Self-confessed Chinese spy spills secrets in Australia

A self-confessed Chinese spy has given Australia’s counterespionage agency inside intelligence on how Beijing conducts its interference operations abroad and revealed the identities of China’s senior military intelligence officers in Hong Kong, media reported.

Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said the detailed accusations of China infiltrating and disrupting democratic systems in Australia, Hong Kong and Taiwan are “very disturbing.”

The Nine network newspapers reported that Chinese defector Wang “William” Liqiang told ASIO — the country’s counterespionage agency — that he was involved in the kidnapping in 2015 of one of five Hong Kong booksellers suspected of selling dissident materials. The incident has been a reference point for protesters during the ongoing unrest in Hong Kong.

He would be the first Chinese intelligence operative to blow his cover. “I have personally been involved and participated in a series of espionage activities,” Wang reportedly said in a sworn statement to ASIO in October. He said he currently was living in Sydney with his wife and infant son on a tourist visa and had requested political asylum.

He revealed that he was part of a Hong Kong-based investment firm that was a front for the Chinese government to conduct political and economic espionage in Hong Kong, including infiltrating universities and directing harassment and cyberattacks against dissidents.