Some of my best friends are Chinese. This is entirely unsurprising given my frequent visits to the PRC, the Chinese students I have supervised and the colleagues I have collaborated with over the years. I used to think such relationships were unambiguously a good thing and the possible basis for a better understanding between our two countries.
To judge by ASIO head Mike Burgess’ Annual Threat Assessment, however, such an attitude on my part is naïve and foolish. Indeed, I’m apparently vulnerable to being seduced by the clandestine operatives and blandishments of “one nation state” in particular.
But if anyone in Australia or China has been secretly trying to recruit me or pump me for sensitive information, I must admit I’ve missed it — apart from ASIO, at least. I’ve had several “chats” with ASIO operatives about my contacts in China and my understanding of what goes on there. But if ASIO thinks I can tell them anything they couldn’t find out from reading the occasional academic journal, they are even more poorly informed than I thought.
This may be why they harass young Chinese academics on perfectly innocent research trips to Australia. One of my former PhD students was trailed around Australia and offered bribes and other incentives to cooperate with ASIO – precisely the sort of thing Mike Burgess complained foreign agents were doing in Australia. When that failed to elicit a response — other than indignation and acute anxiety —Australia’s finest tried intimidation.
Three ASIO agents, three Australian Federal Police officers, and a couple of IT specialists conducted a dawn raid on his accommodation, confiscating his phone and computer while they were at it. I advised him to get back to China as quickly as he could. He did.
This was not the end of ASIO’s rather ham-fisted efforts to counter supposed foreign influence either. A couple of weeks later I had an unsolicited home visit from two agents. As soon as they said, “Hello Professor Beeson, we’re from the government and we’d like to talk to you”, into my apartment’s intercom, I guessed who it was. I’d been expecting some sort of follow-up given their previous conduct with me, the student, and the growing paranoia about China.
A familiar routine unfolded. Who did I know? Who did the student know? Who were they meeting? What were they trying to find out? Again, the idea that a junior scholar interested in the bilateral relationship between Australia and China was going to uncover some great national secret by chatting to a few Australian academics and going to the library indicates just how disproportionate the domestic response to the “China threat” is becoming.
I took the opportunity of unburdening myself to the ASIO agents — but not quite in the way they were hoping, I suspect. I pointed out how counterproductive and excessively heavy-handed ASIO’s actions had been, and reminded them that bilateral exchanges of students and academics had once been seen as conducive to good relations between our two countries.
Not only does that idea no longer apply, but it would be entirely unsurprising if China’s — equally paranoid, no doubt — secret police responded in kind. Indeed, my student talked me out of going to a conference in China at the end of last year because of concerns about my safety. Nevertheless, I shall be travelling there in the next month or so — always supposing the Chinese government gives me a visa, of course.
One of the things my student was most concerned about was the realistic prospect that the Australian government would not let him return in the future — not a happy prospect for someone trying to build a career as an expert on the bilateral relationship. It also potentially silences a sympathetic voice within China’s internal debates about relations with Australia.
No doubt my views will confirm ASIO’s suspicions about my loyalty. But if I’m part of a network gathering intelligence on behalf of a foreign power, my role is so secret that not even I know about it. Either way, my file must be bulging, and another visit may follow. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if my email and phone are routinely monitored, too. If you’ve got all that high tech gear and lots of agents with nothing to do…
A bit paranoid? Perhaps. But I’m not the one ramping up the rhetoric about the dangers posed by unnamed foreign powers and their unnamed co-conspirators. If there really is something for students and academics to worry about, let’s see the evidence, or at least know which country to avoid. I know how “our team” operates and it does them or this country little credit. We are supposed to be the good guys, after all.
Security types will say this is the reality of the contemporary world. And yet if we are to address the common problems that confront Australia and China, greater cooperation is a necessity. Building bridges, understanding the other side, and even striking up friendships with our counterparts may be part of this, however unlikely this may seem to those in the world’s secret services. We must hope they’re wrong about that, at least.
We are just as hypocritical as the U.S. and many other western countries.
I was a teacher of various subjects in China for six years, and was never made to feel anything other than welcome by my students, colleagues, and the general public. No intimidation nor fear tactics.
I actually felt less welcome upon returning to these shores, especially by our “delightful” airport and border force staff!
ASIO is a hammer and everything non-ASIO is a nail.
“A bit paranoid?”. Not you Professor Beeson. ASIO and the China phobes are the paranoid ones. If you look at the history of ASIO, there is nothing surprising about that. The McCarthyist era, reds under the bed, Labour groupers, Vietnam domino theory, all the way with the USA, the yellow peril, Iraq WMD lies, the numerous people who have had their careers and reputations ruined by ASIO black lists, their history is a long list of paranoia, deceit, war mongering and shameful persecution. The china hysteria has been ramped up to the extent that we are going to spend an estimated realistic eventual trillion dollars on nuclear submarines to deter China from invading us. Personally I think ASIO should be disbanded, the AUKUS deal should be cancelled and we should have a non aligned foreign policy. I don’t believe China has any intention of invading Australia, and I don’t want Australia to join the USA in a war against China. I guess that’s enough to put me on ASIO’s paranoid black list as well.
Very little chance of that Mark. From my experience China’s Public Service is highly intelligent and well informed.
But what really amazed me on my China visits is how friendly and welcoming the general Chinese population is to foreign visitors (even passers-by in the streets – especially if you’re wandering around alone).
Having feet on the ground in China is an amazing and eye opening experience.
Have a great time (and lots to learn) :-).
I do not doubt your experience, and maybe it’s true generally for China’s Public Service and the wider Chinese public. My own experience there was similar to yours, with the minor exception of an official at the airport immigration control as I entered China. But it is naively presumptious to extrapolate from that experience a reliable guide to China’s secret police in its various manifestations. How much contact did you have with them specifically? And do you seriously imagine any friendly personal views of some of them would matter at all if someone with authority in the CCP decided to hold you on trumped-up charges, in retaliation for some perceived slight by our government or as a hostage for putting pressure on Australia?
Trouble is, here in OZ 99% of people have no reason NOT to believe the total weaponized crap we see in our moron media (including our Anal Broadcasting Commission (Billy Birtles’s, Stan Grant’s et all were the worst – but plenty more).
I remember (maybe 12 years ago) watching the CGTN Evening News on the English TV Chanel in Guangzhou (visiting Wife’s parents) prior to a night flight back to Melbourne. Featured a story about some crazy chinese religious church group occupying an empty warehouse (not theirs) on a busy 6 lane roadway and erecting a huge Iron Cross (steel beams and 3 stories high) mounted on the footpath with small metal straps holding it to the front wall (if it fell over – likely – it could have killed quite a few people). Local council came in and took it down.
After a long sleep at home the next day I’m watching the 7pm news on the AB?.
Same footage as on CGTN – these “evil chinese tearing down church crosses”.
Put me on the right path to gaining an insight on all these anti-chinese lies that permeate all of our media (so sad that our public Broadcaster have turned into such a bunch of propagandist goons).
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My working career predates the hysteria. I must confess I found it similar to what Roberto2 described. There were local nuances but not much worse than say visiting Victoria (They are different). LOL
And as I already said, my experience was like that too. I just cannot see any relevance at all in the way China’s Public Service and the wider Chinese public respond to Australian visitors when Roberto2 is presuming he can predict the benevolent behaviour of the Chinese secret police.
Trouble is, here in OZ 99% of people have no reason NOT to believe the total weaponized drivel we see in our m?on media (including our An? Broadcasting Commission (Billy Birtles’s, Stan Grant’s et all were the worst – but plenty more).
I remember (maybe 12 years ago) watching the CGTN Evening News on the English TV Chanel in Guangzhou (visiting Wife’s parents) prior to a night flight back to Melbourne. Featured a story about some crazy chinese religious church group (probably Falun Gong – but they didn’t name them) occupying an empty warehouse (not theirs) on a busy 6 lane roadway and erecting a huge Iron Cross (steel beams and 3 stories high) mounted on the footpath with small metal straps holding it to the front wall (if it fell over – likely – it could have killed quite a few people). Local council came in and took it down.
After a long sleep at home the next day I’m watching the 7pm news on the AB?.
Same video as on CGTN – but story goes “oooh – these evil chinese tearing down church crosses”. And the rant went on and on.
Put me on the right path to gaining an insight on all these anti-chinese lies that permeate all of our media (so sad that our public Broadcaster have turned into such a bunch of propagandist ?s).
(Trying to remove any text that may annoy the syntax approval bot).
The paranoia is rampant – govt petrified and believes everything from the vested interests who’s livelihood depends on there being friction, and ‘having and enemy’. Forget about our biggest trading partner. Got to keep our warlords rolling in largess (shockingly badly spent).