7 ms·

Australia a country with a smaller population than Texas has about 50,000 Chinese "spies". They are not James Bond-type spies but informants on other Chinese in

Australia a country with a smaller population than Texas has about 50,000 Chinese "spies". They are not James Bond-type spies but informants on other Chinese in Australia. In East Germany, one in five people were informants for the Communists. Canada would have a similar number as well.

alliao 5y ago
local Chinese media in NZ is 100% pro CCP, serious downer as I'm an Asian and people automatically assume I side with CCP ideologies. Didn't Australia passed some law on Espionage and Foreign Interference? From what I can tell it greatly subsided public activities over there, we need something like that in NZ to be honest...
jfoster 5y ago
Do you have a source for that? Sounds too high to be plausible. With a population of around 25 million, that would mean that 1 out of every 500 people would be an informant.
- pphysch 5y ago
  I'll reckon their criteria for "spy" is something like "disagrees with me politically".
- mullen 5y ago
  The Chinese "Spies" are not what you think of as Spies. They are Chinese foreign college students in Australia who report back to China if any of their classmates do something that the Chinese government would not approve of. They also steal information when they can and just basically tow the party line while overseas. They all do it because the government is paying for their education and they are proven loyal to CCCP (That's why the government pays for their education overseas).
  - jfoster 5y ago
    OK, but source? Australian population in 2016 born in China was ~500k. If you assume that the majority of this was happening within that population, if it's 50k "informants", that would mean it's 1 in every 10 people. If you further limited it to students, it would be even more than that. If this were actually known to be happening at such high frequency, I would expect that Australia would know about it & do something about it. https://quickstats.censusdata.abs.gov.au/census_services/getproduct/census/2016/quickstat/6101_036 https://quickstats.censusdata.abs.gov.au/census_services/get...
    - ShivShankaran 5y ago
      Absolutely no source. Remember that Fox news has minority viewership in US but in Australia it controls 90% of the news (Murdoch is from Australia). Most of the news, almost all the time are sensationalist nonsense like this. 10 years ago it was complaining about the Lebanese then the vietnamese and then finally its the turn of Chinese. If you want to experience the US 60's style racism go to Australia. Imagine a place in US named like this https://goo.gl/maps/aoUdGWvFmGcmV7f29 https://goo.gl/maps/aoUdGWvFmGcmV7f29
    - bogantech 5y ago
      Chinese government threatens the family members still living in China: https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/this-student-attended-a-protest-at-an-australian-uni-days-later-chinese-officials-visited-his-family-20190807-p52eqb.html https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/this-student-attende... Students doxxed and harassed after protesting https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/aug/04/we-cannot-be-seen-the-fallout-from-the-university-of-queenslands-hong-kong-protests https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/aug/04/we-ca... The government doesn't do anything about it because Chinese students are a cash cow and every university in Australia as well as the property market would implode without that sweet cash
      - antifa 5y ago
        Couldn't find 50k, or any other number, in this articles.
  - octoberfranklin 5y ago
    toe. You toe a line. As in standing where you're told, with your toes on the line. You tow a trailer. As in dragging it behind you. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toe_the_line#Misspelling_as_"tow_the_line" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toe_the_line#Misspelling_as_... Sorry, this is just my personal pet peeve eggcorn. We now return you to your regularly scheduled Hacker News...
- refurb 5y ago
  "Informant" doesn't have to be a high bar. Even in the West, the law enforcement and intelligence agencies will have huge networks of "casual" informants. Imagine you're a lonely Chinese student in Australia and you meet a wealthy and successful fellow countryman. After a while he asks how you're doing considering the "anti-Chinese" attitudes in Australia. "What's the situation like on campus?". If that information makes it back to the Chinese gov't, well, you're now a part of an informant network.
freeflight 5y ago
Good thing then how the US has over 300 million voluntary "counter spies" [0] [0] https://www.dhs.gov/see-something-say-something https://www.dhs.gov/see-something-say-something

alliao 5y ago

local Chinese media in NZ is 100% pro CCP, serious downer as I'm an Asian and people automatically assume I side with CCP ideologies. Didn't Australia passed some law on Espionage and Foreign Interference? From what I can tell it greatly subsided public activities over there, we need something like that in NZ to be honest...

jfoster 5y ago

Do you have a source for that? Sounds too high to be plausible. With a population of around 25 million, that would mean that 1 out of every 500 people would be an informant.

pphysch 5y ago
I'll reckon their criteria for "spy" is something like "disagrees with me politically".
mullen 5y ago
The Chinese "Spies" are not what you think of as Spies. They are Chinese foreign college students in Australia who report back to China if any of their classmates do something that the Chinese government would not approve of. They also steal information when they can and just basically tow the party line while overseas. They all do it because the government is paying for their education and they are proven loyal to CCCP (That's why the government pays for their education overseas).
- jfoster 5y ago
  OK, but source? Australian population in 2016 born in China was ~500k. If you assume that the majority of this was happening within that population, if it's 50k "informants", that would mean it's 1 in every 10 people. If you further limited it to students, it would be even more than that. If this were actually known to be happening at such high frequency, I would expect that Australia would know about it & do something about it. https://quickstats.censusdata.abs.gov.au/census_services/getproduct/census/2016/quickstat/6101_036 https://quickstats.censusdata.abs.gov.au/census_services/get...
  - ShivShankaran 5y ago
    Absolutely no source. Remember that Fox news has minority viewership in US but in Australia it controls 90% of the news (Murdoch is from Australia). Most of the news, almost all the time are sensationalist nonsense like this. 10 years ago it was complaining about the Lebanese then the vietnamese and then finally its the turn of Chinese. If you want to experience the US 60's style racism go to Australia. Imagine a place in US named like this https://goo.gl/maps/aoUdGWvFmGcmV7f29 https://goo.gl/maps/aoUdGWvFmGcmV7f29
  - bogantech 5y ago
    Chinese government threatens the family members still living in China: https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/this-student-attended-a-protest-at-an-australian-uni-days-later-chinese-officials-visited-his-family-20190807-p52eqb.html https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/this-student-attende... Students doxxed and harassed after protesting https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/aug/04/we-cannot-be-seen-the-fallout-from-the-university-of-queenslands-hong-kong-protests https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/aug/04/we-ca... The government doesn't do anything about it because Chinese students are a cash cow and every university in Australia as well as the property market would implode without that sweet cash
    - antifa 5y ago
      Couldn't find 50k, or any other number, in this articles.
- octoberfranklin 5y ago
  toe. You toe a line. As in standing where you're told, with your toes on the line. You tow a trailer. As in dragging it behind you. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toe_the_line#Misspelling_as_"tow_the_line" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toe_the_line#Misspelling_as_... Sorry, this is just my personal pet peeve eggcorn. We now return you to your regularly scheduled Hacker News...
refurb 5y ago
"Informant" doesn't have to be a high bar. Even in the West, the law enforcement and intelligence agencies will have huge networks of "casual" informants. Imagine you're a lonely Chinese student in Australia and you meet a wealthy and successful fellow countryman. After a while he asks how you're doing considering the "anti-Chinese" attitudes in Australia. "What's the situation like on campus?". If that information makes it back to the Chinese gov't, well, you're now a part of an informant network.

freeflight 5y ago

Good thing then how the US has over 300 million voluntary "counter spies" [0] [0] https://www.dhs.gov/see-something-say-something https://www.dhs.gov/see-something-say-something