Red flag at Aussie port

NEW revelations about the close ties of the Port of Newcastle’s part-owners to the Chinese Communist Party have raised further questions about the wisdom of allowing Beijing to hold a 50 per cent stake in Australia’s largest coal export facility.

According to company documents, China Merchants Group, parent company of China Merchant Ports, which took a 50 per cent stake in the Newcastle port as part of a privatisation deal organised by then-NSW premier Mike

Baird, boasts that it is guided by “Xi Jinping thought”.

“With its long history and strong strength, CMG has an extensive influence on the industrial and commercial circles at home and abroad,” the company boasts. “In the new era, with Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era and the spirit of the 19th CPC National Congress as the guidelines, CMG has proposed the strategic principle of … One Belt One Road.”

In addition, a number of staff at China Merchants Group have previously served as high-ranking functionaries of the Chinese Communist Party.

CMG director Chen Zuofo, according to his professional biography on a China Merchants Group web page, previously served as deputy party secretary and secretary of commission for discipline inspection for the Chinese Communist Party at the China Export & Credit Insurance Corporation, and also worked in the general office of the CCP’s central committee.

China Merchants’ board secretary Chu Zongsheng formerly served as a deputy division chief of the CCP as well as acting as general counsel for SASAC, the governing body that controls major state-owned operations for Beijing.

And Bai Jingtao, managing director of China Merchant Ports — the company that holds the stake in Newcastle’s port along with investment group The Infrastructure Fund — served as an officer or director in a number of Chinese government departments, including the ministry of communications.

Last month there were reports of concerns from security experts that, as part of its attempts to punish Australia for a variety of perceived slights, Beijing could use its influence or control of facilities such as the Newcastle port to raise charges on exporters or otherwise tighten the screws on local businesses.

At the time, Peter Jennings, head of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said: “If you have a place like the Port of Newcastle where CMPort is able to put on punitive costs that hurt Australian businesses, that will absolutely happen if the CCP tells them to do so.”