Fu Ying, the ever smiling Chinese Ambassador to Australia, runs Canberra’s most active embassy, organising a steady stream of delegations to and from Beijing. Just last week a deputation from the International Department of the Chinese Communist Party got a rousing reception in the gallery of the Australian Parliament.
But the defection of Chen Yonglin, the first secretary (political) at the Chinese consulate-general in Sydney, marks an end to this rhapsodic relationship. The defection, and footage of Chinese labour camps on Australian television, has changed the atmospherics of the relationship, and served to remind Australians of the realities behind China’s current economic boom.
On 26 May Chen walked into the Sydney offices of the Immigration Department, where he applied for political asylum. Chen said that his job had been to spy on Chinese dissidents in Australia. He also alleged that there were up to a thousand Chinese spies operating in Australia, and that China had organised the kidnapping of Chinese dissidents in Australia, including the son of Lan Fu, the Mayor of Xiamen.
Chen’s defection has been an acute embarrassment to the Australian government. The days of the Cold War, when Australian conservatives regarded China as a dangerous Communist power threatening to overrun South-East Asia, are long gone. Today China’s rapid economic growth is beneficial to Australia. Australian mining company BHP Billiton, has had a 500% increase in sales of coal and iron ore to China, now worth more than US$3 billion a year. Last year Prime Minister John Howard signed off on a US$19 billion deal on behalf of natural gas producer Woodside. The Gorgon gas field in Western Australia will produce US$23 billion worth of liquefied natural gas for export to China.
Exports to China are a major factor in sustaining Australia’s strong economy, which in turn has been an important factor in winning the last three federal elections for John Howard’s Liberal Party government. Fear of offending China and jeopardising Australia’s expanding trade with China explains, but does not excuse, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer’s refusal of political asylum for Chen – something that would have shocked the Liberal Party’s founder, Sir Robert Menzies, who in 1954 welcomed the defection of a Soviet diplomat, Vladimir Petrov.
So Chen was told by the Australian government to apply for a “protection visa,” like any other illegal immigrant seeking asylum. Faced with this uncertain prospect, on 4 June Chen went public, addressing a rally of Chinese pro-democracy demonstrators in Sydney and telling his story to the Australian press. Downer and the Immigration Minister, Amanda Vanstone, were caught unawares, and spent the next week contradicting each other over what Chen’s status was and whose responsibility it was to deal with his request for asylum. Downer first denied, then confirmed, that Chen had been refused political asylum. Vanstone said that Chen “would not receive special treatment and his application would be considered on its merits” – not encouraging given the current government’s record on asylum seekers.
The Chen defection caught the Australian government at an extremely awkward moment. A “scoping study” has begun for an Australia-China free trade agreement. Despite China’s current position that agricultural products would not be included, such an agreement which would give Australia privileged access to China’s huge and expanding market, although it is difficult to see how Australia could sell China any more raw materials, or how China’s near-total penetration of the Australian market for manufactured goods could grow larger.
As the foreign editor of The Australian, Greg Sheridan, wrote: “We are no so caught up with the mantra of not doing anything to offend China that simple matters of human dignity and essential political values are apparently up for negotiation.” Only last month Downer gave a lecture scolding “the Left” in Australia for what he said was its record of “appeasement” of tyrannical regimes. Apparently appeasing China is different for “tough on tyranny” Downer.
The last thing the Howard Government wants is a diplomatic crisis with China, particularly one which threatens to draw attention to the unpleasant realities behind the Chinese economic miracle: realities such as exploitation of labour, suppression of human rights, spying on friendly countries, abduction of dissidents abroad, the execution of 1,500 people a year – not to mention China’s rapidly expanding military capacity, its broken promises in Hong Kong and its bullying of Taiwan.
Ambassador Fu’s silken assurances that “there will be no legal punishment” for Chen if he returned to China was qualified when she was questioned on Australian radio for a guarantee that Chen would suffer no harm. “Guarantee is not the word I would use because I will not be the one who judges him,” she said, effectively negating her previous assurances.
Australia’s Labor Opposition was quick to criticise the dodging and wriggling of ministers Downer and Vanstone. Labor Leader Kim Beazley has said that Chen should be given a protection visa. Labor’s foreign affairs spokesman, Kevin Rudd – who is fluent in Chinese and probably knows more about China than anyone else in the Australian Parliament – has calibrated his criticisms so as to draw blood from the Australian government but not to antagonise the Chinese unnecessarily. Only last month he warned Beijing that good relations would not come at the price of foreign policy subservience or any downgrading of Australia’s close relations with Washington under a future Labor government.
Chen’s revelations about Chinese activities in Australia have damaged China’s image here. His defection is encouraging other Chinese to speak out. Already there have been revelations on Australian television by two more defectors – a former Chinese police officer, Hao Fengjun, and another, unnamed, official – about the sinister Office 610, which carries out spying on Chinese exiles in Australia. Although Chen says that Australia’s intelligence organisation, ASIO, has not yet interviewed him, ASIO’s heightened interest in Chinese spying in Australia in fact predates Chen’s defection. ASIO recently set up a new counter-espionage unit to deal with Chinese and Russian espionage. The Australian’s Cameron Stewart quoted a government source as saying: “China would be the biggest now by a fair way… They have built up their capacities over the last ten years and are more aggressive in their activities.”
Chen’s tactic of going public has ensured that he will be allowed to stay in Australia. Howard’s right-hand man, Health Minister Tony Abbott, assured Australians that Chen will not be returned to China. But despite the soothing statements of Ambassador Fu, the Chen defection has been embarrassing for Beijing and its efforts to persuade the world that China is, in her words, “a normal friendly country like any country in the world.” But China is not a normal country, nor a particularly friendly one. It is the world’s largest country, and is rapidly becoming a regional superpower. It has already replaced Japan as Australia’s most important economic partner. It is also, despite 20 years of reform, still a one-party state ruled by an authoritarian regime which ruthlessly suppresses those who challenge it. These are issues which Australians have preferred not to deal with, but the Chen Yonglin episode shows that they may no longer have that luxury.
Michael Danby is a Labor member of the Australian House of Representatives
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