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China’s mouthpiece Global Times hits back at report alleging infiltration of Western embassies

蘋果日報 2020/12/15 22:45


China’s state-run mouthpiece Global Times has refuted British media reports about the Chinese Communist Party’s penetration into British political and commercial institutions, saying anti-China sentiments had become so extreme that the Five Eyes intelligence alliance suffered from “hysteria.”
The Tuesday editorial came after British tabloid newspaper Daily Mail reported earlier that the Chinese Communist Party had infiltrated into the U.K.’s business circles, academia, the country’s embassies and consulates.The Daily Mail report was later picked up by Australian newspaper The Australian, which added that the party had placed its members in many Western embassies and consulates for more than a decade, including those of Australia’s.
The Australian cited a database from a Chinese dissident, reporting at least 10 foreign representative offices in Shanghai — including Australia, the United States, Britain, Germany, Switzerland, India, New Zealand, Italy and South Africa — had hired or were hiring Chinese Communist Party members. Their posts included senior political or government affairs commissioners, economic advisors and administrative assistants, the report said.
The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation has also reportedly announced an investigation into the alleged infiltration.
The Global Times questioned the authenticity of the database on Tuesday, saying that the party did not need to infiltrate foreign organizations. “The Chinese Communist Party has 90 million members, so if foreign organizations were to expand their personnel in China, they must definitely encounter some party members,” it wrote.
The piece also teased that treating the party’s members as infiltrators and intelligence personnel was akin to anti-China sentiment, which were instigated by the United States. The newspaper also said that the Five Eyes intelligence alliance’s “hysterical” behaviors had highlighted its ignorance to the situation in China.
Five Eyes is a multilateral global surveillance body comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the U.S. and Britain.
The article suggested that the “smear campaign” against the Chinese Communist Party was a means of deception to maintain its self-justification to its treatment toward China.
Australian parliamentarian and former diplomat Dave Sharma said Australia should be concerned about Chinese Communist Party members working in embassies and consulates.
“Even people that aren’t (CCP members) are still subject to the pressure and suasion of Chinese state authorities to do their bidding,” Sharma told online news outlet News.com.au. “I think that’s an unusual feature of their political system and one that’s quite foreign to us.”
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