The US ambassador to Australia has voiced US concerns over China’s impact on Australian politics, saying the US wants the system reformed to remove the influence of Chinese political donations.
US Ambassador to Australia John Berry said in an interview with the Australian newspaper that the US is “surprised” by the amount of Chinese money and influence in Australian politics, and wants Australia to resolve the foreign donation issue. The embassy confirmed in a statement that Berry had been accurately quoted in the interview, published yesterday.
Last week, the opposition Australian Labor Party called for foreign political donations to be banned after Labor Senator Sam Dastyari stepped down from a senior role for asking a Chinese company to pay a A$1,670 (US$1,250) travel bill. While Dastyari broke no law, he acknowledged that having the Sydney-based company Top Education Institute pay a personal bill was wrong.
Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull pointed to a Chinese-language news report that quoted Dastyari as saying: “The South China Sea is China’s own affair.”
Turnbull said that statement contradicted both the government and the opposition’s foreign policy position that China should respect international law in territorial disputes. The prime minister accused Dastyari, who has been dubbed Shanghai Sam, of saying what Chinese donors paid him to say.
Dastyari said he might have misspoken during the Chinese interview, but said he supported his party’s policy.
The issue is broader than Dastyari, with Top Education Institute donating more than A$230,000 to both Labor and the ruling conservative Liberal Party.
Unlike the US, which bans foreign donations, Australian law has never distinguished between donors from Australia and overseas.
Berry said the US hopes that Australia will protect its “core responsibilities against undue influence from governments that do not share our values.”
He said the US objects to Beijing being able to fund political candidates in an Australian election campaign to advance Chinese interests.
“That, to us, is of concern,” Berry said in the newspaper interview. “We cannot conceive of a case where a foreign donation from any government, friend or foe, would be considered legitimate in terms of that democracy.”
“We have been surprised, quite frankly, at the extent of the involvement of the Chinese government in Australian politics,” he added.
In 2010, the Labor government introduced a bill to the Australian parliament to ban foreign donations, but it never became law. The minor Greens party has proposed a similar bill in the current parliament, but conservative government ministers have said there is no need for reform.
Australian Broadcasting Corp last month reported that businesses with Chinese connections gave Australia’s major political parties more than A$5.5 million from 2013 to last year, making them easily the largest source of foreign-linked donations.
Australia struggles to balance its relationships with the US, its most important strategic partner, and China, its most important trade partner.
Neither the Chinese embassy in Australia nor Top Education Institute immediately responded to a request for comment.
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