A
Chinese man claiming to be a Beijing-sponsored secret agent who
defected to Australia is really a convicted fraudster and wanted
criminal suspect, Shanghai police have claimed.
The
police statement was issued late on Saturday, hours after Australian
media reported that William Wang Liqiang gave a sworn statement to the
Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) about Beijing’s
efforts to influence politics in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Australia.
The
reports said Wang had given ASIO the identities of senior Chinese
military intelligence officers in Hong Kong, as well as details of how
espionage work was funded and conducted there, as well as in Taiwan and
Australia.
Shanghai
police said Wang – described as a 26-year-old unemployed worker from
Nanping in the southeastern province of Fujian – was given an 18-month
suspended sentence in October 2016 for fraud by the Guangze county court
in Fujian....
According
to Australian media, Wang said he had engaged in political
infiltration and disruption operations in Hong Kong, Taiwan and
Australia.
“I have personally been involved and participated in a series of espionage activities,” The Age newspaper cited Wang as saying in his October statement to the intelligence agency.
He also said he was involved in the kidnapping and detention of Lee Bo,
the owner of Causeway Bay Bookshop and one of five booksellers who
disappeared in Hong Kong in 2015. Chinese authorities denied
accusations that they had kidnapped the men, but accused them of
distributing dissident materials.
Wang
also said he was part of an intelligence operation hidden within a Hong
Kong-listed company that infiltrated the city’s universities and media
to counter anti-government protests that have been ongoing since June.
He also said he was part of infiltration operations to meddle in last
year’s regional elections in Taiwan and the upcoming presidential poll.
He
is now seeking asylum in Australia and said he feared he would be
executed if he returned to China. Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg
said on Saturday that Wang’s case and his accusations were “very
disturbing”.
The above report by Yahoo News gave two sides of the story of a 26 year Chinese who is seeking political asylum in Australia and claiming that he was a Chinese intelligence officer. The China's side of the story was that this man was a fugitive, a fraudster and a wanted criminal.
Which side is telling the truth and which side is lying? This man is only 26 years old and he claimed to know so much about China's intelligence service and officers and also involved in so many intelligence activities that a normal intelligence officer would probably take half his career to experience. At 26, how many years would be he employed in an organisation, how much information would he be exposed to given his limited years in the service and seniority? The nature of an intelligence service is that one is exposed to only things within his scope of duty. How did this young man know so many senior intelligence officers? And how could he be involved in so many operations as if he was a master spy?
Of course Australia and ASIO would have all the reasons to want to believe in this young man's story to besmear China, to support their agenda of telling the world that China is setting up a big intelligence network and operation against Australia. The details and abundance of information provided by this young man clearly proved that he is lying and fabricating stories that ASIO planted in him, in collaboration with ASIO.
No young kids at a tender age of 26 would be exposed and be involved in so many intelligence activities. The time factor would not allow it to be real. The info supposedly given by this young man was likely fed to him by ASIO. Only ASIO has those info, not this ignorant kid. He is too young to know much or allowed to know so much.