The Golem
The following is an analysis of an article titled “Suspected foreign agents ordered to hand over documents as new unit targets China links“. by Anthony Galloway in the Sydney Morning Herald, March 8 2020.
Chinese government-funded language and culture institutes operating at Australian universities, community groups linked to Beijing’s overseas propaganda arm and organisations looking to harm Australia’s critical infrastructure will be targeted by a new unit set up to enforce the Morrison government’s flagship foreign influence scheme.
A ‘new unit’? So, in other words, up until now these foreign influence operations have been able to operate without having to worry about the attention of the national government?
Attorney-General Christian Porter has warned potential agents of foreign powers will be ordered to hand over documents in coming months, and has not ruled out going after agents acting on behalf of foreign embassies in Australia if they have not declared their activities on the foreign influence register.
Attorney-General Christian Porter ‘has warned potential agents of foreign powers’? Why for god’s sake? Why would the national government provide any warning to agents of a hostile foreign power? Surely, they would simply ‘act’ when and where the enemy least expects them?
‘…will be ordered to hand over documents in coming months,…’ Did I read this correctly? So, at least as of the date this article, these foreign influence operations have a big fat heads-up and a lead time of months to put in place measures to circumvent and obfuscate the government’s planned actions.
The Sunday Age and The Sun Herald understands the new unit will focus on Confucius Institutes operating at some Australian universities and groups linked to Beijing’s United Front Work Department.
The Attorney-General’s Department is working with domestic spy agency ASIO and the AFP in its revamped bid to enforce the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme.
‘Revamped bid to enforce the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme.’ In other words, they were unable to enforce the law the first time around.
It is also expected foreign companies and organisations will be served with notices requesting them to hand over documents relating to potential agents under their influence.
Serving legal notice to hand over documents in a situation like this is frankly ludicrous. It is attempting to use legal means in response to espionage activities. It will not work. The Chinese agents at these organisations must have been rolling around on the floor with laughter when they read about this.
“Now that we have seen, after a year, what entities have registered as either foreign principals or foreign government-related entities, there are other entities … which bare some similarity, on the face of them at least, to entities that have registered,” Mr Porter said.
“And where an entity looks like they may have some of the features of a foreign government enterprise, we will be enquiring of them about their structure, their constituent nature, who makes up leadership and director positions inside the entity, so that we can make a determination to our satisfaction that they are either are or not a foreign government enterprise.”
Minister, I suppose this will be done in the most discreet manner possible? Perhaps over a nice cup of tea sipped from bone China? Seriously? The gentility of our government’s approach to this totalitarian regime is suffocating and sickening to watch. What the hell are they so afraid of?
The Sun-Herald and The Sunday Age can reveal the Australian Council for the Promotion of the Peaceful Reunification of China will be a target of the dedicated new unit.
China experts have said the council is the Australian arm of a foreign influence network run by the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work Department, but the organisation has always denied any link.
Another target will be the 13 Confucius Institutes operating at Australian universities, which were last year sent letters by the AG’s department alerting them to the introduction of the scheme, according to senior government sources.
The centres are joint ventures between the host universities and Hanban, a Chinese government entity that provides funding, staff and other support.
While not naming Confucius institutes directly, Mr Porter said individuals who were employed through a university that connected back to a foreign power could be captured by the scheme if they were “trying to affect democratic outcomes or influence government”.
Hang on a minute. Why all the circumspection and hesitation about what is what and who is who when it comes to these people and organisations? I say this because we, the Australian citizens, have since the September 11, 2001 World Trade Centre attacks, been subjected to nothing less than ever increasing levels of ever more sophisticated mass electronic surveillance.
But our government is not sure what is going on in a Confucius Institute on an Australian university campus? Rubbish! Just look at all the national security legislation that has been pushed through the Australian Parliament in the last twenty years. Our government has empowered itself to thoroughly and secretly spy on anyone, anywhere, any time for any reason.
So, what’s going on with all the coyness? I say it’s because they are more about being seen to be doing something rather than actually doing anything about what is going on.
“Universities need to obviously be very live themselves to who it is who is seeking to influence their decision-making, their structure, their expenditure, their outcomes, and those people who are seeking to influence universities in that respect universities themselves need to be very mindful about who those people are working on behalf of,” he said.
Australian universities, through the person of their various academic elites, are very live to what is going on. In their Marxist view things are going rather swimmingly! At this rate the socialist international utopia is again upon the horizon and within sight. Overwhelmingly our universities have operated like Norman Keeps of Marxist ideology across the Australian landscape. They are not on our side. They are heavily infested with Communists. These institutions have been captured and turned against us.
“Behaviours are changing because the costs of engaging in that behaviour has increased.”
Relax Chris, the cheques are in the mail.
Mr Porter said another key focus of the new unit would be to crack down on foreign agents looking to secretly trying [sic] to influence decisions about Australia’s critical infrastructure.
“So where we see influencing behaviour that relates to big ticket areas like foreign ownership of infrastructure, decisions around the sale of infrastructure, a very live question would be: who is this person working for?” Mr Porter said.
More than 200 people or organisations have signed up the register, but it has come under the spotlight for failing to force harmful agents of foreign powers to register.
Mr Porter criticised his own department for sending its first notice to Andrew Cooper, from the conservative think-tank LibertyWorks, and for asking former prime minister Tony Abbott to sign up to the scheme.
Mr Abbott was asked to sign after making a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Sydney, which was jointly organised by LibertyWorks and the American Conservative Union.
These last two paragraphs speak volumes about why the scheme appears to be incapable of succeeding. The actions of public servants within the the Department of the A-G in sending the first notices to well known Australian conservatives should be alarming. It indicates yet more evidence of what many of us have long known: that the Australian Public Service has been heavily infiltrated and subverted by Marxists and their Fabian sympathisers.
This has been going on for decades, but since China has turned up on the scene these traitors have been given a new impetus to act against the national interest and for their perceived international utopian fantasy, which the CCP is happy to play along with for the benefit of their useful idiots in the APS and academia. What a shock awaits these fools if the CCP ever marches in here.
Any Australian citizen that reads this article and feels inspired that our government is on the job and taking decisive action against a hostile foreign power operating with impunity within our borders, would also be inspired by the sight of a Napoleonic army forming up to march against the Viet Cong. It is so obvious that the actions of our government are not intended to actually ram through the activities of Chinese operatives in Australia, but rather, such posturing is little more than a flaccid attempt to placate the vague concerns of the majority of the citizenry. Arguably as well, such openly telegraphed and obviously ineffective measures are also intended to signal to China:
We are going to hit you guys – but not really; more of a hug than a hit – please don’t be offended, please.