Bob Carr’s “China whatever” think tank cuts ties with dodgy money

Take another look at this video from 7.30 Report earlier this week:

Note the material from 3.15 in which the ABC links a string of NSW politicians with Yuhu Group, likely massaging policy and even influencing who gets pre-selected for NSW upper house seats.

This corruption has already resulted directly in the resignation of Senator Sam Dastyari.

Yet this is the very same firm that backs Bob Carr’s Australia-China Relations Institute at UTS which employs, among others, the ultra-super-uber China bull Professor James Laurenceson, who pumps positive China views into the media as if his life depends upon it.

Bob Carr recently defended his Yuhu Group offshoot at Domainfax:

An American citizen – let’s call him Rupert Murdoch (for that is his name) – donates $15 million to set up a think tank to study Australia-US relations. I was Premier and I recall the discussion: among other things he wanted to counter anti-American sentiment in Australian universities. Later I served on the board of the US Studies Centre. Its work has been excellent.

Australia has a security treaty with the US. It’s a relationship worth studying and, at last count, there are a dozen research centres that do. Each begins with a positive view of its subject.

There is only one think tank in Australia to study the other big relationship. The Australia-China Relations Institute was founded in 2014 by a grant of $1.8 million by Chinese citizen Xiangmo Huang, now supported by UTS and funded by 15 Australian corporates. We take an optimistic view of our subject.

…Here’s the rub: some commentators think Canberra is too weak on China. Theirs is a heavily ideological foreign policy, bristling with Cold War instincts…There’s no more robust advocate for such positions than Peter Jennings, director of ASPI. What academic rigour went into Jennings’ allegation that the Chinese were behind the attacks that brought down the ABS census website?

I’m not going to pretend that Bob isn’t right about Rupert Murdoch nor that ASPI doesn’t have powerful defence links. I can’t even argue that Rupert Murdoch hasn’t horribly corrupted our political processes far more than Yuhu Group has so far managed.

But that hardly qualifies as an argument for why it is right to let Chinese money that is implicated in the corruption of NSW and national politics influence Australian debates. Two wrongs make a right went out in kindergarten.

And today we get the truth via tacit admission at AFR:

Political donor Huang Xiangmo, who paid a legal bill for NSW Labor Senator Sam Dastyari, has resigned as chairman of Bob Carr’s China institute at the University of Technology as the fallout continues from scrutiny of China’s soft power in Australia.

It can also be revealed that the management of the Australia-China Relations Institute (ACRI) has been overhauled by the university.

ACRI was subjected to a major governance review, which will now result in the board Mr Huang chaired being dissolved and the institute coming under a new management committee headed by deputy vice-chancellor Professor Bill Purcell, UTS confirmed.

…”But the major reason for me stepping down at this time, is that quite unfairly, too much has been made of my chairmanship of ACRI in the coverage about political donations and supposed Chinese influence. As a result, I do not want this to be an ongoing source of distraction from the very good work being done by the institute,” he said in a statement.

A spokesman for Mr Huang said he would now be focused on “business, philanthropic and community commitments” and would “remain supportive of ACRI’s work in a way respectful of its independence”.

Mr Huang’s company Yuhu is a member of ACRI’s Chairman’s Council. A spokesman for Mr Huang indicated this would cease and he would no longer have any official involvement with the Chairman’s Council. Pressed on whether he would have any ongoing financial involvement with the institute, a spokesman said “he is comfortable with the level of support he has provided”.

Now all we need to see is the resignation of ubiquitously conflicted UTS chancellor Brain Wilson from FIRB and/or Carlyle Group.