China is building large
covert informant networks inside Australia's leading universities, prompting
Australia to strengthen its counter-intelligence capabilities.
Chinese intelligence
officials have confirmed to Fairfax Media that they are building networks to
monitor the ethnic Chinese community to protect Beijing's "core
interests".
Much of the
monitoring work takes place in higher education institutions, including Sydney
University and Melbourne University, where more than 90,000 students from
mainland China are potentially exposed to ideas and activities not readily
available at home.
Fairfax has
interviewed lecturers and Chinese-born students who have suffered repercussions
because of comments they made in Australian classrooms which were reported
through Chinese intelligence channels. "I was interrogated four times in
China," said a senior lecturer at a high-ranking Australian university.
He was questioned by
China's main spy agency over comments he made at a seminar about democracy at
the University of NSW. "They showed me the report. I can even name the
lady who sent the report."
Such informant
networks are driving the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation to
increase its capabilities. ''They have more resources in Sydney University than
we do,'' an Australian official said. ''No question.''
The shift under way
in Australian counter-intelligence priorities potentially heralds the end of an
era that has been overwhelmingly dominated by counter-terrorism since the
attacks of September 11, 2001.
It illustrates the
complexities of a rising China, whose leaders have recently recommitted to
economic reforms while inoculating their
Leninist political
system against change and Western influence.
China's electronic
espionage capabilities are broadly known, with high-profile examples of Chinese
servers being used to penetrate Australia's largest companies, most senior
politicians and even ASIO's new high-tech headquarters in Canberra, which
remains unopened as a result.
But China's human
intelligence and ''influence'' networks have proven more difficult to identify
and respond to.
At the overt level,
education counsellors in Chinese diplomatic missions organise Chinese-born
students into associations through which they can provide support services. In
part, they are providing assistance and a sense of community that many
Australian universities are failing to deliver, said John Fitzgerald, of
Swinburne University.
"Australian
universities don't know what it means to host international students
properly," said Professor Fitzgerald, who is an expert on Chinese
communities in Australia. "It means that students from China feel they are
being hosted by the Chinese government in Australia.''
The Chinese
government-led student associations are also used to gather intelligence and
promote core political objectives, according to Chinese officials, Australian
officials and members of Australia's Chinese community.
Chen Yonglin, a
Chinese diplomat who defected to Australia in 2005, said on Sunday that
students were an important part of embassy and consular work.
Mr Chen, now a
businessman in Sydney, confirmed that Chinese diplomats set up Chinese student
associations at each university, appointed their leaders, and ensured they were
well-funded.
''The students are
useful for welcoming leaders at airports and blocking protest groups from
sight, and also collecting information,'' he said.
Separately, he said,
Chinese state security officials in and outside diplomatic missions ran student
agents ''to infiltrate dissident groups especially [relating to] Tibet and
Falun Gong''.
In 2005 Chinese
officials rejected Mr Chen's claim he was aware of ''over 1000 Chinese secret
agents and informants in Australia''.
Jocelyn Chey, a
former diplomat in Beijing and Hong Kong who is a fellow at the Institute of
International Affairs and visiting professor at the University of Sydney, said:
"It's quite clear that a large part of the business of Chinese diplomatic
missions here is just keeping tabs on their citizens."
Dr Chey has watched
the networks become "increasingly complex" since the Chinese embassy
opened in Canberra in 1973.
Outside the
diplomatic missions, Chinese surveillance work is mainly co-ordinated by the
Ministry of State Security and several of the ministry's provincial bureaus.
Surveillance and
influence work is also performed by the United Front Work Department, through
various business and patriotic associations, as well as two departments of the
People's Liberation Army.
The on-campus
informant networks are constraining the conversations and actions of
Chinese-born students, who constitute the largest international market for
Australian universities.
In one case, security
officials told parents in China to constrain the activities of their son after
informants reported he had seen the Dalai Lama in Australia. According to the
lecturer who was interrogated in China, the person who informed on his comments
at the University of NSW also fabricated information about him making donations
to a democracy organisation.
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