Australia is ‘most unfriendly country besides the United States’: Global Times editor
Tensions continue to rise after a top China official labelled Australia ‘America’s dog’ in a heated diplomatic exchange.
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The editor-in-chief of a Chinese Communist Party tabloid has boasted of telling Australia’s ambassador in Beijing at a private lunch that Canberra was “the most unfriendly country besides the United States”.
Hu Xijin, editor of the state-run Global Times, dined with Graham Fletcher on Wednesday, and later posted details ostensibly of their conversation on Weibo, a Chinese social media platform where he has 24 million followers.
The Australian reports that Mr Hu was invited to meet Australia’s most senior diplomat in Beijing one day before China levied another 6 per cent tariff on Australian wine producers — in addition to 200 per cent levies introduced on $1.3bn of exports in November.
The meeting between Mr Fletcher and Mr Hu, one of the world’s most-outspoken critics of Australia, demonstrates a willingness to talk, something that has not occurred at a ministerial level for eight months as China responds to perceived grievances by disrupting exports worth more than $20bn a year.
A Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesman said Mr Fletcher “set out Australia’s clear policies in relation to China and on the US alliance”.
“The meeting took place outside the embassy and was part of a wider set of engagements with Chinese media outlets to ensure Australia’s views are conveyed directly,” he said.
“Australian officials must engage with arms of the Chinese government … to project Australia’s national interest-based positions.
“Australia rejects the inaccurate and inflammatory coverage of Australia by the Global Times.”
According to Mr Hu’s account, he told Mr Fletcher: “In the eyes of the Chinese, Australia is currently the most unfriendly country to China besides the United States.”
Hu’s newspaper has become the Morrison government’s loudest foreign affairs critic, describing Australia as a “lackey”, a “US running dog” and a “giant kangaroo that serves as a dog of the US”.
THE CHINESE SPY, THE POLITICIAN AND THEIR ‘SECRET SEX STORY’
A senior Democratic politician in the US, Eric Swalwell, has refused to say if he had sex with an alleged Chinese spy because he claims that the information is “classified”.
He was one of a number of Democrats targeted in a honey trap operation to infiltrate political circles, according to bombshell reports.
Overseas student Christine Fang — known as Fang Fang — is said to have been taped by the FBI having sex with two Midwestern mayors.
She also cozied up to a string of other politicians including presidential hopeful Tulsi Gabbard before mysteriously vanishing.
Swalwell, who is now a member of the House Intelligence Committee, is the most high profile figure to be swept up in the alleged scandal, the New York Post reported.
Last night Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson claimed security agencies believe he was in a sexual relationship with the suspected spy.
And Donald Trump Jr told the show it meant Swalwell was a “threat to national security”.
Carlson told viewers: “US intelligence officials believe that Fang had a sexual relationship with Eric Swalwell.
“We asked Swalwell’s office about that directly today.
“His staff replied by saying that they could not comment whether Swalwell had a sexual relationship with Fang, because that information might be, quote, classified.”
Swalwell, 40, was unmarried at the time he met Fang in around 2012.
She is said to have raise funds and campaigned for him among Asian American voters as head of a student group.
According to a report by Axios, he cut off contact with Fang after a “defensive briefing” from FBI agents who were investigating her.
Swalwell’s office told The Sun: “Rep Swalwell, long ago, provided information about this person — whom he met more than eight years ago, and whom he hasn’t seen in nearly six years — to the FBI.
“To protect information that might be classified, he will not participate in your story.”
Don Jr had earlier tweeted the Axios story — which did not claim a sexual relationship between Swalwell and Fang.
But he claimed the spy did have sex with the congressman, who last year played a leading role in the impeachment of his father President Trump.
Don Jr said: “So Rep Swalwell who spent years saying I was an agent of Russia was literally sleeping with a Chinese spy at the time. You can’t make this stuff up.
“How can this compromised individual/moron continue to sit on an intelligence committee?”
And he told Carlson’s show: “I appreciate you calling out Eric Swalwell as somebody who was probably the number two recipient of these tinfoil hat brigade attacks about Russia for years.
“I find it very ironic that he was perhaps sleeping with a Chinese spy, certainly one that had infiltrated his inner circle.”
Posing as a student between 2011 and 2015, Fang is alleged to have targeted rising political stars who seemed destined for nationally important roles.
Fang was being run by a handler under diplomatic cover in the San Francisco consulate, and was also receiving instructions from Beijing, sources told Axios.
She became head of a Chinese student association in the Bay Area, and used fundraiser events and rallies to get close to candidates.
She is said to have first met Swalwell when he was a council member in Dublin City, California.
Fang also helped raise cash for Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii in 2013, the report said.
Her office said she “has no recollection of ever meeting or talking with [Fang], nor any recollection of her playing a major role at the fundraiser.”
Fang also volunteered to campaign for Representative Ro Khannah’s 2014 run for Congress before he was elected two years later.
Khannah’s office told the outlet that he remembers seeing Fang at several Indian American political events, but he did not speak to her.
A spokesman added Khannah was not briefed by the FBI and that her name does not appear on their staffing records, although records do not include all volunteers’ names.
Fang also campaigned for California congresswoman Judy Chu.
Gabbard, Khanna and Chu are not accused of wrongdoing.
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