Chinese agent in Australia found guilty of foreign interference, in first of its kind court verdict

An Australian court on Tuesday recorded the first conviction under the nation’s foreign interference laws, with a jury finding a Vietnamese refugee guilty of covertly working for the Chinese Communist Party.

A Victoria state County Court jury convicted Melbourne businessman and local community leader Di Sanh Duong on a charge of preparing for or planning an act of foreign interference.

Duong, an ethnic Chinese from Vietnam who immigrated to Australia in the 1970s, is the first person to be charged under federal laws created in 2018 that ban covert foreign interference in domestic politics and make industrial espionage for a foreign power a crime. The laws offended Australia’s most important trading partner, China, and accelerated a deterioration in bilateral relations.

Ethnic Chinese is first person charged under Australia’s espionage act

Duong, 68, had pleaded not guilty. He was released on bail after his conviction and will return to court in February to be sentenced. He faces a potential 10-year prison sentence.

Prosecutors had argued that Duong, a former member of the Liberal Party, planned to gain political influence in 2020 by cultivating a relationship with the then-government minister Alan Tudge on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party.

Duong did so by arranging for Tudge to receive a 37,450 Australian dollars (then equivalent to US$25,800) in a novelty check donation raised by community organizations for a Melbourne hospital.

Former federal minister Alan Tudge gave evidence at the trial of former Liberal Party candidate Di Sanh Duong. Photo: EPA-EFE

Prosecutor Patrick Doyle told the jury the Chinese Communist Party would have seen Duong as an “ideal target” to work as its agent.

“A main goal of this system is to win over friends for the Chinese Communist Party, it involves generating sympathy for the party and its policies,” Doyle told the jury.

Doyle said Duong told an associate he was building a relationship with Tudge, who “will be the prime minister in the future” and would become a “supporter/patron for us.”

Duong’s lawyer Peter Chadwick said the donation was a genuine attempt to help frontline health workers during the pandemic and combat anti-China sentiment.

Di Sanh Duong has pleaded not guilty to a charge of preparing for or planning an act of foreign interference. Photo: EPA-EFE
“The fear of Covid hung like a dark cloud over the Chinese community in Melbourne,” Chadwick told the jury.

“It’s against this backdrop that Mr. Duong and other ethnic Chinese members of our community decided that they wanted to do something to change these unfair perceptions,” Chadwick said.

Duong, who also goes by the name Sunny, served as deputy chairman of the Museum of Chinese Australian History, a popular tourist attraction in Melbourne’s Chinatown, and was also president of the Oceania Federation of Chinese Organisations, which represents ethnic Chinese from Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.

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Geoff Wade, a historian who has studied Sino-Asian ties and Chinese influence efforts, posted on X, when it was still known as Twitter, that the federation is a member of the United Front network, which promotes Beijing‘s interests overseas, such as its stance on the unification of mainland China and Taiwan.

Under the law, a foreign interference activity undermines Australia’s national interests and is secretly carried out on behalf of a foreign government.

“Foreign interference remains a significant national security priority for the AFP,” the police statement said.

When the law was introduced to parliament, then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull cited allegations of Chinese government interference in Australian politics and universities, sparking an angry response from Beijing.

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