The Australian is fighting a losing battle on the election but it has unearthed unsettling material on Labor’s deputy leader, Richard Marles, who appears to have been a driving force behind its total misreading of trends around China:
Deputy Labor leader Richard Marles held 10 meetings with the Chinese embassy or officials in the past five years, at a time when tensions were escalating in the Sino-Australia relationship and the Morrison government was frozen out of contact with Beijing.
The issue of contact with Chinese officials, including “wolf warrior” former ambassador Cheng Jingye, who was responsible for issuing a list of 14 demands to Australia, was raised with the national security apparatus, a three-month investigation by The Australian has uncovered.
Mr Marles’s contact with the embassy and attitude towards China sparked concern among Labor colleagues, sources say, including former deputy chair of the joint committee on intelligence and security, Anthony Byrne, and the late Kimberley Kitching.
At one private meeting, Mr Marles is understood to have indicated to Chinese officials that the countries’ relationship would improve under a Labor government.
The Australian has confirmed that Mr Marles met officials from the Chinese embassy or consul-general three times in 2017, once in 2018, twice in 2019, once in 2020, twice in 2021 and a meeting was scheduled with new Chinese ambassador for March 2022 but was postponed.
…Prior to The Australian’s revelations about Mr Marles’s engagement with Beijing, he had established a reputation as a hawk. Over the years, he had developed a strong relationship with the US, holding 29 meetings with US embassy officials over the time he had 10 with Chinese officials. In 2017, he met US embassy officials 10 times, eight times in 2018, five times in 2019, four times in 2020 and twice in 2021. He has also met extensively with the British, New Zealand, French and Israeli embassies.
There is much more to the piece to build the case.
I’m not accusing Marles of explicit wrongdoing. We should be talking to the CCP. But there is a clear lack of judgment in meeting Chinese officials when they have frozen out the government of the day amid a trade war, not to mention as they issue life-threatening lists of demands against democracy.
Labor can decide by itself what kind of political price it paid for this misjudgment but in terms of the national interest, it is some form of a break with foreign policy bipartisanship at a crucial moment.
Did Marles and Labor do it on purpose? To wit:
The Coalition’s muscular position toward China is not going down well with Chinese-speaking voters, while Labor is facing criticism over its more generous approach to humanitarian immigration, an analysis of WeChat audience comments reveals.
The study of more than 3,000 political news stories and associated comments appearing on the Chinese social media platform, WeChat, has been undertaken by researchers at Monash and Deakin Universities over the past 11 months, including during the election campaign.
It provides an insight into the Australian political news reaching Chinese speakers and how they are reacting to it.
It reveals that Scott Morrison dominated WeChat news coverage up until the election campaign, but Anthony Albanese has been catching up.
The study found that Chinese-Australians on WeChat were engaged in complex conversations about issues including the Australia-China relationship, the economy, interest rates and property, immigration and health.
“The key findings of the researchers are that the Liberal party has been criticised for its militaristic position towards China and its alignment with the US. Labor is not liked due to its loose humanitarian immigration scheme, but the party is more preferable compared to the LNP due to its friendlier approach to China,” the study found.
“The Greens have recently gained visible popularity among WeChat users with their friendlier approach towards China and a ‘hands-off’ approach towards Taiwan issues,” they said.
Australia needs to ban WeChat:
Chinese Australians are being shown misinformation and unauthorised political advertising on dominant social network WeChat, during a federal election campaign where major parties are courting their votes in key marginal seats.
WeChat has an estimated 690,000 daily users in Australia. The platform, owned by Chinese internet behemoth Tencent, claims it does not allow political advertising, but even a brief search reveals the widespread existence of what appear to be political ads and misinformation.
When and if it does come to blows with China, whether over Taiwan (which we should use as a trigger for economic containment not war) or over some other island as Beijing advances, will it only be then that Australia asks itself about the viability of further Chinese immigration?
With the outbreak of World War II, there were concerns in Australia about German ‘fifth-columnists’. By 1941 to 1942, many also feared a Japanese invasion. The aims of internment in World War II were to:
- identify and intern those who threatened the safety or defence of Australia
- allay public concerns
- hold internees who were sent to Australia by its overseas allies.
As the war continued, many Japanese people were interned. Germans and Italians were also interned because of their nationality, particularly those living in northern Australia. Around 20 per cent of all Italians living in Australia were interned.
At the peak of the war, Australia held more than 12,000 people in internment camps.
Over the course of the war, internees included:
- 7000 Australian residents, including 1500 British nationals
- 8000 people from overseas.
As painful as these questions are, they must be debated.
