James Morrow analysis: China is trying to influence our elections, but don’t count on Albo making a fuss in Beijing

Analysis: Taiwanese officials have revealed that Beijing tries to use local agents in the overseas Chinese community in Australia to influence local elections, writes James Morrow.

When Prime Minister Anthony Albanese visits China later this week, it’s all but guaranteed he’ll get the full VIP treatment from Xi Jinping.

Welcome banquets, red carpets, maybe someone will even call him “a very handsome boy” again.

And why wouldn’t Xi give orders for nothing but the best, given the softly, softly approach of the Albanese government, which has made “stabilising” relations with China one of its core pillars?

Yet this “stabilised” relationship with China that Albanese is so keen on is looking increasingly like stability with Chinese characteristics.

That is to say, it is an entirely one way street that relies on Canberra not rocking the boat as Beijing tightens the screws on the Pacific and works to undermine and influence elections – even Australian ones.

This handout photo taken and released by Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense on July 25, 2024 shows soldiers firing a 155mm artillery piece during the annual Han Kuang military exercises on Taiwan's Matsu Islands.

This column has been in Taiwan this week as a guest of the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to meet with local officials, leaders, and experts about what the threats to this island democracy mean to the wider Pacific.

At meeting after meeting, we have heard about everything from threatening military activity foreshadowing an eventual blockade of the island to ruthlessly sophisticated social media campaigns designed to undermine Taiwan’s independence and resilience.

And there was a warning for Australia: You are not immune.

One high level official at Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council — Deputy Minister Yu-chung Shen of Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council — told this masthead that yes, Beijing tries to use local agents in the overseas Chinese community in Australia to influence local elections.

This was no hearsay, he said, but instead was confirmed to him in briefings with Australian foreign affairs officials.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong are greeted by Chinese Premier Li Qiang at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, Tuesday, November 7, 2023. Picture: PMO

Through a translator, he told this masthead that Australian officials briefed him that

“mainland Chinese governments are using or dependant on local cooperatives to divide the society”.

He said: “we got to know more about (this issue) during our meeting with Australian officials

regarding the difficulties they are facing (with) the elections in Australia.”

Taiwan, of course, is far closer to the front lines of Beijing’s influence campaigns and while its own domestic politics are complex no one party can accuse the other of being racist for calling out Beijing.

In Australia, of course, Chinese influence campaigns are the threat that dare not speak their name.

Senator Jane Hume was attacked for talking about Chinese influence in Australian elections. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

After Liberal senator Jane Hume clumsily referred to “Chinese spies” at the tail end of the federal election campaign, Labor swung into action, using social media to whip up false claims that criticism of the Chinese Communist Party is tantamount to racism against Australians of Chinese background.

To be clear, the prime minister would have known there was an underlying problem but chose to score electoral points instead, in the process turning Beijing’s behaviour into a third rail of politics.

The idea that Labor would come across all shocked at Chinese influence peddling is laughable, given the number of scandals it has endured.

But it is also reflective of the way the Albanese government, for all its high-minded talk of an Australian way of doing things really cannot conceive of foreign policy and national interest as anything more than domestic policy played out on the global stage.

When it comes to China, Albanese wants first and foremost to keep things stable.

When it comes to the US, he wants to make it very clear that they don’t tell us what to do, whether it comes to defence budgets or anything else.

Two people ride a motorcycle as a Taiwanese Air Force Mirage 2000 fighter jet approaches for landing at an air force base in Hsinchu after China encircled Taiwan with naval vessels and military aircraft in war games exercises. Picture: AFP

Thus China can meddle in Australia’s internal politics or send an intelligence gathering fleet to map maritime approaches and undersea cables and Albanese will say don’t worry, this is all fine and dandy under international law.

When asked about this during one of the election debates and whether China was a threat, Albanese hemmed and hawed and said China was “seeking to increase its influence.”

“But the relationship is complex as well, because China is our major trading partner,” he added, the subtext being that he wouldn’t pull a Scott Morrison and rock the boat by complaining about bad behaviour by Beijing.

We may never know what goes on in the behind closed doors meetings Albanese and his team take when they are in China but it is hard to be optimistic that they will lodge robust protests against influence schemes, spy ships, missile tests, and the rest.

Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese meets with China's President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, Monday, November 6, 2023. Picture: Twitter

But this is dangerous business, and readers can be sure this is being noticed in Washington.

Albanese may have had good relations with Joe Biden and the advisers who were propping him up but it is a sure thing that the Trump administration as it pivots to the Pacific has little time for Labor’s undergraduate ambivalence about America.

With everyone fearing that the world is in the midst of another 1930s-style crisis, it’s worth remembering that Neville Chamberlain came back from Munich promising peace in our time.

Those with long memories should remember how that went, should Albanese come home proclaiming “stability!”

James Morrow is in Taiwan as a guest of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Originally published as James Morrow analysis: China is trying to influence our elections, but don’t count on Albo making a fuss in Beijing