Andrew Hastie helped ‘spy’ Wang Liqiang find an ASIO haven

Wang Liqiang was first put in contact with Australian security agencies by Andrew Hastie.

Chinese defector Wang Liqiang. Picture: 60 Minutes Australia

Chinese defector Wang Liqiang was first put in contact with Australian security agencies by the head of the nation’s parliamentary intelligence committee, Andrew Hastie, who was contacted by an associate of the self-­proclaimed spy through an ­encrypted telephone app.

The Australian can reveal Mr Hastie — a Liberal MP, former SAS captain and prominent China hawk — was attending the Australian American Leadership Dialogue in Hawaii when he received the October 8 message.

He told The Australian that while he made no judgment of Mr Wang’s claims, including alle­gations about Chinese intelligence operations in Australia, he recognised their significance.

He left the conference to send a message to ASIO about Mr Wang and his claims, using a ­secure link at US Indo-Pacific Command, near Pearl Harbor.

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“I got an encrypted message through an intermediary from Wang. My immediate reaction was to put it back through official channels, to hand it off to the intelligence services,” Mr Hastie told The Australian.

Mr Wang was in Australia when the message was sent.

Mr Hastie said he was subsequently contacted by a reporter working for Nine newspapers and 60 Minutes, who put the Wang story to him. He said he agreed to be interviewed because he had prior knowledge of the case.

It is understood that before the program aired, Mr Hastie ­approached security agencies to check whether Mr Wang’s claims were being investigated and was assured they were.

ASIO later issued a statement saying it was taking the allegations “seriously”, along with separate claims a Melbourne car dealer was cultivated by the Chinese government in a bid to infiltrate Australia’s federal parliament.

Mr Hastie, who chairs the parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security, told Nine Mr Wang was a “friend of democracy” who deserved to be granted asylum.

“I’m of the view anyone who’s willing to assist us in defending our sovereignty deserves our protection,” he said.

Chinese state media has claimed Mr Wang “is merely a fraudster”, with video emerging online purporting to show him facing charges in court in 2016.

The Chinese embassy in Canberra alerted media to the video, which was posted online on Wednesday and appears to show Mr Wang in a Chinese courtroom.

Chinese government-owned news organisation The Global Times posted a story on the video, which relates to an alleged court case over a demand for 120,000 yuan ($17,000). A court judgment was also released online after Mr Wang went public, claiming he pleaded guilty to the offence.

According to The Global Times: “Wang, now at large, maintained his fraudulent activities in foreign countries, making up a ­series of fake stories that throw shade at China backed by Western media speculation, observers said.

“All the evidence points toward the fact Wang is merely a fraudster spouting nonsense and mixing up black and white, observers said.”

However, Australian Strategic Policy Institute analyst Alex Joske said Mr Wang’s alleged October 14, 2016, conviction did not appear on a large private database of Chinese cases, lawxp.com.

Mr Hastie, a critic of the Chinese Communist Party and its expansionist push into the Indo-Pacific, was recently banned from visiting the country on a study tour sponsored by the China Matters think tank. He and Liberal senator James Paterson were told by Beijing they were “not welcome” in the country until they “repent and redress their mistakes”.

The ban followed an opinion piece by Mr Hastie in which he warned of an “intellectual failure” in Australia to fully comprehend the challenge to society posed by Xi Jinping’s China.

He said the West’s belief that economic liberalisation would lead to democracy in China had been “our Maginot line” — a reference to the French wall of bunkers and weapons that failed to repel the German advance in World War II. “Like the French, Australia has failed to see how mobile our authoritarian neighbour has become,” Mr Hastie wrote.

According to Nine, Mr Wang decided to go public with alle­gations about the way the Chinese Communist Party ran spy networks across the world because he believed his life was in danger.

He is believed to be staying at a secure location in Sydney and is being represented by human rights lawyer George Newhouse.

Mr Wang reportedly told ASIO he was part of an intelligence operation run by a Hong Kong-listed company, China Innovation Investment Limited, which infiltrated Hong Kong universities and media with pro-Chinese Communist Party operatives. He said he was given a fake South Korean passport to enter Taiwan to ­meddle in its elections.

He also claimed to have met a high-ranking spy he believed was conducting spy operations in Australia via a front company in the energy sector.

Scott Morrison said a decision on Mr Wang’s asylum claim would not require his story to be proven.