A self-confessed spy’s tale
The China spy case in Australia is a top contender for the news story of the year. Unsurprisingly, the Chinese government has pushed back at the alleged spy’s confessions.
Willaim Wang Liqiang (王立強), a 26-year-old from Fujian, China, is a masterful con artist if we are to believe Beijing’s accounts: Chinese state media say he is a fugitive convicted for fraud in 2016. He swindled several million yuan in April before escaping to Hong Kong.
Let us assume this narrative to be true and see where it leads.
Chinese media states that Wang escaped to Hong Kong with a fake Chinese passport and a fake Hong Kong identification card. To enter Hong Kong, the ex-convict passed through Chinese immigration equipped with top-notch facial recognition technology and then a Hong Kong checkpoint.
This is not surprising, if he is a master fraudster, for he must have the criminal connections and money to obtain the wherewithal to achieve this. He even paid for a South Korean passport as backup.
Getting multiple fake documents and cruising through checkpoints is not a big deal for him, since as Western media report, as an art major from an undistinguished school in central China, he was able to get a job with a Chinese company in the field of high-tech manufacturing in Hong Kong.
For a Chinese to get a Hong Kong work visa, the job must be well-paid and in high demand. He might have lied convincingly about his credentials, submitted a fake diploma, or charmed the company’s owner with his artistic skills into rewarding him with a job paying at least five times the white-collar wage in China.
In May, having secured a tourist visa with his fake passport, he fled to Australia and was reunited with his family. To stay out of the reach of Chinese law, he quietly overstayed his visa, because Australia has no extradition agreement with China.
However, he is such a flamboyant hustler that he decides for some reason to con not only the world’s media, but also Australia’s intelligence agency by making up a sensational story that attracted scrutiny.
He believes his family will be safe from Chinese retribution, and is willing to risk jail time for perjury and deportation for illegal entry if his story is debunked.
Confident in his hustling skills, with his vivid imagination as an artist, he has invented the following details, which are challenging for investigators to verify: A Hong Kong front company is involved in weapons transactions; he is personally acquainted with his spy boss, the chair of a publicly listed company, and his boss’ wife; a manager in a Hong Kong TV station is a high-level spy; and a person from an energy company and a former parliamentary staffer in Australia are Chinese agents.
Overall, the Chinese want the public to believe that this young man is talented in conning people, resorted to techniques used by professional criminals, did not shy away from risk-taking and was good at making up cover stories.
There is an occupation that fits the description: a spy.
Xin Gan
Mansfield, Connecticut
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