Thanks to US regional strategic primacy, Australia has been virtually immune from the threat of direct military attack since the defeat of Japan in 1945. Now that is changing. In future it will no longer be militarily impossible for China to attack Australia directly. And not just China: other major regional powers, especially India and eventually perhaps Indonesia, will have the potential to launch significant attacks on Australia. That does not mean we now face a serious threat of Chinese military attack. Today the only circumstance in which Australia could…
Tag: Australian intelligence agencies
Bondi businessman accused of selling secrets to China can only be accused of plagiarism, lawyers argue
Lawyers for a Bondi businessman accused of selling Australian secrets to China say simple artificial intelligence tools used to check for plagiarism at universities verified his claim he only provided publicly available information. Alexander Csergo watched on via video link from Sydney’s Parklea prison on Wednesday as prosecutors told Downing Centre local court they would ask the federal attorney general’s department if it wanted to continue his case. Csergo has been held in prison on remand after he was arrested in Bondi in April. He was the first person in…
‘My son is innocent’: mother of imprisoned Australian businessman denies he’s a Chinese spy
An Australian businessman facing a foreign interference charge brought home a “shopping list” given to him by two Chinese intelligence officials as evidence of China’s overt and ultimately unsuccessful efforts to cultivate him as a source, his lawyers say. The list, which Alexander Csergo slipped between the pages of a magazine to spirit out of China, requests information about whether Australia’s new Aukus alliance is “preparing for [a] Taiwan war”, about competition between the US and China in the Pacific, and about the Five Eyes intelligence alliance. Titled “shopping list…