Canberra: Reports of foreign influence in Australian politics through donations by Chinese citizens are an attempt to whip up a “China panic”, the Chinese ambassador to Australia has said.
At an event in Canberra on Thursday, Cheng Jingye labelled claims of Chinese interference a “groundless” attempt to reheat old allegations, akin to “cooking up the overnight cold rice”.
Last week Four Corners investigated more than $4m of donations to the major parties by an Australian Chinese citizen, Chau Chak Wing, who was a member of a Communist party advisory group known as a people’s political consultative conference (CPPCC).
Four Corners revealed that the ASIO chief, Duncan Lewis, had become so worried about the influence of foreign donations that he organised meetings with the Coalition and Labor to warn them that some donors could compromise the major parties.
The executive director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Peter Jennings, described such donations as naked influence buying.
On Thursday Jingye addressed the report at the Australia China Business Council Canberra Networking Day.
He said it was “sensational” to allege that the Chinese government was behind the donations made by Chinese or Chinese-Australian citizens and that it had the aim of influencing Australian politics or foreign policy.
“What was reported in the program was basically a kind of platitude. I’ve heard those allegations more than once since I was posted here,” he said. “In Chinese, we call it ‘cooking up the overnight cold rice’, which means repeating the same old stuff again and again.
“Maybe the producers of the program believe that those groundless allegations may turn to be truth after being repeated thousands of times.”
Jingye said people who made such allegations have “wild and morbid” imaginations, which might one day be awarded a Nobel Prize “if they were to apply their imagination to scientific research”.
The Chinese ambassador claimed that people who spread the allegations were “politically motivated” and they risked the “friendly cooperation” of Australia and China.
“Their main purpose, as I see it, is to instigate China panic.”
In response to the reports, Labor has called for a bipartisan reference to the parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security to investigate foreign interference in Australian politics, including through donations.
The government intends to introduce a bill in the spring parliamentary sitting to ban foreign donations not just to political parties but also to third-party activist groups such as GetUp. That bill could be referred to the intelligence and security committee but the government has not said whether it supports a separate wider-ranging reference.
In May Malcolm Turnbull asked the attorney general, George Brandis, and his department to undertake a comprehensive review of Australia’s espionage and foreign interference laws. On Wednesday several Labor figures including MP Anthony Byrne, the former treasurer Wayne Swan and front bench MP Ed Husic made calls for an inquiry.
