The signs of China’s economic reach are being felt even as far away as here in Tasmania – and so are the much darker signs of its covert political meddling.
When the Van Diemen’s Land Company, Australia’s oldest dairy, and its farming land in the northwest of the state was snapped up by a Chinese entrepreneur in 2016, it sent shockwaves through the island. Two years later, a staff revolt over land management and animal welfare issues ended with a mass resignation by non-executive directors.
A bid by another Chinese company to establish a massive, exclusive Chinese resort on Tasmania’s east coast caused much consternation and was ultimately rejected late last year by the state’s planning commission.
Now it is alleged that Beijing is operating a network of covert influence in Tasmania.
A network of members of the Chinese Communist Party-linked United Front is operating in Tasmania, taking its cue from Beijing in spreading CCP propaganda and influence, say several China experts.
Mark Harrison, adjunct director of the Australian National University’s Australian Centre on China in the World, said the Tasmanian network was small but “disproportionately visible”.
“A small number of people in the Chinese community in Tasmania are part of a United Front network,” said Dr Harrison, also senior lecturer in Chinese studies at the University of Tasmania.
“They are not representative of what is actually a very large and diverse community, but they are disproportionately visible.
“Whenever anything happens that Beijing needs to be supported internationally, part of the operation of the United Front is making sure that supporters of Beijing anywhere in the world make statements that validate that policy position.”
China watchers say the United Front Work Department is an arm of the CCP, enlisting influential Chinese at home and abroad who are supportive of CCP aims and willing to help stifle dissent.
Last year, a planned Falun Gong information session in Launceston was hurriedly cancelled.
Reinvigorated by President Xi Jinping, United Front appears to have expanded in Tasmania in the years since his 2014 visit to the state and subsequent blossoming of Chinese investment and trade.
[…]Author and China expert Clive Hamilton, who accused some Tasmanian politicians of “turning a blind eye”.
“Ever since Xi Jinping’s visit to Tasmania, United Front activity has intensified in that state, and in Hobart in particular,” he said. “It’s been co-ordinated out of the Chinese consulate in Melbourne and there is now a network of CCP agents of influence operating in Hobart’s political, business and university communities.”
Professor Hamilton said several Tasmanians were member of organisations that were “outposts of CCP United Front agencies … They are affiliated with and report to organisations in China like the China Council for the Promotion of the Peaceful National Reunification and the Chinese Overseas Friendship Association.”
A Tasmanian branch of the Australian Council for the Peaceful Reunification of China was launched in state Parliament House in 2017. “They were welcomed with open arms by Tasmanian politicians and we have seen a woeful lack of interest by senior Tasmanian politicians in Canberra’s attempt to root out United Front operatives in Australia,” he said.
As the new Cold War settles over the 21st century, it is becoming obvious that nowhere is too remote or small to escape the spreading tentacles of the Chinese Communist Party.
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