Coronavirus: Austrade ‘naive’ over article praising China

Austrade is conducting an audit of its website after it praised organisations with Chinese Communist Party links for sending medical supplies to China.

Trade Minister Simon Birmingham in Canberra on Tuesday. Picture: AAP

Australia’s trade promotion body is conducting an audit of its website after it praised organisations with Chinese Communist Party links for sending tonnes of medical supplies to China as the Morrison government scrambled to prepare for the pandemic here.

Chinese-language content posted on Austrade’s website, dated March 4, lauded efforts of a raft of local Chinese organisations for supporting Beijing’s fight against the pandemic by sending medical supplies back to China.

“Since the outbreak of the new coronavirus, the Australian governmen­t and corporate groups have been actively devoting their love and have extended their ­helping hands to jointly fight the outbreak,” the Australian govern­ment website said. It said Australian overseas Chinese organis­ations had made “concerted efforts” to donate funds and “cheer China on with actions”.

Less than a month later, Scott Morrison declared­ “it's important we crack down on this”, and announced new laws banning the export of medical equipment needed for our own coronavirus fight.

But the content praising groups with known links to the CCP’s United Front Work Department, which directs foreign-influence activities by overseas Chinese, ­remained on Austrade’s website until Tuesday afternoon, when The Australian alerted Trade Minister Simon Birmingham.

One of the organisations lauded­ was the Australia China Business Summit, run by Sydney man Yang Dongdong, a former associate­ of now-retired Liberal MP Craig Laundy who previously admitted to being part of the “United Front system”.

It said the group “purchased a variety of medical supplies for domestic shipment”, and convinced several Australian medical supply companies “to donate medical oxygen generators and breathing equipment”.

It singled out the Soong Ching Ling Foundation, a United Front organisation with bran­ch­es around the world, and the Hunan Oceania Chamber of Commerce, headed by Chen Yadong. According to a translation of the website content, Mr Chen said: "We all have a common belief that Hunan has our flesh-and-blood compatriots. It is our duty to support them.’’

An Austrade spokeswoman told The Australian: “This article was posted without adequate supervision or editorial oversight and does not reflect the views of Austrade or the Australian govern­ment. It has now been removed from the Austrade website.

“We are now conducting an audit and review of our content and governance protocols, including how this content was allowed to be published in the first place.”

Charles Sturt University academic Clive Hamilton, a prolific writer on CCP influence in Australia, told The Australian the website content “shows the tremendous naivety” of trade officials.

“Most of these organisations are demonstrably United Front organisations with direct links to the Chinese Communist Party,” he told The Australian.

“It’s an illustration of a lament­able fact that government trade promotion organisations become obsessed with trade above all else, and lose sight of other considerations, particularly strategic ones.”

Professor Hamilton said overseas Chinese organisations had not, of their own accord, flooded China with donations of medical equipment in February.

“Information has emerged from around the world, and from Canada in particular, that instructions came from China to these United Front groups,” he said. “It was organised without regard for the interests of other countries.”