A Chinese diplomat who quit his consular post last month and demanded asylum in Australia will not be sent home, a senior minister said yesterday, as Australian Prime Minister John Howard insisted burgeoning trade ties with Beijing would not influence the case.
Chen Yonglin (陳用林), the former first secretary at the Chinese consulate in Sydney, has been in hiding since his initial request for asylum was rebuffed by immigration officials late last month.
Australian officials have refused to say whether Chen would be granted a protection visa, sparking charges from opposition parties that the government was putting growing trade relations with China before human-rights concerns in dealing with the diplomat.
Chen, 37, who also wants asylum for his wife and six-year-old daughter, has said he will be persecuted if returned to Beijing and would rather die than be forced to continue in his work back home.
But Health Minister Tony Abbott, a senior member of Howard's Cabinet, said yesterday that Chen would not be forced to return to China against his will.
"Mr. Chen is in Australia, he is being dealt with in accordance with the ordinary process of Australian immigration law, and he is at no risk of being sent back to China," Abbott said.
Speaking to reporters in Sydney, Howard said that Chen's case had nothing to do with Canberra's relationship with Beijing, now at its closest point after the two countries' agreed in April to work towards a free-trade agreement.
The Australian Greens, who are providing Chen with legal assistance, said the government would prefer the diplomat applied for a protection visa rather than the rarely granted territorial asylum -- for fear of offending China.
"I have no doubt that in their conversations with the Chinese embassy and in trying to play this down with the Chinese government, they [the government] feel it will be less of an affront to China if some other form of visa is offered," Greens Senator Bob Brown told ABC radio.
In a letter to the government in which he appeals for political asylum, Chen said he was tormented by nightmares during the four years he worked at the consulate, where his main job was monitoring Chinese dissidents, including the Falun Gong meditation group.
"My spirit is severely distressed for my sin of working for the unjustified authority in somewhat evil way, and my hair turns white quickly in the last four years for frequent nightmares," Chen wrote.
"If I return to China, I may continue to be in charge of Falun Gong affairs for my experience in dealing with Falun Gong, and I would rather die than be forced to do so," he wrote.
Chen, who quit his post weeks before he was due to return to China, said he feared his replacement would discover that he had been helping members of Falun Gong, which the Chinese government has termed an "evil cult," and would be persecuted as a result.
He wrote that Falun Gong "may be a cult but its practitioners are a social vulnerable group and innocent people. They need help but no prosecution."
Australian intelligence officers are investigating claims made by Chen, and by a second Chinese man seeking asylum who said he was a member of China's security forces, that Beijing has some 1,000 spies and informants in Australia.
also see story:
Taiwan monitors Chinese defector's bid in Australia
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique