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 Mole Chau Chak Wing

In Australia, Fears of Chinese Meddling Rise on U.N. Bribery Case Revelation

By Emily Baumgaertner and Jacqueline Williams

Chau Chak Wing, center right, in 2015 at the opening of a University of Technology Sydney building that bears his name. Chau is accused of bribing a United Nations diplomat.

A billionaire businessman, previously accused of meddling in Australia’s politics on behalf of China, conspired to bribe a prominent United Nations diplomat, an Australian politician said on Tuesday, raising new concerns about China’s efforts to interfere in democracies worldwide.
Andrew Hastie, chairman of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, identified the businessman, Chau Chak Wing, as the person in a 2015 bribery case previously called only Co-conspirator No. 3.
“CC-3 is Dr. Chau Chak Wing,” Mr. Hastie said in a speech in the Australian Parliament’s Federation Chamber, adding, “The same man who co-conspired to bribe the U.N. president of the General Assembly, John Ashe.”
He continued, “The same man with extensive contacts in the Chinese Communist Party, including the United Front.”
In a criminal complaint filed in 2015, American prosecutors said several conspirators had paid John W. Ashe, an Antiguan diplomat and former president of the United Nations General Assembly, more than $1 million in luxury goods and cash from sources in China to assist with business deals.
Several people accused in the complaint were named, and the Australian news media had suggested in the past that Co-conspirator No. 3 was Chau. 

But his identity as the co-conspirator was confirmed only Tuesday.
Chau, a well-connected political donor in Australia, has also sued news organizations that he says have wrongly linked him to the bribery case. 

Mr. Hastie said he sought to issue a broader warning about China’s interference in Australian politics and the press.
“In Australia, it is clear that the Chinese Communist Party is working to covertly interfere with our media, our universities and also influence our political processes and public debates,” Mr. Hastie said.
Mr. Hastie’s speech is likely to fuel a global debate about China’s efforts to shape opinions and policy in the world’s democracies and democratic institutions.
Several Australian politicians have accused China of meddling in its politics. 

Australia’s intelligence chief identified Chau, an Australian citizen, in June as an agent of the Chinese government.
Duncan Lewis, the director of the Australian Security Intelligence Organization, warned politicians against accepting contributions from Chau and another man of Chinese descent because of their ties to China’s government.
Chau, a billionaire property developer who immigrated to Australia decades ago, has said his campaign contributions are benign and unrelated to the Chinese government. 

He could not be reached for comment on Tuesday.
Chau is chairman of the Kingold Group, a business conglomerate based in Guangzhou, China, that has expanded to Australia. 

His name graces the modernist Chau Chak Wing Building at the University of Technology Sydney, to which he donated $15 million. 

Chau also owns New Express Daily, an Australian newspaper.
Chau filed a defamation suit last year aimed at two Australian news media companies: the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the national broadcaster, and Fairfax Media, a newspaper publisher. 

He has sought damages from them for a news report that the suit says damaged his personal and professional reputation.
In his speech, Mr. Hastie argued that Chau was trying to silence the press.
“My concern is that defamation cases can have a chilling effect on our free press,” Mr. Hastie said. “Any attempt to silence our media from telling the truth — provided it is the truth — through a defamation claim cannot stand.”
In the speech, Mr. Hastie said Australians “deserve the truth.”
Since the accusations of political meddling, Australia has taken steps to curb foreign interference. 

A series of bills introduced in December would strengthen the country’s espionage laws, outlaw foreign political donations and criminalize efforts to interfere in Australian democracy.
Senator Sam Dastyari, a member of the opposition Labor Party, resigned in December amid accusations that he pushed China’s foreign policy interests after taking money from Chinese-born political donors.
He had been widely criticized by opponents as a symbol of China’s efforts to compromise Australia’s democracy.
But the accusations leveled against  Chau on Tuesday extend the reach of concern, suggesting that China’s efforts to meddle span national borders.
The 2015 bribery case, U.S. v. John W. Ashe et al, was considered the worst financial scandal at the United Nations in decades. 

That complaint was filed in the Southern District of New York.
The court did not respond to a request for comment.
The corruption case accused Ashe, the Antiguan diplomat, of accepting Rolex watches, bespoke suits and a private basketball court in exchange for official actions that benefited Chinese interests.
In particular, Ashe accepted $200,000 in exchange for his attendance at the Global Summit of Small and Medium Enterprise Leaders in November 2013 in Guangzhou. 

The meeting was organized by Chau’s Kingold Group at the lavish Imperial Springs resort, according to the complaint.
Ashe died in an accident in June 2016 while awaiting trial. 

Several other defendants in the case were convicted and either got prison time or were awaiting sentencing. 

Co-conspirator No. 3 was never indicted, but it is not known why.

Chinese-Australian billionaire involved in UN bribery case

Chau Chak Wing has links with Chinese Communist party and conspired to bribe former UN president John Ashe
By Amy Remeikis and Katharine Murphy

Chau Chak Wing at the opening of the Chau Chak Wing building at the University of Technology, Sydney. 

The chair of Australia’s intelligence and security committee has taken the extraordinary step of using parliamentary privilege to identify one of Australia’s biggest political donors of conspiring to bribe one of the United Nation’s top diplomats.
Andrew Hastie used a speech in the parliament’s Federation Chamber to identify Chinese-Australian billionaire Chau Chak Wing, as “co-conspirator 3” in a 2015 American bribery case, which alleged John Ashe, the former president of the United Nations General Assembly, had been paid to assist in the smooth progress of business deals.
Hastie said he confirmed Chau’s identity while leading a delegation to the United States to discuss Australia’s foreign interference and espinage laws, as the chair of the parliamentary intelligence and security committee and believed it his “duty” to share what he had learnt.
“During discussions with United States authorities I confirmed the long suspected identity of CC3,” he said.
“It is now my duty to inform the house and the Australian people [that person] is Chau Chak Wing. The same man who co-conspired to bribe the UN president of the general assembly, John Ashe. The same man with extensive contacts in the Chinese Communist Party, including the United Front.
“I share it with the House because I believe it to be in the national interest. My duty first and foremost is to the Australian people and the preservation to the ideals of the democratic traditions of our Commonwealth.”
Hastie’s explosive statements in the Federation Chamber comes at a time when the Turnbull government has been attempting to calm diplomatic tensions between Canberra and Beijing prompted by the Coalition’s foreign interference laws.
With relations between Canberra and Beijing tense, the trade minister Steve Ciobo has travelled to China, and the foreign minister Julie Bishop held a lengthy meeting with her Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, on the sidelines of the meeting of G20 foreign ministers in Argentina.
Bishop characterised the bilateral discussion with Yi as “very warm and candid and constructive” and said she would shortly visit the Chinese capital.
Her Chinese counterpart was cooler. 

In a translated press statement after the G20 talks, the Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi acknowledged China-Australia relations had “encountered some difficulties”.
He also urged Australia to adopt a more positive disposition towards Beijing. 

“If Australia sincerely hopes that the relations between the two countries will return to the right track... they must break away from traditional thinking, take off their coloured glasses, and look at China’s development from a positive angle,” Wang said.

Andrew Hastie in parliament on Tuesday. 

Hastie, a Western Australian conservative, told the chamber on Tuesday night he was naming Chau to ensure Australia’s democracy – and free press – could operate without interference.
“CC3 is a Chinese-Australian citizen. He has also been a very significant donor to both of our major political parties,” he said.
“He has given more than $4m since 2004. He has also donated $45m to universities in Australia. The Australian press has reported these matters and others and have been sued for defamation by CC3.
“CC3 disputes a number of the reported allegations.
“The merits of these defamation cases are appropriately left for a court. 

“My concern is defamation cases can have a chilling effect on our free press.
“Any attempt to silence our media from our telling the truth, provided it is the truth, through a defamation claim can not stand.
“Our democracy only works if we have a free press which can publish information which serves the public interest.
“We don’t always like what the press writes, but they are essential to a free and flourishing democracy. The Australian people deserve the truth.”

The Chinese Ogre

Australian Furor Over Chinese Influence Follows Book’s Delay

By JACQUELINE WILLIAMS

An uproar followed an Australian publisher’s decision to postpone the release of a book by Clive Hamilton, who says Beijing is actively working to silence China’s critics.

SYDNEY, Australia — The book was already being promoted as an explosive exposé of Chinese influence infiltrating the highest levels of Australian politics and media. 

But then, months before it was set to hit bookstore shelves, its publisher postponed the release, saying it was worried about lawsuits.
The decision this month to delay the book, “Silent Invasion: How China Is Turning Australia into a Puppet State,” has set off a national uproar, highlighting the tensions between Australia’s growing economic dependence on China and its fears of falling under the political control of the rising Asian superpower.
Critics have drawn parallels to decisions this year by high-profile academic publishers in Europe to withhold articles from readers in China that might anger the Communist Party.
But the case has struck a particularly sensitive nerve in Australia, where the book’s delay is the latest in a series of incidents that have raised concerns about what many here see as the threat from China to freedom of expression.

“The decision by Allen & Unwin to stall publication of this book almost proves the point that there’s an undue level of Chinese influence in Australia,” said Prof. Rory Medcalf, head of the National Security College at Australian National University. Allen & Unwin is one of Australia’s largest publishers.
In the yet-unpublished book, the author, Clive Hamilton, a well-known intellectual and professor at Charles Sturt University in Australia, describes what he calls an orchestrated campaign by Beijing to influence Australia and silence China’s critics.
In one chapter, according to Mr. Hamilton, the book asserts that senior Australian journalists were taken on junkets to China in order to “shift their opinions” so they would present China in a more positive light.

Mr. Hamilton says the company that was set to publish his book expressed concerns about possible lawsuits by Beijing.

In another chapter, he said the book details what he calls links between Australian scientists and researchers at Chinese military universities, which he said had led to a transfer of scientific know-how to the People’s Liberation Army.
The book had been scheduled to be published in April, and Mr. Hamilton had already turned in a manuscript. 

But Allen & Unwin, based in Sydney, suddenly informed him on Nov. 2 that it wanted to postpone publishing because of legal concerns.
Mr. Hamilton responded by demanding the return of the publication rights, effectively canceling the book’s publication by Allen & Unwin. 

Mr. Hamilton says he will seek another publisher.
Mr. Hamilton said the decision had been made for fear of angering Beijing, and shows China’s ability to limit what information Australians can see — exactly the sort of influence that he said he warned about in his book.
“This is the first case, I believe, where a major Western publisher has decided to censor material critical of China in its home country,” Mr. Hamilton said in an interview. 

“Many people are deeply offended by this attack on free speech, and people see a basic value that defines Australia being undermined.”
In a statement, the publisher said it decided to hold off publishing the book, which would have been Mr. Hamilton’s ninth with the company, until “certain matters currently before the courts have been decided.”
It did not specify what those matters were.
“Clive was unwilling to delay publication and requested the return of his rights,” the statement said.
However, Mr. Hamilton has disclosed an email that he said was sent to him on Nov. 8 by Allen & Unwin’s chief executive, Robert Gorman. 

The email explained the decision to delay the book’s release: “April 2018 was too soon to publish the book and allow us to adequately guard against potential threats to the book and the company from possible action by Beijing.”
“Our lawyer pointed to recent legal attacks by Beijing’s agents of influence against mainstream Australian media organizations,” the email said.
The contents of the email have been widely reported by the local news media. 

When asked for comment, Allen & Unwin declined to confirm or deny its authenticity. 

Mr. Gorman has not gone public to deny the email’s authenticity.
Mr. Hamilton said the publisher was probably referring to two defamation cases that are currently in the courts aimed at two Australian media companies: the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, a major television company, and Fairfax Media, a newspaper publisher.
One of the suits was filed by Chau Chak Wing, a Chinese-Australian businessman who has been a major donor in Australian politics. 

Chinese fifth column: Chinese agent Chau Chak Wing.

Chau is seeking damages from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation for a TV news report that the suit says damaged his personal and professional reputation.

That report, which was shown on a popular current affairs program, said the Australian Security Intelligence Organization, the domestic spy agency, had warned political parties against accepting contributions from two ethnic Chinese, of whom one was Chau, because of ties to the Chinese government.
Chau has long said his campaign contributions are entirely "legal" and "unrelated" to the Chinese government.
The news report prompted a heated debate in Australia over how vulnerable its democratic political system is to foreign influence, especially from China.
The question of Chinese interference is a delicate one for Australia, an American ally that has embraced Beijing as its largest trade partner and welcomed Chinese investors, immigrants and students in large numbers.
“The book shows in great detail the problem of Chinese influence in Australia is much deeper than we thought,” said Mr. Hamilton, a prolific author who in 2009 received the Order of Australia, one of the country’s highest honors, for “service to public debate and policy development.” 

“I think some of the material I’ve uncovered have been a shock even to our intelligence agencies,” he said.
James Leibold, a professor of politics and Asian studies at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia, said the decision to withhold such a book, especially one written by a noted author like Mr. Hamilton, underscored China’s growing ability to pressure publishers and other media companies.
Last month, Springer Nature, one of the world’s largest academic publishers, came under criticism for self-censorship after it bowed to Chinese government requests to block hundreds of articles on its Chinese website that touched on delicate topics like Taiwan, Tibet and Chinese politics.
In August, another publisher, Cambridge University Press, admitted to removing some 300 articles from the Chinese website of China Quarterly, an academic journal, that mentioned issues like the 1989 Tiananmen massacre.
Experts say Allen & Unwin, the Australian publisher, has gone a step further by delaying access to a book to readers outside of China.
“Australia is a bellwether,” said Professor Medcalf of National Security College. 

“If dissent can be stifled here, then it can be stifled anywhere.”

Chinese Fifth Column

Chinese businessman subject of ASIO warning donated $200,000 to WA Liberals
By Rebecca Trigger

Chau Chak Wing's $200,000 donation was the largest one-off donation to the WA Liberal Party in 2015-16.

A $200,000 donation to the WA Liberal Party from a billionaire property developer with close ties to the Chinese Communist Party has raised questions, WA Deputy Premier Roger Cook says.
Chau Chak Wing's company Kingold Group donated the sum to the WA branch of the Liberal Party in 2015/16.
Chau, who is an Australian citizen, also made donations to the Labor Party federally.
Kingold is headquartered in Guangzhou, in southern China, and develops projects including international trade centres, commercial buildings, hotels, office and residential buildings.
A joint investigation by the ABC and Fairfax revealed earlier this week, that Chau's links to the Chinese Government were referenced in a briefing by ASIO chief Duncan Lewis in 2015.
In secret meetings with senior federal administrative officials in the major parties, Mr Lewis warned of the risks associated with accepting foreign-linked donations.

Chinese fifth column: An ASIO investigation sparks fears the Chinese Communist Party is influencing the Australian political system as questions are raised over foreign political donations.

The agency also reportedly briefed senior federal politicians including Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, his predecessor Tony Abbott, and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten.
Mr Cook on Saturday said it was important for all political parties to stick to the absolute spirit and letter of electoral laws.
"A $200,000 donation to a state branch of a political party is a hefty sum, and so you would have to ask questions in relation to the nature of that donation," he said.
"I hope what political parties are making sure is that while they acknowledge and accept political donations are a reality of our modern democratic system, and one that we rely on, that that in no way impacts upon the policies of the parties and it certainly does not impact in any way in terms of good government decisions when those parties are in Government."
WA Liberal Party director Andrew Cox said in a statement the party always conducted its fundraising in an ethical manner and fully adhered to state and federal electoral laws.
He said the Labor Party should tell the WA public how much the union movement donated to it, and what "political favours" were being provided in return.
The ABC was unable to reach Chau Chak Wing for comment.

However he told The Australian newspaper on Friday that the media reports had caused him great distress.

Chau Chak Wing is a member of a provincial-level People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), and also owns a newspaper in China. 

The press in China are closely monitored and influenced by the central government.
Chau also made donations to the federal Liberal Party of $560,000 in 2016, and $100,000 to the NSW branch.
He donated $200,000 to Labor federally.
Chau has made donations to non-political causes in Australia, most notably $20 million for the construction of a business school at the University of Technology, named the "Chau Chak Wing building".
According to Kingold's website, Chau hosted and attended events during Li Keqiang's recent visit to Australia.

Push for overseas donation reform
Notre Dame Politics and International Relations Associate Professor Martin Drum said foreign donations to political parties were banned by many Western countries but not on a state or federal level in Western Australia.
"When we don't know the structure that foreign entities operate under, their ownership structure, we don't understand the relationships they have with other overseas entities such as foreign governments, then there's extra cause for concern," he said.
Dr Drum said a recent federal parliamentary inquiry recommended foreign donations be banned.
He said under current rules entities could also make donations up to $13,200 to each political party in each state, and the federal party, without having to declare it publicly.

Watch the Four Corners report "Power and Influence" on ABC iview.

Timeo Sinesos et dona ferentes

ASIO investigation targets Communist Party links to Australian political system
A joint Four Corners-Fairfax investigation by Nick McKenzie, Chris Uhlmann, Richard Baker, Daniel Flitton, Sashka Koloff

China's fifth column: Huang Xiangmo (second from left) with Ernest Wong, former prime minster Julia Gillard and Sam Dastyari. Huang has provided large donations to the major political parties.

The cold Canberra air had yet to be tempered by the dawn when plain-clothes agents from ASIO and a locksmith assembled outside an apartment in the upmarket suburb of Kingston.
The locksmith's work done, the agents filed past two wooden Chinese artefacts standing like sentries at the entrance, and up a single flight of stairs into the apartment. 

The living room was decorated with exquisite porcelain vases and a dozen half-melted candles on a table.
The apartment belonged to Roger Uren, a tall, bookish man with thinning silver hair. 

Before resigning in August 2001, Uren was the assistant secretary of the Office of National Assessments, the agency that briefs the prime minister on highly classified intelligence matters.
Uren's speciality was China. 

Foreign affairs sources in Canberra say he was regarded as one of Australia's leading sinologists. 

In 2011, prime minister Kevin Rudd was reportedly considering appointing him as Australia's ambassador in Beijing.
A close friend of Uren describes him as eccentric. 

Under the pseudonym "John Byron", he had penned a book on Mao Zedong's feared intelligence chief, Kang Sheng, who amassed a collection of erotic art that was seized by his Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution. 

Uren shared Sheng's taste in art.
"When we visited the markets in Beijing, the erotic art sellers would call out his name because he was a regular customer," the friend recalls. 

Some of these artworks were on display as the agents from Australia's counter-intelligence agency searched the apartment in the early hours of October 7, 2015.
This raid was a small piece of a much larger picture. 

It reflects deep concern inside ASIO about China's attempts to influence Australia's politics.
The issue of foreign interference has exploded into prominence globally since the revelations of Russia's influence over the American election in favour of Donald Trump.
In Australia, it is the Chinese Communist Party causing the greatest concern, and Beijing's attempts at influence potentially extend to political players as senior as Labor's Sam Dastyari and the Liberal Party's Andrew Robb.
But neither of those men, nor even Uren himself, were the target of ASIO's 2015 raid which, until now, has remained one of Canberra's most closely guarded secrets. 

The agents were searching for evidence about somebody else entirely -- Roger Uren's wife.

Chinese mole Sheri Yan and her husband, Roger Uren

Sheri Yan 'a dynamic, active person'
Sheri Yan arrived in the United States in 1987 with $400 sewn into her clothes and a fierce desire to make something of herself. 

She met Uren, who was working as a diplomat at Australia's Washington embassy, and helped him research his Kang Sheng book.
By the time Uren returned to Australia to join the ONA in 1992, he and Yan were a couple. 

They moved together to Canberra. 

As Uren climbed the ranks of the intelligence assessment agency, Yan was forging a reputation as a fixer and lobbyist, able to open doors in Beijing for Australian and US businesses seeking access to Communist Party cadres.
She also sold her services to Chinese entrepreneurs wanting to build their fortunes overseas. 

By the time Uren resigned from the ONA in 2001 and moved with Yan to Beijing, her network was flourishing.

John Fitzgerald, a former Ford Foundation director in Beijing said he received a warning from an "old friend in Australia's security establishment" to "stay away from Yan".

Former Australian ambassador to China, Geoff Raby, who lived in the same exclusive St Regis apartment block as Yan in Beijing, described her as a "dynamic, active person, [who] speaks both languages perfectly, is charming, and comes from a well-connected background".
Yan's business network includes the US software tycoon Peter Norton, high-flying Australian corporate figure and Australia's former New York consul general, Phil Scanlan, and former ABC chairman Maurice Newman. 

She also knew several senior Australian politicians.
But not everyone trusted Sheri Yan. 

John Fitzgerald, a former Ford Foundation director in Beijing turned Swinburne University China expert, told Four Corners and Fairfax Media of a warning he received from an "old friend in Australia's security establishment" to "stay away from Yan".
"I understand that Sheri Yan is very closely connected with some of the most powerful and influential families and networks in China," Mr Fitzgerald said.
"Once you know that, you don't need to know much more."
Among Yan's Chinese clients was billionaire property developer, Chau Chak Wing. 

Chau is known in Australia for his large political donations, philanthropy and for buying the nation's most expensive house, James Packer's Sydney mansion, for $70 million, sight unseen.
He gave $20 million for the construction of the business school University of Technology, Sydney, which was designed by Frank Gehry, and is called the "Chau Chak Wing building".
And over the years, Chau donated more than $4 million to Labor and the Coalition. 

Among his contacts were senior politicians on both sides of the aisle, including John Howard and Kevin Rudd.
As ex-prime ministers, both have visited Chau's palatial conference centre and resort, Imperial Springs, in the thriving Guangdong province in China's south.
According to a close friend of Yan, Chau engaged her as a business consultant for 18 months around 2007 and again in 2013, when she helped entice global A-listers to his conference centre.
Then it all came tumbling down.

Bribery scandal unfolds across Pacific
The covert ASIO raid of Yan and Uren's Canberra property in October 2015 was timed to coincide with events across the Pacific. 

In New York, Yan and several other Chinese business people were being arrested by the FBI for running a bribery racket in the United Nations.
According to US District Attorney Preet Bharara, Yan and her co-accused had paid kickbacks to the president of the United Nations general assembly, John Ashe, and in return, Ashe performed certain services for wealthy Chinese businessmen.
"For Rolex watches, bespoke suits and a private basketball court, John Ashe, the 68th President of the UN General assembly, sold himself and the global institution he led," Mr Bharara told journalists at a briefing announcing the arrests.

UN greed: For Rolex watches, bespoke suits and a private basketball court, John Ashe, the 68th President of the UN General assembly, sold himself and the global institution he led.

ASIO suspected, though, that Yan's activities extended well beyond bribery. 

Classified material shared between FBI counter-espionage officials and ASIO prior to the Canberra raid suggested Yan was working with Chinese intelligence.
And a Four Corners-Fairfax Media investigation has established that, in the apartment she shared with Uren, ASIO agents located highly classified Australian documents. 

Uren had apparently removed them from the ONA prior to his departure in August 2001.
The documents contained details of what Western intelligence agencies knew about their Chinese counterparts.
ASIO called in the federal police to launch an inquiry. 

Well-placed sources have confirmed Uren may face criminal charges.
But it is understood the documents are not the main game for ASIO. 

While the agency never comments publicly on its operations, it is understood the investigation into Yan involves suspicions she may have infiltrated or sought clandestine influence in Australia and the US on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party.
In his brief interview, Uren labelled the notion "pure fantasy" concocted by the FBI.
"They think anyone who is Chinese is a spy," he said.
But professor Rory Medcalf, who directs the Australian National University's National Security College, says the ASIO raid would not have occurred without "the authorisation of the Attorney General" and input from "many parts of the Australian national security community."

Potential to cause harm to nation's sovereignty

Professor Rory Medcalf says ASIO has a "real concern" about the Chinese Communist Party's influence in Australia.

Mr Medcalf believes the targeting of Yan reflects a small part of a "deep and real concern" inside ASIO about the Chinese Communist Party's secret interference to influence operations in Australia.
Eight serving government officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, broadly confirmed Mr Medcalf's assessment.
Several of these officials also confirmed that in the months leading up to the ASIO raid, the agency had been collating intelligence suggesting Australia was the target of an opaque foreign interference campaign by China on a larger scale than that being carried out by any other nation.
The Chinese Communist Party was working to infiltrate Australian political and foreign affairs circles, as well to gain more influence over the nation's growing Chinese population.
ASIO feared the campaign was succeeding. 

In comments to a Senate committee at the end of May (which were overshadowed by a controversy about refugees and terrorism), director general Duncan Lewis appeared to confirm this.
"Espionage and foreign interference continue to occur on an unprecedented scale and 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 didn't name Beijing. 

But ASIO's serious concern about the Chinese Communist Party were on clear display when analysts working for Mr Lewis prepared an extraordinary document in the weeks before the Sheri Yan raid in October 2015.
It was created so that Mr Lewis could show it to the senior officials of Australia's Liberal, Labor and National parties to warn them about accepting political donations from China.
A number of people who have seen the document described it -- at the top was a diagram representing the Chinese Communist Party with lines connected this diagram to photos of two Chinese-born billionaires.
These two men were known to dislike each other. 

Both had amassed significant wealth in China. 

Both are significant donors to Australia's political parties. 

One of them was a businessman called Huang Xiangmo. 

The other was Sheri Yan's sometime employer, Chau Chak Wing.

Chau Chak Wing takes legal action against media
Chau Chak Wing was given the codename 'CC3' in a sealed indictment in a New York court. 

Chau Chak Wing is not directly named in court documents unsealed by US officials in the Sheri Yan UN bribery case, but he is referred to by a pseudonym, "CC3".
CC3 was an "old friend" of Yan whose firm had wired $200,000 to UN chief John Ashe to make the payment organised by Yan. 

There is no evidence that Chau knew it was illegal to pay a speaking fee to a UN official.
The money was paid to secure Ashe's appearance in his official capacity at Chau Chak Wing's palatial Imperial Springs conference centre. 

Several former politicians would be there, including Bill Clinton.
Under US bribery laws, Ashe's status as a serving UN official meant it was illegal for him to receive payments. 

He was charged alongside Yan, but "died" last year, shortly before a guilty plea from Yan led to her jailing for 20 months.
While she is still in prison, Chau Chak Wing has faced no criminal charges. 

He has taken legal action against Australian media outlets for any suggestion he is involved in impropriety and his representatives have assured his Australian political contacts that Chau has no connection to the wrongdoing of others targeted by the FBI.
Chau Chak Wing declined to answer questions put by Four Corners and Fairfax Media, and he appears to have shrugged off the matter. 

Two weeks after "CC3" was identified in FBI documents, former prime minister Kevin Rudd attended Chau Chak Wing's Guangdong conference centre to speak at a global leadership event.

Kevin Rudd in talks with Chau Chak Wing: There is not yet evidence that Rudd received money from Chau.

Chinese donors are channels to advance Beijing's interests
ASIO chief Duncan Lewis's document picturing Chau Chak Wing and Huang Xiangmo was essentially a prop. 

Three times he removed it from a black briefcase to display to three different men -- Brian Loughnane, the Liberal Party's federal director; George Wright, Labor's national secretary; and Scott Mitchell, the National Party's federal director.

ASIO's Duncan Lewis warned politicians of the risks associated with Chinese donations. 

They were at the time the most senior administrative officials of Australia's major political parties, and Mr Lewis's document conveyed a strong message: be wary of Chinese donors.
''[Lewis] said 'be careful','' says a source who is aware of what the trio were told.
"He was saying that the connections between these guys and the Communist Party is strong," says another political figure briefed about the content of the ASIO warning.
ASIO also warned this connection meant the donors could be channels to advance Beijing's interests.
In his briefings, Mr Lewis was careful to stress that neither Chau Chak Wing nor Huang Xiangmo was accused of any crime and that Mr Lewis wasn't instructing the parties to stop taking their donations. 

But he described how the Chinese Communist Party co-opts influential businessmen by rewarding those who assist it.
This meant there was a risk Chau Chak Wing's donations, which are made via the Australian citizen's companies, might come with strings attached.
Chau's ownership of a newspaper in China places him in effective partnership with Communist Party propaganda authorities, while his membership of a provincial-level People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) is also telling.
CPPCCs ostensibly oversee China's political and policy making system, but in reality they are used to entrench the Communist Party's monopoly power and advance its interests in China and abroad.
People such as Chau who make the cut as members of a CPPCC are screened by the Communist Party's United Front Work Department, a unique agency that aims to win over friends and isolate enemies in order to further the party's agenda.
In May 2015, Xi Jinping publicly championed the United Front and the CPPCC, describing their mission as "persuading people… to expand the strength of the common struggle".
"We have to assume that individuals like Chau have really deep, serious connections to the Chinese Communist Party," Mr Medcalf said.
"Even if they're not receiving any kind of direction, they would feel some sense of obligation, or indeed to make the right impression on the powers that be in China, to demonstrate that they're being good members of the party, that they're pursuing the party's interests."
Mr Medcalf said ASIO's decision to come out of the shadows and identify Chau in its briefings to the Coalition and Labor is "certainly unusual" ... "it would reflect very real concern," he said.

Political donations are made 'with a purpose'
The most recent head of Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Peter Varghese is also troubled by the willingness of political parties to take foreign money. 

He warns political donations are made "with a purpose" and large Chinese companies act in accordance with the interests of the Communist Party.

Peter Varghese says Australia is on the cusp of significant changes.

"The Chinese system is such that the dividing line between a state decision, and a decision by a company that may be anticipating what is in the interests of the state, is rather blurred," he said.
The former DFAT chief is encouraging debate about Chinese interference because the stakes are so high. 

Any influence sought by Beijing may ultimately be aimed at advancing the strategic interests, activities and values of an authoritarian, one party state.
Australia is one of the few western countries that accepts political donations from foreigners, although the fact that Chau is an Australian citizen shows that a ban on donations from non-citizens may not mitigate the risk identified by Mr Varghese.
"It goes back to how we want to frame our laws on political donations and making sure people reveal their connections back to China if they are taking a position on a particular policy issue," he said.
If Chau has taken a position on any policy issue in Australia, he's not done so publicly. 

All he appears to have sought via his donations is access to some of Australia's most powerful men and women. 

But for the Chinese Communist Party, access to the right networks may be worthwhile in and of itself.
This is why Sheri Yan sought to compromise UN chief John Ashe, according to former CIA officer turned China-watcher Peter Mattis.
Mr Mattis said figures such as Yan who know how to cultivate networks of influence are "useful not only for getting things done, not only for injecting Chinese perspectives into [the networks], but also for being able to say, 'here are the players, here are the people who are important, here are their personal foibles'."
Chau Chak Wing may only ever have sought access, but the same can't be said of the second billionaire pictured alongside him in the ASIO briefing document.

Huang known by two formal identities
As with many men able to drop $100,000 at a casino or on a political donation, Huang Xiangmo is used to getting his way.
So it was with some consternation that, in early 2016, the lively businessman who sports a comb-over became worried his application for Australian citizenship was progressing more slowly than anticipated.
One thing bothering immigration authorities was the curious fact Huang Xiangmo had two separate formal identities -- he's also known as Huang Changran. 

But there was another reason for the delay. 

Huang's application was being assessed by ASIO.
Huang had likely become of interest to ASIO for a range of reasons. 

One was his leadership of the Australian arm of the Chinese Council for the Promotion of the Peaceful Reunification of China.
Former US Defence department China specialist Mark Stokes, an expert on Chinese Communist Party influence operations, said the Beijing headquarters of that organisation manages a "global outreach" project overseen by the Communist Party's United Front Work Department.
The "peaceful reunification" work of the council involves undermining the Taiwan and Hong Kong independence movements and asserting China's fiercely disputed claims over the South China Sea. 

Mr Stokes has also documented the Beijing-based council's links to Chinese intelligence agencies.
Huang's role as president of the Australian Council for the Promotion of the Peaceful Reunification of China places him at the vanguard of the United Front's lobbying in Australia.
"He's a key member supported by the Chinese authorities, including the embassy or the consulate here," said Sydney University of Technology's China academic and communist party critic Dr Feng Chongyi.
Huang told Four Corners and Fairfax Media in a statement that, while it supported the one China policy, the ACPPRC was "an autonomous, non-government organisation", and it was "incorrect to describe… [it] as an affiliate" of the United Front Work Department or the Chinese Communist Party. The organisation "supports economic and cultural exchange programs and charitable causes," he said.
But according to Dr Feng, Huang's council role affords him immense influence and status, as well as a launching pad into Australian politics.

Sydney University of Technology's China academic Dr Feng Chongyi said Mr Huang's council role affords him immense influence and status.

'Life was a struggle'
The way Huang built his Australian network is all the more remarkable given his humble beginnings in the back blocks of southern China's Guangdong province.
As a 15-year-old, Mr Huang left school for a year to look after his impoverished family after the sudden death of his father.
"Life was a struggle, especially with five children to feed," he recently told a Chinese magazine. "Despite the hardships we were a close family."
In 2001, he scraped together enough funds to form the Yuhu Investment Development Company in Shenzen, a buzzing metropolis in Guangdong. 

He built upmarket villas and apartment blocks before diversifying into energy and agriculture. 

He also formed the close Communist Party connections expected of any billionaire property developer in China.
In 2011, Mr Huang moved to Australia. 

He claims to have been seeking new business opportunities and a place to raise his children where the "people are warm and friendly and the air is clean, very clean".
Australia was also free of the endemic corruption and corresponding anti-graft purges of the Chinese Communist Party that created an uncertain and sometimes hostile business environment for entrepreneurs.

Beijing's stooges: Huang Xiangmo donated $1.8 million to help build the Australia China Relations Institute at the University of Technology Sydney headed by Bob Carr.

In 2012, one of Huang's key Communist Party contacts in his home-town of Jieyang was targeted for corruption, a fact Mr Huang has privately brushed off as irrelevant.
After arriving in Sydney, Huang developed a shopping centre and launched a philanthropy blitz, donating millions of dollars to medical research and universities, including $1.8 million to help found the Australia China Relations Institute at the University of Technology Sydney.
The institute is headed by Bob Carr, whom Huang claims he hand-picked. 

Carr (who declined an interview request) disputes this, although it's unquestionable that Huang's large donation provided an open channel to the former foreign minister and premier.
Huang quickly became known as a "whale" in political fundraising circles. 

The nickname was earned with his very first donation: $150,000 to the NSW branch of the ALP on November 19, 2012. 

That same day, two of Huang's close associates, Chinese businessmen and peaceful reunification members Luo Chuangxiong and Peter Chen, gave an additional $350,000.
Huang and his allies' large donations were initially handled by the then ALP NSW secretary Sam Dastyari, along with Chinese community leader and ALP identity Ernest Wong, who quickly became one of  Huang's point men in Labor.
As well as encouraging Huang's campaign fundraising, Dastyari requested the developer donate $5,000 to settle an outstanding legal bill he had accumulated as party secretary.
In the Liberal camp, Huang was also dealing with high-flyers. 

They included trade minister Andrew Robb, whose Victorian fundraising vehicle was given $100,000 by Huang, and Tony Abbott, who encountered Huang at Liberal fundraisers where, in the lead up to the 2013 selection, the Chinese businessman donated $770,000.
Huang moved with ease across the political aisle. 

Dastyari and Robb both effusively praised Huang's "philanthropy" at charity or community events organised by the developer.

For sale: Andrew Robb in September 2014 with Hoang Xiangmo

"He is a man of many dimensions from what I've already been able to determine," said Robb at a December 2013 charity event.
"He's a very thoughtful, cerebral fellow. I've had many interesting conversations already with Huang on an endless range of topics."
Robb said Huang's donation to Bob Carr's Australia-China Relations Institute showed he was a "visionary".
"China is going to be an integral part of all of our futures, and it is absolutely imperative that we build the closest possible relationship," Robb said.

At least $2.6m donated to the major parties
Huang first turned his political connections into a request for a favour in early 2013. 

Court records show it involved a minor immigration matter. 

His ally, Ernest Wong, was at the time an ALP deputy mayor, who Huang would recruit as an advisor to his Australian Council for the Promotion of the Peaceful Reunification of China (Wong had, years earlier, been part of the council under its previous leadership).
Wong wrote a letter of support to help Huang secure a work visa for a Chinese employee. 

The Migration Review Tribunal later rejected the application because the proposed job referred to was not genuine.

Huang (circled) at the launch of the Association's Chinese New Year Lantern Festival with Chinese and Australian Government officials.

Shortly after Wong penned the letter in question, in May 2013, he was parachuted into a NSW state parliament upper house seat left vacant by the resignation of former Labor member Eric Roozendaal. 

It was a curious affair, if only for the timing.
Roozendaal was suspended from Labor on November 7, 2012 over a corruption scandal.

This meant his place on the ALP's upper house ticket would need to be eventually filled.
Twelve days later, Huang and two fellow Peaceful Reunification council members donated $500,000 to the NSW ALP. 

After Wong took Roozendaal's place in the upper house, Huang employed Mr Roozendaal to work in his development firm.
Huang's donations to both major parties continued. 

Records reveal that over four years, Huang and his close associates or employees gave at least $2.6 million to the major parties.
It was these donations, along with Huang's Communist Party ties, that led to him being featured in the briefing spy chief Duncan Lewis gave the three political party chiefs in 2015.
The same qualification that applies to Chau Chak Wing also covers Huang --  Huang's donations were legal, and ASIO said the parties were under no obligation to refuse them.
Huang declined to answer detailed questions, but has denied any wrongdoing. 

In the right company, though, Huang himself has made no secret of his political views. 

Around the time of the ASIO briefing, he spoke at an event at the Chinese consulate to celebrate 66 years of Communist Party rule.

"We overseas Chinese unswervingly support the Chinese government's position to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity [and] support the development of the motherland as always," he said.
Huang's desire to champion Beijing's territorial claims eventually led to a clash with ALP policy. 

But in the months leading up to the election, Huang's most pressing concern was his application to become an Australian citizen. 

It had been temporarily blocked as ASIO attempted to understand his relationship with the Chinese Communist Party and other discrepancies in his application.
Huang did not know that Australian authorities had concerns, at least not initially. 

All he knew was that his application was taking far longer than he believed it should. 

The answer, he believed, lay not with a migration agent or lawyer, but with the intervention of his political friends.
"In China, the system works like that," explains a well-placed source.
Huang attempted to recruit a number of politicians to his citizenship cause, including former prime minister Tony Abbott. 

Several politicians agreed to help, but it appears only one followed through -- Sam Dastyari.
On four separate occasions over the first six months of 2016, Dastyari or his office called the Immigration Department to quiz officials about the status of Huang's application. 

The senator made at least two of these calls personally.

An Immigration Department spokesperson said citizenship was only granted for people of good character who could meet identity requirements, and who were not subject to adverse ASIO assessments.

"The Department is not influenced by representations, no matter who they are from, if the applicant does not meet the requirements of the Citizenship Act."
As for Dastyari's calls on Huang's behalf, one official said: "It shows a pattern of conduct, beyond a single call the department might get from a politician about a constituent".

$400,000 donation in question
Around the time of Dastyari's last call, and as the 2016 election neared, Huang promised the ALP another $400,000 in donations -- money the party desperately needed to fund its campaign. 

But then  Huang received some bad news. 

The ALP was publicly and unexpectedly challenging one of the core doctrines of Beijing's foreign policy.
At a lunchtime address on June 16, Labor shadow defence spokesman Stephen Conroy told the National Press Club that China's actions in the South China Sea were destabilising and absurd.
Labor, he said, was open to the Australian Navy conducting freedom-of-navigation exercises in the area.
In Beijing, the Chinese Communist Party viewed this as an unwelcome challenge. 

In Sydney, Huang decided to act.
He called ALP fundraising officials in Victoria. 

Mr Conroy's comments meant he could no longer deliver the promised $400,000 in donations. 

The ALP pushed for Huang to honour his commitment, but he stood firm. 

Mr Conroy had crossed the line and his comments would cost the ALP dearly.
Still Huang wasn't prepared to give up on Labor entirely. 

Just a day after Mr Conroy launched his South China Sea salvo, Dastyari and Huang spoke at adjacent lecterns at a press conference attended by the Chinese language media.
"The South China Sea is China's own affair," Dastyari stated. 

"On this issue, Australia should remain neutral and respect China's decision".
There is no suggestion Dastyari knew directly of the threat to the $400,000 donation.
Those comments cost Dastyari his frontbench job amid a storm of publicity after the election over why he had allowed Huang to pay for the $5,000 legal bill in 2014, and a second Chinese donor to contribute to pay a $1,670 office travel expense.
In response Dastyari said he had broken contact with Huang after "the events of last year".
Huang's use of a $400,000 donation as leverage over the ALP's foreign policy has remained hidden until now. 

It came about a year after ASIO had first put the political parties on notice about Huang's likely connections back in China.
"It's precisely the kind of example of economic inducement being turned into economic leverage or coercion," said Rory Medcalf from the ANU National Security College.
"It's a classic example of a benefit being provided, but then withheld as a way of punishment, and as a way of influencing Australia policy independence."
A few days after Huang said he would withdraw his offer of the $400,000 donation, he appeared at a Labor press conference to announce two Chinese candidates for the last two spots on the ALP's senate ticket.
One of the candidates was active ALP member Simon Zhou, a close associate and member of Huang's peaceful reunification council.
Zhou also helped raise funds for the NSW ALP, with two of his business associates donating $60,000 in May 2016. 

Huang also asked the NSW ALP to appoint Zhou as a multicultural adviser (the ALP insists he was appointed on merit).
At the event announcing Zhou and Han's candidacy, Huang told Chinese-language media "the Chinese realise that they need to make their voices heard in the political circle, so as to seek more interests for the Chinese, and let Australia's mainstream society pay more attention to the Chinese".
Huang's withdrawal of the 2016 donation is understood to have not only concerned some within Labor, but to have caused grave concern inside Australia's security community and the US embassy in Canberra.
Several sources have also confirmed that in September 2016, ASIO briefed Bill Shorten about Huang. 

Mr Shorten responded by directing his colleagues to cut ties to the donor. 

The opposition leader also issued a public call for a ban on foreign donations.

Call for reform on foreign donations

In Washington DC, Australia's role as one of the only western nations not to have banned foreign donations, continues to cause alarm.
But despite promises for donations reform from senior figures in both parties, nothing firm has happened. 

Many politicians still appear more interested in attracting foreign cash than ensuring the integrity of our political system.
It is clear the problem is not confined to donations and Australia's national security agencies continue to sound the alarm behind closed doors.
"There's an awareness of a problem, but the agencies themselves don't have the mandate or the wherewithal to manage the problem," Mr Medcalf warned.
"All they can do is sound the alarm and alert the political class. The political class needs to take a set of decisions in the interest of Australian sovereignty, in the interest of Australia's independent policy making, to restrict and limit foreign influence in Australian decision making."
After being briefed on the findings of the investigation by Fairfax Media and Four Corners and sent a list of questions, the Turnbull Government has stressed it is not only listening to the warnings but prepared to act.
In a statement, Attorney General George Brandis revealed Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull had launched a major inquiry into Australia's espionage and foreign interference laws.
"The threat of political interference by foreign intelligence services is a problem of the highest order and it is getting worse," Mr Brandis said.
"Espionage and covert foreign interference by nation states is a global reality which can cause immense harm to our national sovereignty, to the safety of our people, our economic prosperity, and to the very integrity of our democracy."
Mr Brandis also flagged the introduction of new laws to "strengthen our agencies' ability to investigate and prosecute acts of espionage and foreign interference."
His statement is certain to rile Beijing. 

It will also concern certain political players in Australia, who will be hoping any inquiry is confined to finding gaps in the law and leaves alone the previous conduct of individuals.

Watch the Four Corners report "Power and Influence" on ABC iview.

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."

Der Anschluss Australiens 吞并澳大利亚进入中国

Australian Politics Is Open to Chinese Cash
Australia’s intelligence had identified two Chinese businessmen, Huang Xiangmo and Chau Chak Wing, who have donated millions across the political spectrum in recent years, as agents for the Chinese government.

By DAMIEN CAVE and JACQUELINE WILLIAMS

Huang Xiangmo, a prominent businessman of Chinese descent, in Sydney last year. Huang is one of two donors Australia’s intelligence chief had identified as agents for the Chinese government.

SYDNEY, Australia — As the United States investigates Russia’s efforts to sway last year’s presidential election, Australia is engaged in a heated debate over how vulnerable its own political system is to foreign influence — and whether China is already meddling in it.
The issue was thrust to the forefront this week by a report that Australia’s intelligence chief had identified two prominent businessmen of Chinese descent, who have donated millions across the political spectrum in recent years, as agents for the Chinese government.
One of the donors is said to have withdrawn a large contribution last year because of a political party’s position on the disputed South China Sea, suggesting a back-room effort to shift public discussion of a policy issue in Beijing’s favor.
The question of Chinese interference is a sensitive one for Australia, an American "ally" that has embraced Beijing as its largest trade partner and welcomed Chinese investors and immigrants in large numbers. 

The political establishment here has generally been reluctant to tackle the issue.
But the nation is now asking how a multicultural society should police a Communist power that has a record of mobilizing, and bullying, ethnic Chinese overseas to support its goals.

China’s attempts to translate its economic might into political influence have caused unease in many countries. 

But the challenge is acute in Australia.
Many Australians view good ties with China as critical to their future prosperity, and Australia is an especially enticing and easy target for Beijing because of its strategic value in the Pacific — and because foreign donations are both legal and difficult to track in its loose, opaque campaign finance system.
By contrast, such donations are largely banned in the United States, Canada and throughout most of Europe.

The Chau Chak Wing Building, on the University of Technology Sydney campus, is named after a Chinese billionaire property developer who gave $15 million to the school. Australia’s intelligence chief has identified Chau as a agent for the Chinese government. 

Australia's new master: Chau Chak Wing and John Howard share a toast.

“It’s not so much that China is more active but that Australia is more receptive and more vulnerable,” said John Fitzgerald, a professor at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia, who studies civil society in China.
Concern about the influence of Chinese money erupted with new disclosures about the two businessmen, both billionaire property developers: Chau Chak Wing, an Australian citizen, and Huang Xiangmo, a resident who has applied for citizenship.
Duncan Lewis, the director of the Australian Security Intelligence Organization, warned leading political parties two years ago against accepting contributions from the men because of their ties to the Chinese government, according to a joint report by Fairfax Media newspapers and “Four Corners,” a current affairs television program.
But the Liberal Party and its governing coalition partners, as well as the opposition Labor Party, continued to take the money. 

The news organizations found that the men and their associates had made at least $5 million in political donations in Australia in recent years, including more than $820,000 since Mr. Lewis’s warning.
The most striking disclosure, though, revolves around a donation that did not occur. 

As a general election approached last year, Huang pledged to give an additional $300,000 to the Labor Party. 

But weeks before the vote, the report said, he rescinded the offer and made clear why: He was upset about a party official saying Australia should send naval patrols to challenge Beijing’s claims to the South China Sea.
The Pentagon has urged Australia to join it on such patrols, but the government has resisted.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said he was preparing legislation to ban foreign political donations. 

“Just as modern China was based on an assertion of national sovereignty, so China should always respect the sovereignty of other nations, including our own,” he said.
But the broader problem may be the role of big money in Australian politics. 

Campaign financing is largely unregulated, with no limits on fund-raising, donations or spending, and critics say that has resulted in a culture of corruption that Chinese donors have learned to exploit.
At the federal level, it takes seven to 19 months for the public to learn how much parties have raised and from whom, and donors are identified only if they have contributed more than 13,500 Australian dollars, or about $10,000. 

As a result, individuals, and corporations, can anonymously make multiple donations below that threshold. 

At the same time, Australian politicians are not required to explain what they do with the money.

Duncan Lewis, the director of Australia’s domestic intelligence agency, warned leading political parties two years ago against accepting donations from two prominent businessmen because of their ties to the Chinese government.

“What we have is a thick shroud of secrecy regarding political donations at the federal level,” said Joo-Cheong Tham, an associate professor at Melbourne Law School. 

“I think that clearly gives rise to corruption and undue influence.”
Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson hinted at Washington’s concern after meetings in Sydney on Monday. 

“We cannot allow China to use its economic power to buy its way out of other problems,” he said.
A report by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation last year concluded that businesses and individuals “with Chinese connections” had donated more than 5.5 million Australian dollars to the main political parties from 2013 to 2015, “making them easily the largest source of foreign-linked donations.”
But defining what a “Chinese connection” is and when it should matter is contentious, because more than 4 percent of Australia’s population is of Chinese ancestry.

One of the donors flagged by Australian intelligence, Chau Chak Wing, immigrated decades ago. 

He has long maintained that his campaign contributions are benign and unrelated to the Chinese government. 

But his profile suggests close ties with the Chinese authorities, and his political contacts in Australia would enhance his stature in China.
His company, the Kingold Group, and its sprawling real estate empire are based in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou. 

He also has invested in a newspaper there, linking him to the state propaganda apparatus, and is a member of a provincial body that advises the Communist Party.
The other donor, Huang Xiangmo, moved to Australia six years ago and leads the Australian Council for the Promotion of the Peaceful Reunification of China, which promotes Beijing’s foreign policy positions, including its assertion that Taiwan is part of China and opposition to independence for Tibet. 

Though such views are common among Chinese, Huang’s fortune — the holdings of his Yuhu Group range from agriculture to malls — means his voice commands attention.

Andrew Robb, second from right, the trade minister at the time, signing a trade agreement with China in 2015. Mr. Robb was reported to have received a part-time consulting contract worth more than $650,000 a year from a Chinese billionaire. 

In an editorial published in a state-run newspaper in China last year, he said coverage about Chinese contributions distorting Australian politics was racially biased. 

He added that Chinese in Australia had long been expected to pay tribute to politicians with donations but stay quiet on policy.
“The Chinese realize that they need to make their voices heard in the political circle so as to seek more interests for the Chinese,” he told reporters recently.
In a statement on Tuesday, though, he denied linking his donations to foreign policy. 

“I expect nothing in return,” he said. 

“While some seek to reinforce negative stereotypes about Chinese involvement in Australia, I am committed to more positive pursuits.”
Chen Yonglin, a former Chinese consular official in Australia who defected in 2005, said the donations disclosed so far were “very small compared to the transactions completed under the table,” including free trips to China and other gifts to politicians that can be impossible to track.
The uproar has focused attention on a revolving door in which politicians sometimes go to work for Chinese companies after leaving office. 

The former trade minister, Andrew Robb, who negotiated a trade pact with China, have received a part-time consulting contract worth more than $650,000 a year from a Chinese billionaire.
China’s growing leverage over academia has also come under scrutiny as universities have become increasingly dependent on tuition paid by Chinese students and, in some cases, donations from Chinese benefactors. 

Beijing is using this leverage to stifle critical views.
Chau Chak Wing, for example, gave $15 million to the University of Technology Sydney for a building that bears his name, and Huang’s money helped establish the Australia-China Relations Institute at the university, overseen by a former foreign minister, Bob Carr.
Feng Chongyi, a professor at the university who has criticized the Communist Party’s suppression of dissent, said the institute had repeatedly brushed off his efforts to get involved.

Professor Feng said Australia must decide whether money or values defined its politics. 

“The question is whether you’re willing to make sacrifices to fight these illiberal tendencies,” he said, in his tiny office near the gleaming Chau Chak Wing Building on campus. 

“If you don’t maintain your core values, it’s all just business.”