes onto ensure that cadres are properly compensated for the time-consuming work of "monitoring the ideological orientation of young faculty [members] and overseas returnees".
The reputational and commercial risks for our universities are potentially enormous.
And there will be new legal risks to navigate when the Prime Minister and Attorney-General deliver sweeping counterintelligence reforms later this year.
Mr Turnbull has made clear that he does not look kindly upon countries seeking advantage "through corruption, interference or coercion".
To manage these risks our universities will need to reach out to alienated students, fix the failures of integration and improve their products.
They'll need full spectrum resilience strategies to shore up vulnerabilities and uphold the principles of open and critical inquiry which they are built upon.
Most of all they will have to look at what the Chinese Communist Party is doing on their campuses and do a better job of hearing what it says.

Australia's Chinese Fifth Column

China attempting to influence Australian society through cash, students, politics

Channel News Asia

The investigation explored the CCP’s influence on Australia’s estimated 100,000 Chinese students through university campuses and Chinese students’ and scholars’ associations.

SINGAPORE -- Attempts by China to exert influence in Australia are posing a threat to the nation’s sovereignty, according to an investigation released in articles and television programmes by Fairfax Media and ABC.

The joint Fairfax Media-ABC investigation, which was released on Monday (Jun 5), claimed that Beijing is active in Australia across a wide span of areas, from Chinese-linked donations to Australian politicians to threats to Australia-based Chinese dissidents and involvement with Chinese student associations.
Over the course of five months, the investigation said it uncovered how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was “secretly infiltrating Australia”.

BUYING ‘ACCESS AND INFLUENCE’

According to the ABC, business leaders “allied to Beijing” are using donations to major political parties in Australia to “buy access and influence, and in some cases to push policies that are contrary to Australia’s national interest”.
The report focused on two Chinese-born billionaires who were featured in a diagram drawn up by analysts working for the director general of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) Duncan Lewis, which showed the Chinese Communist Party connected with lines to the two men.
The diagram was reportedly created for Mr Lewis to show senior officials of Australia’s major political parties and to warn them about accepting political donations from foreign sources.
''[Lewis] said 'be careful','' said a source who was aware of what Mr Lewis told party officials, according to the report.
"He was saying that the connections between these guys and the Communist Party is strong," said another political figure briefed about the content of the ASIO warning.
ASIO also reportedly warned that the donors could be channels to advance Beijing's interests.
Mr Lewis sought to describe how Beijing coopted influential businessmen and rewarded those who assisted the Chinese Communist Party.

‘INFLUENCE AND CONTROL’
Outside of politicians and donors, the investigation also explored Beijing’s influence on ordinary Chinese living in Australia.
Some one million ethnic Chinese live in Australia and these people are targets of the CCP’s operations, either through influence or coercion, the investigation claimed.
The investigation explored the CCP’s influence on Australia’s estimated 100,000 Chinese students through university campuses and Chinese students’ and scholars’ associations.
These associations are “sponsored” by Chinese embassy and consular officials, and they are seen by the CCP as a way to maintain control over its overseas students.
When Li Keqiang visited Australia in March, Chinese embassy officials played an active role in organising a big student rally to welcome him.
The embassy provided flags, transport, food, a lawyer and certificates for students to help them find jobs back in China, Lupin Lu, president of the Canberra University Students’ and Scholars’ Association, told reporters.
However, she said that “I wouldn’t really call it helping”, but that “it’s more sponsoring”, adding that fellow students were at the rally because of their pride at China’s economic success.
When asked by reporters if she would alert the embassy if a human rights protest was being organised by dissident Chinese students, she said she “definitely” would, “just to keep all students safe… and to do it for China as well”.

INFLUENCE ON CHINA NATIONALS
The reports also cited the experience of Tony Chang, a student at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) who was granted a protection visa by the Australian government after threats to his parents who were back in China.
In a sworn statement to Australian immigration authorities, Chang said that state security agents in China had approached his parents in Shenyang to warn them to rein in his activism, citing his involvement in Tibetan independence organisations and Chinese democracy movement organisations.
“The SBSS (Shenyang Bureau of State Security) agents pressed the point that my parents must ask me to stop what I am part taking (sic) in and keep a low profile in the coming days. The reason is that they were anticipating that I would be involved in Tiananmen Square Massacre remembrance events, and the fact that the Dalai Lama would be coming to Australia,” Chang said in his statement.
“This act of a direct threat by the SBSS solidifies my belief that if I return to China I will undoubtedly suffer serious harm at the hands of the Chinese government, which will amount to persecution.”
Don Ma, the owner of the independent Vision China Times publication, reportedly had 10 advertisers pull their advertising after being threatened by Chinese officials.
According to the investigation, this included a company whose Beijing office was visited every day for two weeks by China’s Ministry of State Security until it cut ties with the Vision China Times.
"The media here, all the Chinese media, was being controlled by China," Ma said in the reports.
"This is harmful to the Australian society. It is also harmful to the next generation of Chinese. Therefore, I felt I wanted to invest in a truly independent media that fits in with Australian values."

Australia: For Sale

• Sam Dastyari contradicted South China Sea policy a day after Chinese donor's threat
• Billionaire Huang Xiangmo took exception to Labor’s stance on disputed territory and threatened to withdraw a $400,000 donation.

By Gabrielle Chan

Australia's Quisling: Labor senator Sam Dastyari told the Chinese media in September 2016 that Australia shouldn’t interfere with China’s activities in the South China Sea, contradicting his own party’s policy.

The Labor senator Sam Dastyari contradicted Labor party policy on the South China Sea a day after influential Chinese billionaire Huang Xiangmo threatened to withdraw a promised $400,000 donation to the party, Four Corners has alleged.
The program, by Faifax’s Nick McKenzie, reports that Huang took exception to comments made by then Labor defence shadow Stephen Conroy that Australia’s defence force should be able to conduct freedom of navigation operations in the disputed area.
After Huang threatened to cancel the donation, Dastyari told the Chinese media that Australia shouldn’t interfere with China’s activities in the South China Sea. 

When the comments were reported, Dastyari denied he had split with the party on the policy, saying he wasn’t responsible for the way it was reported.
Four Corners also reported that Dastyari’s office asked the immigration department of the progress of Huang’s stalled citizenship application four times in the lead-up to the last election with the senator personally making two of the calls.
Huang is chairman of the Yuhu Group and had previously donated $5,000 to cover “legal bills” before Dastyari was a senator as well as larger amounts to both sides of politics and a number of universities as well as charities.
In a statement to Four Corners, Huang said he took “strong objection” to any suggestion he had linked his donations to any foreign policy outcome.
The report comes less than a year after Dastyari resigned from the Labor shadow ministry after it was revealed that he asked for and accepted a payment of $1,670.82 from Australian Chinese businessman Minshen Zhu.
At the time Dastyari said he had “fallen short” in his duty as a member of parliament but he was reinstated to the shadow minister in February this year as Senate deputy opposition whip.
The government is currently considering a report in March this year by the Joint Parliamentary Standing Committee on Electoral Matters which recommended a ban on foreign donations but split on donations from activist groups.
The government has yet to formulate a response to the report but it is understood it is very close. Malcolm Turnbull has previously said he favours a ban on foreign donations and it is also Labor party policy.
Huang gave $770,000 to the Liberals before the 2013 election and donated $100,000 to the then trade minister Andrew Robb’s campaign fundraising vehicle, as Robb signed off on the China Australia Free Trade deal.
Robb developed a close relationship with the billionaire and was quoted in a speech on Four Corners as a “thoughtful cerebral fellow” and a “visionary”.
Another Chinese based company, Landbridge, controversially won the 99-year lease on the port of Darwin in 2015 when Robb was still trade minister.
Four Corners revealed that Robb had been appointed as a consultant to Landbridge on 1 July, the day before he retired from politics. 

Landbridge announced the appointment in September 2016.

According to Four Corners, from 1 July 2016 Robb was paid $73,000 a month, or $880,000 a year, plus expenses. 

He told Four Corners he acted in line with his obligations as former trade minister.
The statement of ministerial standards states ministers should not lobby or advocate with the government for 18 months after their political retirement.
Prof John Fitzgerald of the Ford Foundation, Beijing, told the program “Mr Huang is very generous to all parties”.
“He could hardly be called partisan; he contributes to the Liberal party as well as to the Labor party,” Fitzgerald says. 

“He’s also a very generous employer of former party operatives.”
Huang has also employed former New South Wales Labor treasurer Eric Roozendaal.
The program also investigated the donations of an Australian Chinese citizen Chau Chak Wing who was a member of a Communist party advisory group known as a people’s political consultative conference (CPPCC).
The group carries out the work of a party lobbying arm called the United Front Work Department.
Chau has donated more than $4m to the major parties over the past decade, according to Four Corners.
Four Corners revealed that the Asio chief, Duncan Lewis, has become so worried about the influence of foreign donations that he organised meetings with the senior party officers from the federal Liberal, National parties and Labor parties to warn them that the donors could compromise the major parties.
The executive director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Peter Jennings, described such donations as naked influence buying.
“I think that this type of, frankly, naked influence buying, is something which is damaging to Australia’s political system.
“I would far rather have a regime in place whereby we, the taxpayer, pay for the cost of our elections than relying on parties to get donations from foreign sources, wherever they may come from.
“But you know, notably those foreign sources are primarily linked to Chinese business.”

Australian sovereignty under threat from China's Fifth Column

• A joint Four Corners-Fairfax investigation reveals Beijing is active in Australia across an array of fronts
• The former Defence secretary and ASIO's chief have both voiced concerns about Chinese interference in Australia
• The interference campaign is especially active on university campuses and in the Chinese-language media in Australia

By Nick McKenzie, Chris Uhlmann, Richard Baker and Sashka Koloff

A five-month investigation reveals the extent of Beijing's influence in Australian politics and Chinese communities. 

The defence and intelligence community believes that attempts by the Chinese Communist Party to exert its influence in Australia pose a direct threat to our nation's liberties and its sovereignty.
That fear has been confirmed by a five-month-long Four Corners-Fairfax investigation which shows Beijing is active across a vast array of fronts — from directing Chinese student associations, threatening Australian-based Chinese dissidents, seeking to influence academic inquiry, co-opting community groups and controlling most Chinese-language media.
And Monday night's Four Corners program will track the millions in opaque Chinese-linked donations to show how it buys access and influence in Australian politics.

China's Communist Party is monitoring the activities of university academics and students engaged in anti-communist activism in Australia.

The depth of the concern at the highest levels of the defence and intelligence establishment can be measured in recent public statements by the departing Defence secretary and the director-general of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO).
Australia's domestic spy chief Duncan Lewis warned Parliament that espionage and Chinese interference in Australia were occurring on "an unprecedented scale".
"This has the potential to cause serious harm to the nation's sovereignty, the integrity of our political system, our national security capabilities, our economy and other interests," Mr Lewis said.
The outgoing Defence Department secretary, Dennis Richardson, named China as being "very active" in espionage and pointed to an equally troubling campaign of monitoring and coercion here.
"The Chinese government keeps a watchful eye inside Australian Chinese communities and effectively controls Chinese language media in Australia," Mr Richardson said.

Student's parents threatened and an academic detained
The Four Corners-Fairfax team has interviewed Queensland university student, Tony Chang, whose anti-Communist activities in Australia saw his China-based parents threatened by Ministry of State Security (MSS) agents.

QUT student Tony Chang's parents were threatened by Chinese agents.

Academic Dr Feng Chongyi made headlines in March when he was detained in China and questioned for 10 days by MSS agents.
When he was finally allowed to leave, the agents demanded Dr Feng sign a document that forbade him from publicly discussing his ordeal.
He has broken his silence to say his treatment in China was designed to send a message to anti-Communist elements in the Chinese-Australian community: "Stay away from sensitive issues or sensitive topics".

Dr Feng Chongyi was detained in China for 10 days by MSS agents.

The Communist Party keeps watch over the 150,000-strong Chinese students studying in Australian universities by controlling the Chinese Students' and Scholars' Associations.
The Four Corners-Fairfax investigation will show how the Chinese Embassy in Canberra orchestrated a mass student rally to welcome Li Keqiang in March and stressed the importance of blocking out anti-Communist protesters.
And it will detail how a "spontaneous" demonstration pushing China's sovereignty over the South China Sea in Melbourne last year was coordinated by one of the many Australian-based Chinese-language media companies that acts as a propaganda arm for Beijing.
Those few media companies that don't toe the party line face the threat of being driven out of business.
Don Ma, who owns the independent Vision China Times, told the Four Corner-Fairfax team that 10 of his advertisers pulled their cash after being threatened by Chinese officials.
Owner of Vision China Times, Don Ma.

The Beijing office of one migration and travel company was visited by the Ministry of State Security every day for two weeks until it cut ties with his paper.
Mr Ma has not only endured economic sabotage from the Communist Party but a campaign of vilification from pro-Beijing members of the local Chinese community.
Yet he keeps publishing, not only because he embraces freedom of the press, but because many members of the disparate Chinese community urge him to keep doing so.
"I felt that the media here, all the Chinese media, was being controlled by China," Mr Ma said.
"This is harmful to the Australian society. It is also harmful to the next generation of Chinese. Therefore, I felt I wanted to invest in a truly independent media that fits in with Australian values."

Watch 'Power And Influence: How China's Communist Party Is Infiltrating Australia' on Four Corners, ABC TV, Monday 8:30pm.

Australia's Chinese Fifth Column

Chinese diplomat who defected to Australia breaks silence to warn of spies
By Joseph Fitsanakis
A Chinese diplomat, who made international news headlines in 2005 when he defected to Australia, has ended a decade of silence to warn about an alleged increase in Chinese espionage operations against his adopted country.

Chen Yonglin was a seasoned member of the Chinese diplomatic corps in 2001, when he was posted as a political affairs consul at the Chinese consulate in Sydney, Australia. 

His job was to keep tabs on the Chinese expatriate community in Australia, with an emphasis on individuals and organizations deemed subversive by Beijing. 

He later revealed that his main preoccupation was targeting members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement, which is illegal in China. 

He also targeted supporters of Taiwanese independence, as well as Tibetan and East Turkestan nationalists who were active on Australian soil.
But in 2005, Chen contacted the Australian government and said that he wanted to defect, along with his spouse and six-year-old daughter. 

He was eventually granted political asylum by Canberra, making his the highest-profile defection of a Chinese government employee to Australia in over half a century. 

During a subsequent testimony given to the Parliament of Australia, Chen said that he was in contact with Australian intelligence and was giving them information about Chinese espionage activities. 

He said at the time that China operated a network of over 1,000 “secret agents and informants” in Australia. 

Chen distinguished agents and informants from Chinese intelligence officers, most of whom were stationed in Chinese diplomatic facilities.
Chen, who now works as a businessman, disappeared from the public limelight after his defection. But last weekend, he reappeared after a decade of obscurity and gave an interview to ABC, Australia’s national broadcaster. 

The ABC journalist reminded Chen that in 2005 he had estimated the number of Chinese agents and informants operating in Australia at 1,000, and asked him how many he thought were active today. Chen responded that an increase in the number is certain, given that “China is now the wealthiest government in the world”. 

That meant, said Chen, that Beijing has the funds that are necessary to maintain “a huge number of spies” in Australia. 

However, the former diplomat said that most Chinese agents are “casual informants”, not trained spies, and that they are dormant for long periods of time in between operations.

Australia's Chinese Fifth Column

Australian universities the latest battleground in Chinese soft power offensive
By Hagar Cohen

Beijing collaborator Bob Carr of the Australia China Relations Institute.

In an exclusive interview, Australia's first ambassador to China has raised the alarm about China's influence in the higher education sector.
Stephen Fitzgerald singled out Bob Carr's Australia China Relations Institute for particular criticism, saying universities need clear firewalls between donations and research.
ACRI, part of the University of Technology Sydney, was established with a large donation from the Chinese businessman Huang Xiangmo.
Mr Huang was the donor at the centre of the controversy surrounding Labor senator Sam Dastyari.
"I wouldn't have taken the funding," Mr Fitzgerald told Background Briefing.
"This is one of the really difficult issues about what is happening at the moment, because you don't want to say no to all Chinese money.
"That would be ridiculous, self defeating, but you have to put firewalls between the donation and the way it is spent, and you have to be certain about the origins of that money."

'No place' for Confucius institutes
As well as ACRI, hundreds of other language and culture centres have been established on campuses worldwide through confidential agreements between universities and the Chinese education ministry.
Mr Fitzgerald said he believed these centres, known as Confucius institutes, had no place in Australian higher education institutions.
"I just don't think they should be in universities," he said.
"Have them in Australia by all means; have them all over the country. I'd welcome them, but I don't think they should be in universities."
"There will be people who have been involved with these institutes who will say there has never been one instance of any attempt to influence what we teach and what we say.
"There will be others who might admit that there has been such an attempt."

Controversy over Sydney Uni plan
Background Briefing has revealed that at the University of Sydney, a confidential 2007 plan included a clause that would have seen the university's existing Chinese language program incorporated into a Confucius institute.
This draft agreement ended up in the hands of Professor Jocelyn Chey, the former Australian consul-general in Hong Kong and a visiting professor at the university's Department of Chinese Studies.
"I wasn't sure that the university authorities knew what they were letting themselves in for," she said.
"There's the question of academic freedom and the right of academics not just to teach but to research and publish in areas where they are not under the guidance or direction of anybody."
Professor Chey wrote a strongly worded letter to the vice chancellor outlining her concerns and saying the Confucius institute should be rejected, or the arrangement should be significantly modified to protect the integrity of the university.
"People who accept donations should be aware of the expectations and obligations that they're taking on with the finance," she said.
The university senate voted in favour of the Confucius Institute, but adopted some of the changes to the arrangement that were recommended by Professor Chey.
A University of Sydney spokesperson confirmed a proposal to establish a Confucius Institute at the University of Sydney was circulated to the senate in 2007.
Feedback from staff was considered, and it was confirmed that the university did not intend for existing university programs to be delivered by the Confucius Institute.
The spokesperson said these programs continue to be delivered by the Department of Chinese Studies in the School of Languages and Cultures.