Australian Senate Inquiry into Espionage Debacle

Former Chinese diplomat Mr Chen Yonglin has told a Senate inquiry that his life was endangered when immigration officials insisted on phoning the Chinese consulate to confirm his identity.

His comments were given to a senate committee inquiry into asylum and protection visas for consular officials and the deportation, search and discovery of wrongly-deported Australian citizen Ms Vivian Solon.

Mr Chen on Tuesday July 26 told the committee that in applying for protection he had given the consular phone number to the Department of Immigration official, but said “please don’t call”.

On learning that the official had made the call regardless, he had hurried out of the building and gone into hiding, to later go public with his claims of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) espionage and harassment within Australia.

His testimony contradicts claims by Department of Immigration officials who said he raised no objections to them contacting the consulate.

Mr Chen’s lawyer Mark Green told the inquiry he was concerned that Foreign Minister Alexander Downer had made a decision on Mr Chen’s claim for political asylum within a day of his application.

“I find it extraordinary that a visa application of that nature, from a senior diplomat from a consulate general, would be decided without even an interview or reference to the applicant,” Mr Green said.

Submissions from other groups and individuals to the ongoing inquiry are uniformly critical, citing numerous examples of CCP interference within Australia and cases of the Australian government shirking its obligations under the 1958 Migration Act.

John Liang, Vice Chairman of Federation for a Democratic China (FDC), which was closely involved with Mr Chen’s asylum application, said the Australian government was working to appease China rather than speak out against Chinese government incursions into the freedom of Australians.

Mr Liang said the FDC was well acquainted with the Chinese regime’s interference in their overseas activities.

In one instance, the FDC says an Australian man was prevented from openly debating against a Chinese government-backed association when the Chinese-language newspapers publishing his articles were threatened by the Chinese Consulate over the telephone.

In another instance, a delegate from the Chinese consulate had threatened a minor political party and its supporters over their choice of a state election candidate, directly interfering with the democratic process in Australia.

He said this culture of appeasement was also reflected in the government’s slow handling of Mr Chen’s visa application case, and their breaching confidentiality by telephoning the consulate.

“The Australian government has invaded Iraq by justifying a moral case. Yet Mr Chen’s case is profoundly moralistic – he has thrown away a good life in China in order to expose the Chinese government’s despicable activities.”

A submission by Mr John Deller, President of the Falun Dafa Association of NSW Inc, said that the Association was concerned about the close contact between the Australian government and the Chinese officials that Mr Chen was trying to defect from.

Mr Deller related a similar instance that occurred towards four Falun Dafa practitioners isolated in Villawood detention centre and interviewed by three Chinese officials.

Mr Deller questioned whether this was lawful under the 1958 Migration Act.
“These officials are compiling data that can be used to identify and persecute the practitioners if they are forced to return to China,” he said.

While not directly criticising the Australian government, a submission by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) lays out the confidentiality provisions of the 1958 Migration Act, which other submissions suggest the Australian government was breaching in its handling of Mr Chen’s visa application.

It says that according to the Act, the primary consideration in asylum cases should be the safety of the applicants and their family members, and that a climate of confidence should be fostered through strict confidentiality.

The authority involved must not share information about the case with authorities of the country of origin, including with attempts to verify declarations or documents provided by the applicant.

The only submission so far received from the Australian government as this paper goes to print is from the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, which deals with the organisation’s duty to ensure the applicant poses no threat to Australian national security. No reference has yet been made by the Australian government of any obligation to ensure the safety of Mr Chen and his family.

The ASIO submission says that Mr Chen has been given the opportunity to bring forward any information he wishes to give about his claims of CCP interference and espionage in Australia.

Historian Dr Klaus Newman argues in a submission that historically defectors have been dissuaded from publicly seeking political asylum but instead offered favourable conditions to apply for permanent residence, thus avoiding offending the country of origin.

He says the Australian government could have avoided embarrassment had it taken that approach.

With AAP