Wang Liqiang: Beijing bit player at best as cloak-and-dagger claims fall away

It took Australian security agencies less than a week to conclude Wang Liqiang was not the highly trained intelligence operative he claimed.

Self-proclaimed Chinese spy Wang Liqiang. Picture: 60 Minutes Australia

In the end it took Australian security agencies less than a week to conclude self-proclaimed Chinese spy Wang Liqiang was not a highly trained intelligence operative dispatched by Beijing to wreak havoc on the nation’s enemies and was, at most, a bit player on the fringes of the espionage community.

The 27-year-old generated international headlines and roiled Australia’s already turbulent relationship with China when he ­appeared in Nine’s 60 Minutes program with his extraordinary tale of international intrigue.

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Wang claimed to have interfered with elections in Taiwan, ­infiltrated the student movement in Hong Kong and played a role in the kidnapping of the Causeway Bay Five, a group of Hong Kong booksellers snatched from Hong Kong and rendered to the Chinese mainland.

But five days on and multiple security sources have told The Weekend Australian the consensus view inside the security establishment is that while Wang’s claims are still being investigated, he is not the high-level operative-turned-defector he claimed to be. The Chinese Foreign Ministry was quick to denounce Wang, at the same time offering breezy assurances that China would never dream of meddling in the affairs of another state.

“We develop friendly co-operation with Australia and other countries based on mutual respect, equality and mutual benefit,” a foreign ministry spokesman said. “We have not interfered and are never interested in interfering in other countries’ domestic affairs.”

No one with any familiarity with Beijing’s intense foreign ­interference activities believes that. But through the haze of official spin one truth shone. “Some Australian politicians, institutions and media have been highly tense on China-related issues,’’ the spokesman observed. “They seem to have reached a state of hysteria and ­extreme nervousness.’’

“Extreme nervousness’’ pretty well describes Australia’s current thinking on China. Not since the Petrov affair has the country ­allowed itself to become so disordered by a single claim of espionage.

Australian Strategic Policy ­Institute executive director Peter Jennings said Wang’s confession had given Australian agencies an unprecedented insight into ­Beijing’s espionage activities. “We have, for the first time, direct and clear understandings from a ­Chinese intelligence operator himself about what China is doing in this country,” he said.

Liberal MP Andrew Hastie, who was involved in brokering Wang’s contact with ASIO and who appeared on the 60 Minutes broadcast, called him “a friend of democracy’’. “Anyone who’s willing to assist us in defending our sovereignty deserves our protection,” Hastie said.

That such heroic assumptions were made from such a thin veneer of fact is surprising, but understandable. At any other time Wang’s claims would have been met with scepticism. But Beijing’s persistent attempts to interfere in Australia’s affairs have robbed the Chinese government of any credibility and primed Australians to believe the worst. But while the Petrov affair turned on a real case of espionage, Wang’s credentials as a high-level spy are looking shakier by the day. It is true ASIO is investigating his claims, but The Weekend Australian understands security agencies are firming in their view Wang was never a ­highly trained operative, although they leave open the possibility he might have been a fringe player.

This lines up with sceptics who this week questioned Wang’s ­account, beginning with the ­Chinese government. It claimed that far from being a Beijing-trained master spy, the fine arts graduate was a convicted criminal on the run from Chinese police.

According to Beijing, Wang was convicted in October 2016 for scamming $32,000 from a man by promising to get his children into school. A second charge of fraud was hanging over him when he ­arrived in Australia seeking asylum earlier this year. Shanghai police said that on April 19 they opened an investigation into Wang over a car import business which allegedly defrauded a person of $960,000. China claims Wang is a fugitive.

Wang denies any wrongdoing and has since gone to ground. China, of course, has an interest in discrediting him. And it is presumably within China’s power to falsify the many privately owned databases within which the details of Wang’s alleged fraud were held, as well as the CCTV footage ­released this week that purports to show him fronting the Guangze People’s Court in Fujian to answer his 2016 charge. But in the hall of mirrors that is international espionage such questions can ­become endless. There comes a point when you have to ask if the simplest explanation is also the right one. China produces plenty of spies. It also produces its fair share of criminals.

The statement by ASIO director-general Mike Burgess in the wake of the 60 Minutes segment makes it clear ASIO is taking Wang’s claims seriously. It is also a fact the Australian Federal Police are investigating Wang’s story and met him on Wednesday.

And on Monday the man Wang claimed was his boss, Xiang Xin, the chief executive of China Innovation and Investment Limited, the Hong Kong company Wang said was a front for Chinese espionage, was detained by ­Taiwanese authorities along with his wife, Kung Ching.

They were stopped as they were leaving Taipei and have been prevented from returning to Hong Kong until authorities complete their investigation. On the face of it, that appeared to at least partially corroborate Wang’s claims.

However, sources have told The Weekend Australian the Taiwanese authorities were reacting to Australian media reports rather than independent evidence implicating Xiang and his wife.

Sceptics of Wang’s story point to the diverse range of his “missions” — from directing “cyber ­armies’’ in Taiwan to the extraordinary rendition of dissidents to the Chinese mainland — as an indication that he at the very least exaggerated his role as a spy.

“It is highly unusual for one junior intelligence operative (our assumption given his current 27 years of age) to play a big role in all these high-profile operations in different jurisdictions in a short period of time,’’ wrote Yun Jiang and Adam Ni, a researcher from Macquarie University and co-editor of China ­Neican, a newsletter aimed at ­“decoding” Chinese politics.

Ni also questions why the Chinese intelligence services would allow Wang’s wife and child to live in Australia, a highly unusual practice for Chinese intelligence officers if only because it provides an inducement to defect.

“The notion that Mr Wang is a spy or Chinese intelligence operative is highly dubious based on available evidence,’’ Ni said.

“However, some of his claims do raise questions about his ­involvement in the periphery of activities that could be considered influence or information operations.’’

Ni said Wang’s alleged work in Hong Kong could have had him trying to influence mainland students in the territory or countering the voice of pro-independence students.

“(But) the way 60 Minutes has characterised it is very different from how I would put it,’’ he said.

Leonid Petrov, a Korean security expert at the Australian ­National University, said the South Korean passport Wang said was issued to him by his Chinese handlers and which features in media reports contained serious discrepancies. Not only do the ­English and Korean names not align, but the Korean name on the document appears to be female. Would the Chinese intelligence services equip their people with crude forgeries?

“There is a market for fake South Korean passports,’’ Dr ­Petrov said. “(The) South Korean passport is one of the strongest in the world. You can travel to many places without a visa.’’

Wang has yet to address the incongruities of his story. Adding to the doubts is Wang’s obvious ­motive in coming forward. Wang has an asylum claim in the works and whatever the results of ASIO’s investigation it has now become impossible for Australia to send him back.

Wang may or may not be a spy, but you can bet your bottom dollar he’s now an Australian resident.