Spies Come In From The Cold Only To Get Heat

They come from different backgrounds with the same story.

But the countries they are in — Canada and Australia — refuse to believe them or publicly acknowledge what they are saying.

Why? Because both administrations have huge and influential money ties with China which has never been closer.

The latest diplomatic crises involving Chinese spies overseas is playing out in Australia after a Chinese First Secretary Chen Yonglin applied for asylum in Sydney.

Chen has alleged there are 1,000 Chinese spies in Australia and that abductions sponsored by the Chinese Government take place Down Under. He said he was involved in harassing Falun Gong followers and is offering a wealth of information to Australia’s intelligence agencies.

Instead of providing this man and his family a safe haven to protect national interests, Australia has rebuffed him and told him to go home.

That is because China has simply dismissed his claims saying it is a fictitious yarn to enable Chen and his family to stay in Australia.

So is Chen telling lies about China’s spy network?

Not if you check out his story against what you have been reading in The Asian Pacific Post.

In August 2003, the story Chen is telling now was mirrored in this paper and entitled ‘3,500 Chinese spy companies identified in Canada and U.S.’ See www.asianpacificpost.com/news/article/98.html.

Here we detailed how in the high-rise glass towers of Vancouver — Tricell (Canada) Inc. and Top Glory Enterprises Ltd., both incorporated in the late ‘80s worked for the Communist government of China.

Among their jobs was to help facilitate the covert entry of China’s secret police into Vancouver by hoodwinking the Canadian government into believing they were government executives.

The agents, complete with fake visas issued by top ministry officials, were hunting for high profile fugitive businessman, Lai Changxing.

Lai, who is accused of running a multi-billion dollar smuggling operation by China fled to Vancouver with his wife and three children in 1999.

In his refugee claim which is still winding through the court process, Lai lays out how the Chinese military intelligence apparatus sets up businessmen and diplomats overseas as part of an elaborate spy network — a similar story being heard in Australia now.

Like Australia, the Canadian government does not believe him.

So instead of using Lai as an intelligence resource, Immigration Canada is working night and day to boot him out after China’s top dogs informed Ottawa in no uncertain terms that they want him and his secrets back in a Chinese gulag.

As far as the Falun Gong harassment goes in Canada, all one has to do is watch the bushes around the demonstrations to find little men with cameras scurrying about taking pictures of participants for the bosses back in Beijing.

Chen and Lai don’t know each other. They have frighteningly similar stories. But the people they are asking for help won’t listen to them.

Their so-called “lies” have even been corroborated by the spy boys at the FBI, Canadian Security Intelligence Service and Australia’s ASIO.

All the agencies say unequivocally that the greatest espionage threat to the Western world in the next 10 years to 15 years is China.

So what do the politicians do?

They kow-tow to Beijing’s demands, pretend there is no basis to the claims and open their natural resource sectors to China’s hungry energy needs.

In Australia and Canada today, China has become the biggest player in the energy sector as it scours the globe for fuel.

For the last few weeks the Australian government has been holding talks with Beijing to kick-start a lucrative uranium export trade to China.

Closer to home, China’s state-owned enterprises have been carving up the Alberta oil-sands.

Hence it is not surprising that the claims by Chen and Lai have no merit in Canberra and Ottawa.

There is one other take on this issue between Australia and Canada.

Both are run by politicians who have for over a decade developed a disturbingly cozy relationship with Beijing to the detriment of national security and human rights.

Maybe it is time for the opposition Down Under and Up Colder to join forces, listen to what people like Chen and Lai have got to say and expose China’s shenanigans overseas.