A Chinese spy Wang Liqiang aged 32 who came on Australian media’s Nine now television’ show 60 minutes in 2019 confessed to being a spy of Beijing, has now been denied asylum in Australia. This exposes him to being deported back to China. Although this denial comes after Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong visited China in December 2022, The Epoch Times reported.
The Australian Department of Home Affairs rejected Wang’s asylum application over an alleged fraud committed against Sydney businessman Filip Shu. The same Epoch Times report cited a UK media report which said AAT could not be granted refugee status despite having “well-founded” concerns about returning to China because he committed fraud before entering Australia on a tourist visa.
The Epoch Times report by Cindy Zhan, said that Wang in 2019 had exposed and provided an account of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) influence operations overseas. He also disclosed to Australian immigration that how China’s espionage activities are present in Hong Kong and Taiwan.
In addition to this, the Zhan report mentions that he also provided the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) with a detailed account his role in the kidnapping of Causeway Bay bookstore owner Li in Hong Kong.
Further, he also claimed that he had met with the head of CCP spy operations in Australia. He also mentioned that the questioned person worked in Australia’s energy sector, according to Zhan’s Epoch Times report. He also said he was sent to Hong Kong, where he infiltrated universities and stole military and weapons intelligence, all on the orders of his CCP superiors.
Although on the other hand, CCP’s Political and Legal Affairs Commission responded swiftly after him going public on the Australian media saying that he was an unemployed individual and had been convicted of Fraud.
In an interview given to Epoch Times then 27-year-old Wang told about how he had become disillusioned by the CCP’s totalitarian agenda which led to his decision.
“As I grew older and my worldview changed, I gradually realised the damage that the CCP’s authoritarianism was doing to democracy and human rights around the world,” Wang is, the first Chinese spy to go public with his identity.
Notably, this rejection of Wang’s asylum is quite unexpected even in Australia as the Epoch Times report claims that policymakers from both major parties in Australia supported granting asylum to Wang in 2019.
A former analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute Alex Joske, “My jaw dropped as I read Wang’s 12-page Chinese-language confession and plea for help,”.
In addition to this, the Zhan’s report also quotes a former Liberal senator for Tasmania Eric Abetz, who in an email told the Epoch times “It would indeed be a sad and worrying outcome should genuine defectors not be assisted. This would have a very real and chilling impact if protection was not granted,” according to the Epoch Times report.
Zhan’s report in Epoch Times says that the current Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese back then had said that “We know that he has outlined a range of activities which clearly put him in a circumstance whereby it’s a legitimate claim for asylum,”.
The Liberal MP Shadow Minister for Defence Andrew Hastie also supported granting Wang asylum by saying “I’m of the view that anyone who’s willing to assist us in defending our sovereignty deserves our protection,” Hastie, who chaired the Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, said at the time. “I think he deserves our protection and our support.”, according to Zhan’s report in Epoch Times.
Meanwhile, Jennifer Zeng, an Australian Chinese writer, and YouTuber focusing on Chinese politics who had also applied for asylum in Australia in 2001 mentioned that CCP will exert pressure on Home Affairs as the same had happened in her case also.
Surprisingly this denial of asylum to him came after Penny Wong visited China to restart Australian exports to Beijing after years of diplomatic tension with the previous Liberal government of China.
Although the Epoch Times report says that both the Administrative Appeals Tribunal and the Department of Home Affairs said that they were not able to comment on the case.
