Daniel Andrews staffer Nancy Yang did Chinese Communist propaganda course

Nancy Yang did the same CCP propaganda training as part-time NSW Labor staffer John Zhang.

In a blog post Nancy Yang detailed her trip to Beijing for the Chinese Communist training course and a meeting with United Front leader Liu Yangdong.

Daniel Andrews’s staffer Nancy Yang did the same Chinese Communist Party propaganda training course as the part-time NSW Labor staffer at the centre of Friday’s ASIO raids.

John Zhang is the staff member linked to allegations of covert attempts by the Chinese Communist Party to influence his boss, Shaoquette Moselmane, who until his expulsion from the party on Friday was a NSW Labor MP.

In 2013, Mr Zhang participated in a propaganda training course organised by the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of China’s State Council, the chief administrative authority of the People’s Republic.

The course was held at the Chinese Academy of Governance, which trains senior CCP operatives.

Ms Yang, who has worked for the Andrews government since 2013 and now works in the electorate offices of the Premier and backbench MP Meng Heang Tak, did the same course in 2007.

John Zhang.

Nancy Yang.

A translated profile at the bottom of an article Ms Yang wrote in 2008 for Chinese state newspaper the Guangming Daily states that “at the invitation of the United Front Work Department of the Central Committee, the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council, the National Youth Federation … and other departments and groups”, she returned to China “to participate in training, inspection, entrepreneurship and exchange activity”.

The United Front Work Department is the Chinese Communist Party’s primary overseas influence and interference network.

In the article, Ms Yang, who came to Australia as a student in 2003, said how deeply proud she felt “to have a strong motherland behind me”, and wrote of her role in organising Chinese students to rally at events in the lead-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

This included helping to mobilise thousands of Chinese who travelled to Canberra to participate in an at-times violent counter-protest against human rights campaigners at the Olympic Torch relay.

In a separate blog post, Ms Yang wrote about her trip to Beijing for the training course and a meeting with United Front head Liu Yangdong.

She wrote that she told reporters after the meeting: “No matter how long the shadow of the tree is, the roots will always be entrenched in the land; no matter where we are, we will always care about the motherland.”

In another blog post, Ms Yang rails against the West: “Western countries are no longer as good as we imagined because we have experienced, we have grown, we have learned to be tolerant! The human rights mentioned by the West, we really see their hypocrisy.”

The Australian revealed last month that Ms Yang had as recently as March posted articles on social media suggesting the coronavirus was created by the US and taken to China by the US Army.

Asked whether Ms Yang was still working for Mr Andrews and Mr Tak, a spokeswoman for the Premier said: “We value the outstanding contribution Nancy makes every day for her local community.”