Officers asked the man what he meant when he said an Australian minister’s participation in a charity event could benefit “us Chinese”. Was he talking about mainland China and the Chinese Communist Party or the local Australian Chinese community? Depending on the answer, he faced up to 10 years in prison.
“You understand that the Chinese are China. We always say, ‘I’m Chinese,’ that doesn’t mean ‘I’m mainland China,'” said the man, Di Sanh “Sunny” Duong, who was brought in for questioning.
The officer pushed, according to a tape played for a jury. Was Mr. Duong effectively building a relationship with the minister, “who you thought would be the future prime minister, to support the views of the Chinese?” Another officer asked, “Mainland China?”
When Australia’s sweeping foreign interference laws were passed nearly six years ago amid growing concerns about the Chinese government’s covert interference in Western democracies, the United States and other countries were heralded as pioneers. Blockbuster prosecutions that exposed sophisticated tactics appeared to be just around the corner.
But the first case, Mr. Duong’s, did not come to trial until November, and was, presumably, a low-stakes case. It included the Australian government’s charge against a suburban tombstone maker over divergent interpretations of two words (“we the Chinese”) and a $25,000 donation to a community hospital that – prosecutors said – would have at some point become the basis for a pro of China to a local member of parliament.
In December, a court found Mr. Duong, 68, guilty of preparing or planning an act of foreign interference. Late last month, a judge sentenced him to two years and nine months in prison. He is expected to serve a year behind bars.
While the case has received much less attention from the Australian media since the intervention laws were passed, it has become a cautionary tale for the country’s large diaspora communities – almost a third of its population was born overseas. In theory, the new laws were an attempt to defend democracy against foreign influence. In practice, they have raised difficult questions about when such intentions might lead to xenophobia or wasted effort.
Mr. Duong did not testify at the trial and his lawyers called no witnesses. But in his only in-depth interview since his arrest, with the New York Times, he said his patriotism towards China had never clashed with his belief in Australia and its interests. He saw himself as a scapegoat for geopolitical tensions, saying his prosecution was intended to send a message: “Don’t get too close to China.”
For some experts, Mr Duong’s case, which began amid a diplomatic deep freeze between China and Australia and ended with a thaw in relations, raised concerns that he had effectively been found guilty by association. For others, his interactions with Chinese officials were undeniable proof that he was working for Beijing.
Mr. Duong tended to talk. He bragged about the mundane, such as his travels, and boasted about the links he had forged with officials in both Australia and China.
Born and raised in Vietnam, he escaped in 1979, one of hundreds of thousands of Chinese to flee the country. After combining middle-class life in Australia, he often tried to portray himself as a man on the rise. He ran unsuccessfully as a conservative Liberal Party candidate in a state election in 1996. He rose through the ranks of local Chinese community groups, eventually becoming No. 2 of the World Federation of Chinese Organizations from Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, an umbrella organization of branches around the world, as well as the president of its Oceania branch.
The groups, he said, allowed him to connect with officials in China and mingle with local Australian politicians and officials at the Chinese consulate in Melbourne, which did not respond to a request for comment on the case.
More than a year before his arrest, in another interview, Mr Duong said he often told other Chinese Australian community leaders: “If they are talking about spies, they should put me, Di Sanh Duong, in the category of spies. “
He talked about his ties to China, including his overseas advisory positions for four provincial Chinese organs. So, he said, “Does that make me a lackey of China?”
Unbeknownst to Mr. Duong, he was already being investigated by the Australian authorities. They considered some of the groups he was involved in to be organizations linked to China’s foreign influence operation. They wanted to know why he traveled frequently to China, made comments that echoed Beijing’s policies and boasted about his friendship with a Chinese intelligence officer. His interactions with Chinese officials in Australia, including sending photos of Falun Gong protesters to a consulate official, also came under scrutiny.
In 2020, Mr Duong was charged under the Foreign Interference Act, which criminalized any misleading or covert conduct intended to influence Australian politics or policy on behalf of a foreign government.
Mr Duong’s community group had raised about $25,000 and was donating the money to a Melbourne hospital to help treat Covid patients at a time when anti-Chinese sentiment was high in Australia. Mr Duong had invited Alan Tudge, the then immigration minister, to be present when he handed over the money.
During the trial, which lasted three weeks last year and was partially closed to the public, prosecutors did not dispute that Mr. Duong had good intentions. But they argued — in light of his connections to Beijing and what prosecutors said was his association with China’s foreign influence operation — his ultimate motive was nefarious. As one prosecutor said, he was thinking about how he could, in the future, influence Mr Tudge to the benefit of “us Chinese”.
Mr. Tudge’s offices said the background check he ordered on Mr. Duong raised no alarms. But prosecutors argued that Mr. Duong hid his ties to Chinese officials, even though his business card listed his provincial councilor positions.
Before donating the money, prosecutors said Mr. Duong had regular contact with Chinese officials. He was trying to enlist their help in procuring surgical masks from China, which he wanted to give to the hospital. Those interactions, according to the lead prosecutor, Patrick Doyle, meant Mr Duong had a “secret connection to the Chinese Communist Party”.
Not that these connections did any good: Mr. Duong never managed to get the masks from China.
As evidence of Mr Duong’s intentions towards Mr Tudge, prosecutors produced a years-old letter he wrote to a state Liberal Party official containing policy proposals the judge later described as “vague, unworkable and unlikely to be taken seriously”. His main thrust was that Australia should consider China as its main strategic partner rather than the United States. Prosecutors argued it was the kind of approach he could try again.
All this was evidence, the Australian government argued, that Mr Duong had been co-opted by a section of China’s influence operation known as the United Front Labor Department.
“The way the United Front system works – and Mr Duong’s role reflects that – is that it is much more subtle,” Mr Doyle said. “It’s much more complex than being a spy or not being a spy.”
The case, he said, was not in the realm of “spy novels, James Bond movies.”
The United Front system, Mr Doyle told the jury, targets all Chinese living abroad, not only to influence their beliefs, but to turn them into agents to influence others. For the latter, priority is given to certain types of overseas Chinese: those who “have strong faith in China as the motherland” and those with influence and power.
Mr. Duong had both, especially the former, Mr. Doyle said. The United Front system ensured that Mr. Duong had “become just the kind of patriot” able and willing to act in ways, even without explicit instructions, that helped the Chinese government achieve its goals, he said.
Mr Duong’s lawyer, Peter Chadwick, argued that his client simply liked to exaggerate his connections with rich and powerful people. Relations with Chinese government officials were a necessity for someone doing business in China, such as Mr. Duong, he argued. That “doesn’t mean a person or organization is forever co-opted into doing what the Chinese government says,” he said.
Mr. Duong appeared to be more controlling because of his Chinese heritage, Mr. Chadwick said. He added: “I can’t help but wonder if we would be here if Mr Duong was a person of Italian descent who traveled repeatedly to the Italian homeland.”
Mr Chadwick was reprimanded by the judge for “implying that there is a racial motive”.
During the trial, Mr Duong said in the interview that he believed it was in the interests of both China and Australia to be strategic partners. For someone who saw himself and his community as a bridge between the two countries, there was no “too close” to China.
“We hope that the relationship between China and Australia is always good,” he said.
