June 11, 2005

CHEN Yonglin, the runaway Chinese diplomat, is a deeply frightened man. He tells me he believes he and his wife, Jin Ping, and their impossibly cute six-year-old daughter, Fang Rong, are targets for kidnap by Chinese agents.

"I'm afraid of such a force [Chinese agents]," Chen says. "They can do anything against me. Chinese dissidents in Australia are in danger, that's very possible. I fear for my life. My life was threatened."

This may seem far-fetched but kidnapping has been a recurring motif in Chen's life. Way back in 1971, when Chen was just three years old, during the height of the mass insanity of China's Cultural Revolution, Chen's father was kidnapped by Red Guards, held under a stairway and beaten to death over a period of weeks.

When Chen tried to defect to Australia on May 26, one of the pieces of information he brought with him was the allegation that Chinese agents had kidnapped a Chinese student, Lan Ming, in Australia in 2000 and taken him back to China to force the student's father, a former vice-mayor of Xiamen, to return to China to face embezzlement charges.

It all seems so florid and weird, but kidnapping offspring to coerce parents, especially defectors, has a long history in Soviet and Chinese espionage.

On at least one occasion an Australian citizen was kidnapped by Chinese agents. An Australian businessman, James Peng, was taken from his Macau hotel late at night in October 1993, forcibly removed across the border to China (Macau did not revert to Chinese sovereignty until 1999) and kept in prison on commercial charges for six years, though he was ultimately vindicated in Hong Kong's courts.

What is most remarkable about Chen's case, perhaps, is that now, more than two weeks after his flight from the Chinese consulate in Sydney, no one from any official Australian agency has interviewed him about his allegations. Chen also alleges that he knows of 1000 Chinese agents and informers working in Australia. It isn't necessary to give these allegations credence to want them investigated.

This week I had the chance to interview Chen at length. We sit in a conference room with his wife and child and a large man [...] from the Falun Gong movement. A friend produces cappuccinos for everyone, but Chen, in his impeccable suit and scholarly specs, is too nervous and agitated to touch his until the end of our interview.

[...]

Chen tells me of his first trip to the Sydney office of the Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs on May 26: "I asked to see the [immigration] state director. I told them I was from the Chinese consulate and the matter was extremely important, unusual and sensitive. I showed them my passport and diplomatic identification. I specifically asked them not to call the Chinese consulate. They called the consulate without telling me and then transferred the call to my mobile phone."

Chen naturally fled. With that one colossal mistake the immigration department probably robbed the Government of any chance of handling the matter quietly. There is a feeling across the Government that immigration's ham-fistedness has narrowed the Government's options and contributed to the Government looking foolish. Chen says that in his four years at the Sydney consulate his primary job was to monitor the Falun Gong spiritual movement, as well as pro-democracy activists and supporters of Taiwan, Tibetan independence and independence for east Turkistan.

Reliable sources independent of Chen tell Inquirer that China's intelligence priorities in Australia are: competing with Taiwan for influence among the ethnic Chinese community; monitoring and harassing movements such as Falun Gong, which Beijing regards as hostile; and stealing military secrets and high technology. (See accompanying story.) A great deal of day-to-day effort goes into monitoring Chinese nationals visiting Australia on business, as tourists or to study.

Traditionally, China's vast intelligence effort was not organised primarily through its embassies and consulates but through companies and individuals. However, in recent years much more Chinese espionage has been organised from its embassies and consulates, and that's where the most serious action is believed to take place.

Monitoring the local Chinese community can be serious if it leads to harassment or persecution of relatives back home. Reliable sources tell Inquirer that Chinese agents have not only tried to disrupt Falun Gong activities but, through the use of agents provocateurs, also have tried to turn them violent.

Such activities are called improper foreign influence. On at least two separate occasions, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has complained to, or reprimanded, Chinese diplomats for Chinese government activities among the Australian Chinese community. Once was in 1999 and once was last week. Chen's broad story of monitoring and harassing Falun Gong and other activist groups in Australia was buttressed this week by the testimony of another defector, Hao Fengjun.

Hao has been interviewed on ABC TV saying that he worked for a Chinese government security agency called 610, which received voluminous reports on Australian Chinese. He too has not been interviewed by ASIO or the Australian Federal Police.

Chen says that he did not personally run any of the claimed 1000 agents and informers in Australia but that he knows of their existence because of access he had to files in the computers of the large Chinese diplomatic establishment.

He will not be specific about the origin and extent of his knowledge of the alleged kidnapping he has described, except to say that he found out about it while working at the consulate and that he was told of it by "a reliable source".

Chen tells me he came to hate his work: "I was instructed by my superiors to monitor Falun Gong and pro-democracy movements and to get information from the community and friends who contact me, from all sources. I read their publications and went to their assemblies.

"But actually I support democracy and I talked to them and found they were friendly to me. I have to report back to China on them and I feel guilty because this information can be used against them and their families."

Chen says he has knowledge that some families of democracy activists have suffered in China. Again, it is impossible to dismiss his accusations out of hand. A US State Department human rights report, published in February, claims that 250,000 to 310,000 prisoners are held in Chinese re-education and labour camps. The report says: "The Government continued to commit numerous and serious abuses. Authorities were quick to suppress religious, political and social groups [opposed to the Government]."

While emphasising that many categories of people are persecuted in China, the State Department further comments: "The Government continued its crackdown against the Falun Gong spiritual movement and tens of thousands of practitioners remained incarcerated in prisons, extra-judicial re-education through labour camps and psychiatric facilities. Several hundred Falun Gong adherents reportedly have died in detention due to torture, abuse and neglect since ... 1999."

That context gives Chen's job of reporting on people in Australia a dark moral dimension. Chen was required to put people's names on a black list. This may mean they are prevented from travelling to China to see relatives. Chinese nationals on the list could have their passports confiscated when they come to get them renewed, an action that threatens their ability to function normally in Australia. Chen often argued with his superiors about the practice of confiscating passports.

"Before I came to Australia I knew nothing of Falun Gong," he says. "I found that they are innocent people who need help, not persecution. Every day my superior would say to me, 'Here is Falun Gong' or 'Here is the pro-democracy movement, find ways to tackle them'. They force me to do this.

"I'm like a machine or like a dog that anyone can call. So my spirit has been tortured and twisted. I feel my conscience has been eroded so when I cannot stand it any more I walk out."

Even before walking out, Chen believed he would be persecuted if he returned to China: "You see I have helped Falun Gong practitioners and they [the Chinese Government] will know about this."

Now, after attempting to defect, he believes his treatment in China would be very severe if he were forced to return. He rejects utterly Fu's assurances of lenient treatment: "If I return to China I would certainly be seriously persecuted."

Even in Australia, if granted a protection visa, Chen will never feel entirely safe: "My life was threatened; we could suffer the same fate as the kidnapping case I have described."

Chen says his "conscience against the Communist Party" can be traced back to his childhood and the death of his father: "My mother worked very hard to raise the children and encouraged me to work hard so that one day I can support the family.

"To enter university is one way I can do this, to get the iron rice bowl. I studied very hard and at the same time worked at home with my mother to raise goats and fish, to go to the fields for firewood. We experienced a lot of hardships."

Then came 1989 and the Tiananmen massacre: "I joined the democracy parades and I witnessed the massacre. Three of my school friends were injured, one seriously with a bullet near his heart. I was very shocked. But in 1989 I thought the communist Government would collapse within 10 years."

This was a common belief at the time, so Chen took his opportunity to join the elite foreign ministry. His first overseas posting was Fiji, from 1994 to 1998, the main issue being China's diplomatic competition with Taiwan.

Chen is explicit in his politics: "Of course the Chinese people want freedom and democracy." For all his determination, and the profound responsibilities he shoulders for his wife and daughter, when you spend some time with Chen you're struck by how young he is, and a kind of innocence about him, even after all this.

Is he a lone eccentric, a romantic who has embarked on a great folly? Or is he, perhaps, China's future?