Australian police yesterday said they have charged two Chinese nationals with foreign interference, accusing them of spying on a Buddhist group at the behest of police in China.
The pair — a 25-year-old man and a 31-year-old woman — have each been charged with one count of “reckless foreign interference,” which carries a maximum penalty of 15 years’ imprisonment.
Police said they they worked with a Chinese national charged in August last year for covertly gathering information on the Guan Yin Citta Buddhist group in Australia’s capital, Canberra.
Photo: AFP
They are alleged to have worked under the command of the Chinese Public Security Bureau, the country’s main domestic law enforcement body.
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs called on the Australian government to take care in its handling of the case.
“China urges Australia to handle the case prudently and properly, and to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese citizens,” Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Lin Jian (林劍) told a news conference, denying knowledge of the specific details of the case.
The Australian Federal Police said they began investigating the case last year on a tip from the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation.
Agency chief Mike Burgess said a “complex, challenging and changing security environment is becoming more dynamic, diverse and degraded.”
“Multiple foreign regimes are monitoring, harassing and intimidating members of our diaspora communities,” he said. “This sort of behavior is utterly unacceptable and cannot be tolerated.”
China’s sprawling security apparatus has long been accused of infiltrating community organizations as a way to keep tabs on expats and dissidents.
“Australia is not immune to foreign interference, and we should not expect this arrest will prevent further attempts to target our diaspora communities,” Australian Federal Police Assistant Commissioner Stephen Nutt said.
“Members of our culturally and linguistically diverse communities are more likely to be victims of foreign interference or transnational repression than to be offenders,” he added.
Led by the late Lu Jun Hong (盧軍宏), Guan Yin Citta claims to have millions of devotees worldwide.
Guan Yin Citta describes its goals as encouraging “people to recite Buddhist scriptures, practise life liberation and make great vows to help more people.”
Beijing considers it to be a “cult.”
ROCKY RELATIONS: The figures on residents come as Chinese tourist numbers drop following Beijing’s warnings to avoid traveling to Japan The number of Chinese residents in Japan has continued to rise, even as ties between the two countries have become increasingly fractious, data released on Friday showed. As of the end of December last year, the number of Chinese residents had increased by 6.5 percent from the previous year to 930,428. Chinese people accounted for 22.6 percent of all foreign residents in Japan, making them by far the largest group, Japanese Ministry of Justice data showed. Beijing has criticized Tokyo in increasingly strident terms since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last year suggested that a military conflict around Taiwan could
A pro-Iran hacking group claimed to breach FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal e-mail inbox and posted some of the contents online. The e-mails provided by the hacking group include travel details, correspondence with leasing agents in Washington and global entry, and loyalty account numbers. The e-mail address the hackers claim to have compromised has been previously tied to Patel’s personal details, and the leaked e-mails contain photos of Patel and others, in addition to correspondence with family members and colleagues. “The FBI is aware of malicious actors targeting Director Patel’s personal email information,” the agency said in a statement on
RIVALRY: ‘We know that these are merely symbolic investigations initiated by China, which is in fact the world’s most profligate disrupter of supply chains,’ a US official said China has started a pair of investigations into US trade practices, retaliating against similar probes by US President Donald Trump’s administration as the superpowers stake out positions before an expected presidential summit in May. The move, announced by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce on Friday, is a direct mirror of steps Trump took to revive his tariff agenda after the US Supreme Court last month struck down some of his duties. “China expresses its strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to these actions,” a ministry spokesperson said in a statement, referring to the so-called Section 301 investigations initiated on March 11.
When a hiker fell from a 55m waterfall in wild New Zealand bush, rescuers were forced to evacuate the badly hurt woman without her dog, which could not be found. After strangers raised thousands of dollars for a search, border collie Molly was flown to safety by a helicopter pilot who was determined to reunite the pet and the owner. A week earlier, an emergency rescue helicopter found the woman with bruises and lacerations after a fall at a rocky spot at the waterfall on the South Island’s West Coast. She was airlifted on March 24, but they were forced to
RSS