![]() "They are just people with links with China who pass on information in small bits," the expert says. The huge number of regular conversations between Chinese citizens and Australian businessmen, public servants and politicians creates a stream of intelligence that is collated by China's security services. The Chinese intelligence services are exploiting Australia's openness, security sources say. "They put pressure on Chinese Australians, saying 'you are ours'." "Chinese Australians doing business in China are very susceptible to pressure from the legal system in a way round-eyes aren't," says Paul Monk, an intelligence expert and author of Thunder From the Silent Zone: Rethinking China. They are free to go anywhere an Australian is, and there are far too many for the security services to monitor. Thousands already live in Australia, and many come and go for business and mix with Australians at all levels of society. Some one million Chinese citizens visit Australia every year on tourist visas. Spying by China is far easier than it was during the Cold War era. "China's intelligence gathering is pervasive but not overtly intrusive and by and large not breaking any laws, but it is on an industrial scale," says an expert with connections to the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation who asked to remain unnamed. Instead of listening devices hidden in government offices, or communist moles working their way close to power, spies today sit at computers working on ingenious ways to break into foreign networks, or debrief countrymen who may have come across titbits of useful information. In the new era, the Chinese have replaced the Soviets. Hundreds - perhaps thousands - of Chinese government sources act as a giant human vacuum cleaner, sucking up intelligence to be digested in Beijing. But it's a new form of intelligence gathering. Spying in Australia today is probably as intense as during the Cold War, security officials say. And Australia does not have the resources to stop it. Even the smallest scrap of information might be useful.Ĭhinese security services are engaging the most intense collection of intelligence by a foreign power Australia has ever seen. Hundreds – perhaps thousands – of Chinese government sources act as a giant human vacuum cleaner, sucking up intelligence to be digested in Beijing.
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