Is the people ponzi driven by local or Chinese interests?

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From Domainfax:

Chinese businessmen with links to Foreign Minister Julie Bishop have donated half a million dollars to the Western Australian division of the Liberal Party during the past two years, political disclosures reveal.

All the donors have links to the Chinese government, and the vast bulk of the money was given by companies with no apparent business interests in WA. Ms Bishop, the leading federal member of the party in that state, has singled out each of the three key donors for praise.

Several of the donations have been obscured by the channelling of funds via executives or related companies, or by the donors’ failure to disclose them to the Australian Electoral Commission, in apparent breach of Commonwealth law.

…In 2014-15, billionaire Chau Chak Wing’s Hong Kong Kingson Investment Ltd gave $200,000 to the WA Liberal Party. The donation is listed on the party’s disclosure to the AEC, but the company made no disclosure.

The controversial tycoon has given millions to Liberal, National and Labor parties over several decades. His Kingold conglomerate has expanded from property development to hospitality, education, finance, health, media and culture that extends “from Guangzhou, Beijing and Hong Kong to Sydney and Brisbane in Australia,” according to its website. No business interests in WA are listed.

Meanwhile in 2013-14, Chinese-Australian conglomerate the Yuhu Group gave $280,000 to the WA Liberal division. According to Yuhu’s disclosures to the AEC, $230,000 was donated over three days in August 2013, the last sum coming just a week before the federal election.

…Yuhu has interests in property development, agriculture and infrastructure, but no WA investments. However, its chairman, Huang Xiangmo, is president of a pro-Beijing lobby group whose activities include lobbying against independence movements in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Tibet.

These are all people-ponzitier businesses.

The last of them is the group behind the Australia-China Relations Institute run by Bob Carr and China uber-bull Professor James Laurenceson whom you should always disregard.

Labor is as bad as the Coalition. All political donations should be banned.

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About the author
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.