FBI probed Chau Chak Wing payment to UN

Chau Chak Wing’s company wired $US200,000 to a former UN chief so he would attend an event co-hosted by an arm of the Chinese Communist Party, FBI case files suggest.

Chau Chak Wing. Picture: AAP

Chinese-Australian billionaire Chau Chak Wing’s company wired $US200,000 to a former UN chief so he would attend an event co-hosted by an arm of the Chinese Communist Party, FBI case files suggest.

Liberal MP Tim Wilson tabled the documents in federal parliament on Tuesday, hours after the Federal Court awarded Dr Chau $590,000 in damages in his defamation suit against the ABC and Nine Entertainment.

Mr Wilson told parliament he was releasing the documents “to let the light in”, saying “Mr Chau’s role in providing funds has been obscured by defamation cases”.

He also repeated previous allegations aired under parliamentary privilege by Liberal colleague Andrew Hastie that “security agencies regard Mr Chau as a part of the Chinese Communist Party’s overseas influence campaign”.

The FBI files reveal Dr Chau’s private company, the Kingold Group, paid $US200,000 into an account controlled by now-­deceased former UN General ­Assembly president John Ashe.

Dr Chau described the transaction as “a payment to alleviate poverty”.

“Ultimately, CCW paid a bank account controlled by ASHE $200,000, and in return ASHE travelled to and spoke at an event being hosted at CCW’s ‘Imperial Springs’ property,” FBI investi­gators wrote in a 2019 report.

Dr Chau, an Australian citizen, consistently denied allegations he had links to the Chinese Communist Party or was involved in the alleged bribing of Ashe.

The November 2013 event was co-hosted by the CCP’s Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries.

An Australian lobbyist hired by Dr Chau to liaise with conference attendees, Sheri Yan, was charged in the US in 2015 of bribing Ashe with the $US200,000 from Dr Chau’s company.

Ms Yan, wife of former high-ranking Australian intelligence official Roger Uren, served 20 months in jail after pleading guilty to several offences but never agreed the payment was a bribe.

Mr Wilson, who tabled the documents with the support of Labor MP Julian Hill, said he did so “to allow their scrutiny”.

“These documents reveal Mr Chau’s private company made payments to Mr Ashe via one of Mr Ashe’s bank accounts,” he said. “It reveals the FBI regarded this payment as a quid quo pro in an arrangement to get Mr Ashe to speak at Mr Chau’s 2013 conference. It reveals that in February 2016, FBI agents questioned Mr Chau about these payments. It ­reveals he told the FBI it was in his mind merely a donation to alleviate poverty.”