The law enforcement officials requested the person what he meant when he mentioned that involving an Australian authorities minister in a charity occasion may benefit “us Chinese language.” Was he speaking about mainland China and the Chinese language Communist Social gathering, or the native Australian Chinese language neighborhood? Relying on the reply, he confronted as much as 10 years in jail.
“You’re understanding the Chinese language is China. We all the time say, ‘I’m Chinese language,’ that not imply, ‘I’m mainland China,’” mentioned the person, Di Sanh “Sunny” Duong, who was introduced in for questioning.
The officer pressed on, based on a tape performed for a jury. Was Mr. Duong successfully constructing a relationship with the minister, “who you thought can be the long run prime minister, to assist the views of the Chinese language?” One other officer requested, “Mainland China?”
When Australia’s broad-stroke international interference legal guidelines had been handed almost six years in the past amid rising considerations about covert Chinese language authorities meddling in Western democracies, they had been heralded as trailblazing by america and different nations. Blockbuster prosecutions revealing subtle techniques appeared to be simply across the nook.
However the first case, Mr. Duong’s, got here to trial solely in November, and it was, by all accounts, a low-stakes affair. It concerned throwing the burden of the Australian authorities in opposition to a suburban tombstone maker over diverging interpretations of two phrases (“us Chinese language”), and a $25,000 donation to a neighborhood hospital that — prosecutors mentioned — would in some unspecified time in the future have turn out to be the premise for a pro-China pitch to an area member of Parliament.
In December, a jury discovered Mr. Duong, 68, responsible of making ready for or planning an act of international interference. Late final month, a choose sentenced him to 2 years and 9 months in jail. He’s anticipated to serve a yr behind bars.
Whereas the case acquired far much less consideration from Australian media than the passage of the interference legal guidelines, it has turn out to be a cautionary story for the nation’s massive diaspora communities — almost a 3rd of its inhabitants was born abroad. In idea, the brand new legal guidelines had been an effort to defend democracy in opposition to international affect. In observe, they’ve raised robust questions on when such intentions may drift into xenophobia or wasteful effort.
Mr. Duong didn’t testify on the trial and his legal professionals didn’t name any witnesses. However in his solely in-depth interview since his arrest, with The New York Occasions, he mentioned that his patriotism towards China by no means conflicted together with his loyalty to Australia and its pursuits. He noticed himself as a scapegoat of geopolitical tensions, saying his prosecution was meant to ship a message: “Don’t stroll too near China.”
For some consultants, Mr. Duong’s case, which began amid a diplomatic deep freeze between China and Australia and concluded as relations thawed, raised considerations that he had been successfully discovered responsible by affiliation. To others, his interactions with Chinese language officers had been simple proof that he was working for Beijing.
Mr. Duong had a bent to speak himself up. He bragged concerning the mundane, like his travels, and boasted of the ties he had constructed with officers in each Australia and China.
Born and raised in Vietnam, he fled in 1979, one of many a whole lot of hundreds of ethnic Chinese language who left the nation. After cobbling collectively a middle-class life in Australia, he usually sought to painting himself as a person on the rise. He ran unsuccessfully as a candidate within the conservative Liberal Social gathering in a state election in 1996. He labored his approach up by means of the ranks of native Chinese language neighborhood teams, finally turning into the No. 2 of the International Federation of Chinese language Organizations from Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, an umbrella group with chapters all over the world, in addition to the president of its Oceania department.
The teams, he mentioned, allowed him to attach with officers in China, and to mingle with native Australian politicians and officers on the Chinese language consulate in Melbourne, which didn’t reply to a request for touch upon the case.
Greater than a yr earlier than his arrest, in one other interview, Mr. Duong mentioned that he usually mentioned to different Chinese language-Australian neighborhood leaders, “In the event that they speak about spies, they need to put me, Di Sanh Duong, within the class of spies.”
He spoke about his ties to China, together with his abroad adviser positions for 4 provincial Chinese language our bodies. So, he mentioned, “Does that make me China’s lackey?”
Unbeknown to Mr. Duong, he was already being investigated by the Australian authorities. They regarded some teams he was concerned in as organizations linked to China’s international affect operation. They needed to know why he usually traveled to China, made feedback that echoed Beijing’s insurance policies, and boasted about his friendship with a Chinese language intelligence officer. His interactions with Chinese language officers in Australia, together with when he despatched images of Falun Gong protesters to a consulate official, additionally got here underneath scrutiny.
In 2020, Mr. Duong was charged underneath the international interference legislation, which criminalized any misleading or covert conduct that’s meant to affect Australian politics or coverage on behalf of a international authorities.
Mr. Duong’s neighborhood group had raised about $25,000 and was donating the cash to a Melbourne hospital to assist deal with Covid sufferers, at a time when anti-Chinese language sentiment was excessive in Australia. Mr. Duong had invited Alan Tudge, the immigration minister on the time, to be current when he handed over the cash.
Through the trial, which ran for 3 weeks final yr and was partly closed to the general public, prosecutors didn’t dispute that Mr. Duong had good intentions. However they argued — in gentle of his connections to Beijing and what prosecutors mentioned was his affiliation with China’s international affect operation — his final motive was nefarious. He was, a prosecutor mentioned, fascinated about how he might, sooner or later, affect Mr. Tudge to the good thing about “us Chinese language.”
Mr. Tudge’s workplaces mentioned {that a} background test it ordered on Mr. Duong didn’t increase any alarms. However prosecutors argued that Mr. Duong hid his connections to Chinese language officers, though his enterprise card listed his provincial adviser positions.
Earlier than donating the cash, prosecutors mentioned that Mr. Duong had been in common contact with Chinese language officers. He had been attempting to enlist their assist to supply surgical masks from China, which he needed to present to the hospital. These interactions, based on the lead prosecutor, Patrick Doyle, meant Mr. Duong had “a secret connection to the Chinese language Communist Social gathering.”
Not that these connections did any good: Mr. Duong by no means managed to get the masks from China.
As proof of Mr. Duong’s intentions towards Mr. Tudge, prosecutors introduced a years-old letter he wrote to a state-level Liberal Social gathering official containing coverage strategies that the choose later described as “obscure, impracticable and unlikely to be taken severely.” His primary thrust was that Australia ought to take into account China as its major strategic associate, not america. Prosecutors argued it was the type of method he may attempt once more.
This was all proof, the Australian authorities argued, that Mr. Duong had been co-opted by a piece of China’s influence-peddling operation often known as the United Entrance Work Division.
“The best way the United Entrance system works — and Mr. Duong’s function displays this — is that it’s much more delicate,” Mr. Doyle mentioned. “It’s much more nuanced than you’re both a spy or not a spy.”
The case, he mentioned, was not within the realm of “spy novels, of James Bond movies.”
The United Entrance system, Mr. Doyle informed the jury, targets all ethnically Chinese language individuals residing abroad, not solely to sway their beliefs, but additionally to show them into brokers to affect others. For the latter, particular varieties of abroad Chinese language are prioritized: those that “have a robust allegiance to China because the motherland,” and people with affect and energy.
Mr. Duong had each, particularly the previous, Mr. Doyle mentioned. The United Entrance system ensured that Mr. Duong had “turn out to be precisely the form of patriot” able to and keen to behave in methods, even with out specific directions, that helped the Chinese language authorities obtain its objectives, he mentioned.
Mr. Duong’s lawyer, Peter Chadwick, argued that his shopper merely favored to magnify his connections to wealthy and highly effective individuals. Relationships with Chinese language authorities officers had been a necessity for somebody who did enterprise in China, like Mr. Duong, he argued. This “doesn’t imply that an individual or a corporation are without end co-opted to do what the Chinese language authorities says,” he mentioned.
Mr. Duong appeared to attract extra scrutiny due to his Chinese language heritage, Mr. Chadwick mentioned. He added, “I can’t assist however ponder whether we’d be right here if Mr. Duong was an individual of Italian descent who repeatedly traveled again to the Italian motherland.”
Mr. Chadwick was reprimanded by the choose for “hinting that there’s a racial motivation.”
Through the trial, Mr. Duong mentioned within the interview that he believed that it was in each China and Australia’s greatest pursuits to be strategic companions. For somebody who noticed himself and his neighborhood as a bridge between the 2 nations, there was no such factor as being “too shut” to China.
“We hope China and Australia’s relationship is all the time good,” he mentioned.
