Like so many members of the security establishment Director of ASIO Duncan Lewis adopted the time-honoured tactic of implicitly saying to the public ‘trust us because we know things you don’t know and which we can’t tell you’.
About this time last year, the recently retired Director of ASIO Duncan Lewis made a series of startling public announcements. He warned the public that the Chinese government was seeking to use ‘insidious’ interference operations to ‘take over’ Australia’s political system. Anyone in office could be targeted and the strategy’s full impact might not be apparent for decades. ‘You wake up one day and find decisions made in our country that are not in the interests of our country.’ Striking assertions indeed but accompanied by little supporting evidence.
The heated rhetoric notwithstanding, the Lewis declaration must be taken seriously. He has been close to nation’s decision makers for 20 years in a career that has ranged from the military, the bureaucracy, the diplomatic corps, ministerial offices and the security establishment. He was the head of ASIO from 2014 to 2019. It may not be accidental that this period witnessed the sharp deterioration of the relations between Australia and China.
It is a perfectly reasonable assumption that Lewis’s opinions were not his alone and fairly represented the majority view of Canberra’s security agencies. That being so, China had to be seen as an enemy and it was a patriotic duty to do whatever was necessary to disrupt hitherto amicable relations that had reached an apogee with the state visit of President Xi in November 2014.
Lewis took up the reins at ASIO two months before the Xi visit. If that is indeed the case the public declaration of October last year, referred to above, must be seen as the equivalent of an athlete’s victory lap. During his tenure, ASIO and its allies have carried out a successful takeover of Australian foreign policy and China has become an enemy in a manner that astounds many objective observers.
ASIO did not change direction when the new Director, Mike Burgess, assumed the leadership late last year. Hostile intelligence activity, he declared last month, ‘continues to pose a real threat to Australia, our sovereignty and the integrity of our national institutions.’ But if anything, key elements of the strategy have recently become clearer.
The intention is to target that complex web of social, cultural and intellectual relationships between the two countries that have developed over the past decade or so. They involve artistic bodies, universities, think tanks, local government and even personal friendships. None can be above suspicion. All are of interest to the spies.
The extraordinary attack on the prestigious think tank China Matters in June was a calculated move and a warning that any organisation that sought to maintain close relations with Chinese scholars and intellectuals was likely to be a target of hostile scrutiny.
Meanwhile, local governments have been cautioned about the many sister city relationships and warned that personal friendships should be avoided. The universities have also received similar exhortations to be wary about developing scholarly camaraderie. State and federal politicians have been cautioned about friendships with Chinese constituents. The serious harassment and humiliation of New South Wales Labor MLC Shaoquett Moselmane was a deliberate, monitory strike against a politician with close relations with the Chinese community in his electorate. In a recent letter to federal politicians, Burgess warned them of the danger of what he called ‘a proxy’ courting with dubious intent, ‘an unwitting relative, friend or business contact.’
Anyone who experienced the first Cold War as an adult will have seen it all before — the constant harassment of communist suspects and those thought to be fellow travellers. ASIO agents infiltrated social, political and cultural organisations; they followed suspects, raided homes, damaged reputations and inhibited careers. The availability in recent years of ASIO records has confirmed what often appeared at the time to be exaggerated fears about the pervasive spying.
But the differences with today’s witch hunting are noteworthy. The present generation of public figures has had no Cold War experience. They have a gullible trust in the security services. This is particularly pertinent in relation to the ALP. Leaders in the 1950s, 60s and 70s often had personal experience of ASIO’s behaviour or knew of friends or relatives who had been subject to unwanted and frequently uncalled for attention. An even more significant difference is that the great majority of actual or suspected communists, and the wide range of assorted ‘fellow travellers’, were otherwise unexceptional Australians with Anglo-Celtic ancestry.
The fundamental difference with today’s crusade by ASIO is that the suspects are overwhelmingly Chinese even when they are Australian born. To have a Chinese name or even an East Asian appearance makes one a potential suspect. How can it be otherwise? Mike Burgess has said recently there are more spies operating in Australia than during the first Cold War. He has declared publicly that they and their ‘proxies’ act ‘deceptively’, and endeavour to develop personal relationships seeking friendship all the while attempting ‘to secretly co-opt current and future Australian politicians’.
Even acquaintances who set out to be helpful might be acting at the direction ‘of a foreign power’. One has to wonder if Burgess has any idea how difficult his alarmist rhetoric makes life for the local Chinese community. Or perhaps the truth is he just doesn’t care about collateral damage.
And then there is the inescapable fact that the current political climate rekindles the surviving remnants of Australia’s historic racism and attendant anxiety about the ‘yellow peril’. Letters to local newspapers and comments on talkback radio indicate that people feel enabled once more to vent their anti-Chinese antipathies. Does this concern our political leaders? Or do they find it a useful tool in their campaign to ‘push back’ or ‘stand up’ to China?
Of even greater concern is the thought that what we are seeing is a deep, ancestral reaction to the sudden rise of China to a pre-eminence not matched since the 18th century. What seemed to be the natural order of things is being upended. The era when white men bestrode the world is no more. The way we increasingly cling to our five-eyes Anglo-Saxon allies suggests we are seeking our security in the Imperial past and are increasingly unable to adapt to a future already emerging in front of our troubled eyes.
Henry Reynolds is an eminent Australian historian.
Comments
23 responses to “In hunting for Chinese spies we hang on for dear life to Anglo-Saxon allies”
Oh do I understand the State of Israel does not spend millions influencing our members of parliament, their staff and newspapers in this country?
There are lots of important questions raised in this piece, sadly no answers. A couple of things though do occur to me. Firstly, a month or so ago, Paul Keating , in typical fashion, declared that the practitioners of the dark arts here in Australia are ‘nut jobs and wackos.’ And though I may have missed it, there has been no follow up story to this cryptic remark. Yet I would expect that someone in the media would have asked Keating to more fully explain what he meant. Alas, silence.
Secondly, there have been many commentators in the US, including ex-members of intelligence services, who have raised questions about the way that the security state issues warnings about ‘foreign interference’, but provide no evidence, indeed have no evidence. Sometimes a caveat will accompany these disclosures along the lines of : ‘We have no hard evidence to support these conclusions, but we think they are highly likely, because if we were in our enemies situation, this is what we would do.’ Make of that what you wish.
And finally, we have become naive and gullible in the past half century, to the importunities of both our media and our intelligence arms, and we tend to simply believe what we are offered. But as Henry Reynolds says, a quick stroll down memory lane to the absurdities of the secret world of the Cold War against Russia, should be enough to put us on notice that it is unwise to put too much faith in either the media or our intelligence agencies.
Keating was a young acolyte of Jack Lang, whose Bridge-opening ceremony was famously interrupted by Captain Francis de Groot, member of a fascist paramilitary organisation whose attitudes were very similar to those evident in the current China hatred campaign. The fact that de Groot was taken later that day to the Lunatic Reception House at Darlinghurst may be behind Keating’s ‘nut jobs and wackos’ assessment.
Like so many members of the security establishment Director of ASIO Duncan Lewis adopted the time-honoured tactic of implicitly saying to the public ‘trust us because we know things you don’t know and which we can’t tell you’.
Is it not beautiful!!!! Well just tell me and then it will all be OK! You will have my full support after we verify your account and seriously why do we sell iron ore to the Chinese if they are so dangerous! Surely this warning from ASIO should shut down any contact with the enemy!
A rich man asks a beautiful woman if she would sleep with him for a million dollars. After a pause she agrees.
He then asks her if she’d sleep with him for two dollars and she slaps him in the face.
“What do you think I am?” she asks, outraged.
“We’ve already established what you are madam,” the man replies. “Now we’re just haggling over the price.”
This tells you all you need to know about international diplomacy and trade relations. Ultimately all nation states are prostitutes. The only question is the price.
Mr Slorter,
The price is right but Australian “values” got in the way.
Sincerely,
Teow Loon Ti
Not all nation states are prostitutes, some are the customers. Problems start when a customer wants exclusive services for their money.
It may not be a coincidence that after his long career, ending with those 5 years as head of ASIO, Duncan Lewis then joined the Thales Australia board five months later. (What happened to the already-woefully-inadequate 12-month gap that is supposed to pass before such moves can be made?) A top 10 global weapons-maker, Thales also supplies surveillance, detection and intelligence systems.
Praetorian Guard supposedly chose who became Emperor. The Intelligence agencies have been infiltrating legislatures in their own countries for decades.
What happens when this reaches critical mass?
As we will discover Patrick. History repeats.
Our American friends have always thought their “assets” in Australia were in safer hands with a Coalition Government than Labor. Whitlam was the example for Labor of the consequences otherwise. So important was the belief of keeping the Coalition in power that our intelligence agencies have almost become an arm of the Liberal Party, so it would seem.
However the game is changing. As Suez was the last gasp of the British Empire and the end of sterling as a reserve currency, -helped along of course by the U S at a strategic moment. A moment of truth may now be approaching the US; can the US maintain the supremacy of the the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency?
How this plays out in the next few years will determine who makes the call about political power in Canberra. Sadly Whitlam wont be here to witness the outcome!
One of the most clear headed articles about Sino Australian relationship on P&I or anywhere for a while. There is definitely a racial lens to this which has gone complete unsaid. Well done Henry.
Not completely unsaid, Meeple 🙂
https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/dennis-argall-we-may-be-stuck-in-our-bigotry-urgent-change-on-many-fronts-needed/
As stated by Albert Einstein: “The splitting of the atom has changed everything except for man’s way of thinking, and thus we drift into unparalleled catastrophes.
As wasn’t stated by uncle Albert: “This gig in the patents’ office where I steal every bodies good ideas will make me the equal of the misses, who is real brains of this outfit”.
Please explain
Please find out for yourself:
absit omen
I lived and worked in China for 8 years. My closest associates and friends were tertiary educated. Almost all of them had contempt for CCP, but many were members because that was beneficial for careers. The uneducated there sometimes saw me as a western spy whenever I took a photograph. I would suggest that it is the similarly uneducated here in Oz who see the Chinese as an enemy, even those who are Australian citizens. I met and later married a highly educated woman in China and we have a son, born in China. He is currently studying at Sydney University and is an Australian citizen by descent. He looks a bit Asian, is handsome, highly intelligent, thinks rationally and is very successful academically. He’s not interested in sport….bugger. His mother has 4 tertiary qualifications, 3 from Australia and she looks Chinese which is a concern considering the irrational, ill-informed nonsense abroad here now.
John Hewson is right in that we fail to see and take into account matters through Chinese eyes and culture. During my time in China I did not meet any Chinese person who thought the students were correct at Tiananmen Square, they did not see events through western eyes, but through Chinese eyes, eyes that had seen so many upheavals. Many were old enough to remember the appalling Cultural Revolution. People there just want a good life and happiness and they could not give a bugger about the colour of the government. As long as that government continues to perform for the people, something quite questionable about English speaking western governments.
If the Intelligence community is so concerned about Chinese infiltration of our political system, is it a reasonable question to ask has any other nation infiltrated and dominated our other major institutions- ASIO itself, the Military, Churches, Green movements etc. lets put it ALL on the table but do not exclude supposed allies eg USA, UK, NZ (OK a bit of a joke – I wish), various oil producers etc.
The reality is that every nation seeks (or should seek) protection of its own interests. Allies can be just as dangerous as enemies since they can infiltrate much further and have far more widespread influence. However when push comes to shove, allies will be just as quick to ditch us, as Australia found in WWII in Singapore and USA muscling in on our lost barley and beef markets.
Dear Janet,
The spy agencies tell the government that there is a ghost in every corner. Now the government is scared of its own shadow. I said this before but I say it again because I often laugh at my own jokes.
Sincerely,
Teow Loon Ti
With all due respect, the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he did not exist.
Sir,
If the devil exits, we have to develop a sensible way to deal with it instead of spiralling into a state of paranoia. Perhaps saying that we must not overreact would make my failed attempt at humour clearer.
Sincerely,
Teow Loon Ti
Some might say that the US has infiltrated our way of life far more than what the PRC has. Since WW2 our young people have fought in a myriad of their wars, we have their bases on our soil to help prosecute those wars, we support the many morally dubious regimes that are their client states etc. etc. And if our leaders don’t do what IS leaders want, they exert heavy political pressure as theu do in other nations. (eg the dismissal of the Whitlam government)
You hit that nail on the head. But for the last few decades some believe that replacing the real master with the new one is the right thing to do. Is it?