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Beijing's chief Australian propagandist has backed Liberal candidate John Alexander in the Bennelong byelection while savaging the Turnbull government's efforts to counter Beijing's interference in Australia.
The rare public comments by Chinese language media mogul Tommy Jiang come as he tries to dramatically expand his Australian media empire with the purchase of dozens of new radio licences.
Meanwhile, Mr Jiang faces the prospect of being required to register under the federal government's new foreign influence laws.
In the latest attack on the Turnbull government by a figure aligned with Beijing, Mr Jiang said Malcolm Turnbull's claims the Chinese Communist Party was seeking covert or improper influence in Australia were baseless, because "Australia doesn't have anything worth infiltrating".
"He [Mr Turnbull] says China has lots of spies, but China doesn't have anything it wants to steal from Australia. I don't know what evidence he has for these statements," Mr Jiang said.
However, he also endorsed Mr Alexander, who has sought to avoid buying into the China influence debate.
Mr Jiang, who has golfed with Mr Alexander and recently participated in a Liberal Party Chinese Council event with Prime Minister Turnbull to promote Mr Alexander, is Australia's most powerful Chinese language media player.
He is a former member of the Communist Youth League, and the success of his media business is due in part to his long-standing collaboration with the Chinese Communist Party's propaganda arm, the state-owned international broadcaster, China Radio International.
Mr Jiang's attack on Mr Turnbull echoes that of Mr Alexander's Bennelong rival, Kristina Keneally, who has accused Mr Turnbull of smearing Chinese Australians with the scent of suspicion.
However, it contrasts with warnings issued by Australia's intelligence chief, Duncan Lewis, who has warned that Beijing is attempting to influence Australian institutions.
The extent of the enigmatic businessman's relationship with Beijing is opaque, partly because Mr Jiang maintains a low profile and avoids mainstream media attention.
But a Fairfax Media investigation can reveal he is poised to dramatically expand his empire in Australia in a move likely to please his partners in Beijing's propaganda wing.
Mr Jiang is seeking to gain control of up to 36 radio licences or stations in Australia in what he has told his employees is part of his efforts to promote China. A source who attended a private event with Mr Jiang said he announced that the acquisition was partly to counter the "wrong" depiction of China as portrayed in Western media.
The expansion will add to Mr Jiang's existing empire of 11 radio stations, nine newspapers and several websites and magazines, which reach many of Australia's 1 million residents with Chinese heritage.
Mr Jiang's interaction with Australian politicians across the political spectrum - in 2013 he helped raise $260,000 for the ALP - and his close ties to the propaganda arm of the Chinese Communist Party are set to come under scrutiny if the Coalition's proposed foreign influence register is introduced in 2018.
The question of whether Mr Jiang must register looms as a test case for how governments ensure greater transparency surrounds Beijing's global propaganda push.
Tommy Jiang's business model has long been founded on giving those seeking power a platform to reach Australia's Chinese community. The former soccer player turned Communist Youth League branch leader arrived in Australia in 1988 and, a decade later, began running advertisements for the Victorian ALP on his nascent Chinese community radio station 3CW.
For several years, Mr Jiang broadcast programs from the BBC and Voice of America on 3CW, but this ceased when he became a vessel in Beijing's global "borrowed boat" strategy of using locally licensed radio stations overseas to broadcast Chinese Communist Party (CCP) approved news and propaganda.
According to a small number of Mr Jiang's Chinese Australian colleagues who spoke to Fairfax Media on the condition of confidentiality, Mr Jiang's business boomed as a result of his CCP partnership, while what could be broadcast to Chinese Australian listeners dramatically narrowed in line with the CCP's strategy of seeking to influence the disparate Chinese diaspora.
While Mr Jiang unquestionably aligned himself with an international propaganda and lobbying network, his motives are unclear. He insists he is a mere businessman and the 3CW sources who spoke to Fairfax Media said his principal concern was money, not politics.
"Isn't Murdoch doing business too?" Mr Jiang said when pressed about his relationship with China Radio International.
But while most politicians and parties duchess media moguls such as Mr Murdoch in the hope of winning favourable coverage, Mr Jiang is literally in business with Beijing. Company documents show a subsidiary of the Communist Party's China Radio International is a 60 per cent owner of Mr Jiang's Australian business, Global CAMG Media Group.
Swinburne University professor John Fitzgerald said Mr Jiang had been "in effect taking over Australian Chinese radio" in an arrangement that seeks to control the content reaching those who wish to access information in Chinese.
"China Radio International appears to have an exclusive placement arrangement with Mr Jiang ensuring that no other news and current affairs can appear. That's its greatest impact: not what his broadcasting network says, but what it stops others saying," Mr Fitzgerald said.
Mr Jiang and Australian politicians enjoy a symbiotic relationship, although he claims to favour neither side of politics. He golfed with John Alexander at a 2016 charity event that Mr Jiang sponsored. The event was hosted by a Chinese Communist Party lobby group run by controversial political donor Huang Xiangmo, whose dealings with former Labor senator Sam Dastyari made Beijing influence into front page news. .
Mr Alexander has attended several events with Mr Huang and Mr Jiang, a practice typical of several Sydney politicians chasing Chinese community support.
"I'm relatively familiar with John Alexander. As a political leader he has good character and can bring great returns and benefits to his constituents," Mr Jiang told Fairfax Media.
Asked why he was invited to a recent Liberal Party Chinese Council event attended by Malcolm Turnbull to promote Mr Alexander, Mr Jiang said: "I was invited to participate in that event. Whether it's a Liberal Party or Labor Party event I've participated in them ... Labor Party, Liberal Party, I've donated to both of them."
It is understood that Mr Jiang's name was not on the guest list supplied to the Prime Minister's office, and he had not formally been invited.
Mr Alexander said: "I attend many community events and multicultural events at which I meet a range of people ... This individual [Mr Jiang] is not particularly known to me."
In 2013, Mr Jiang hosted a Chinese business awards event during which $260,000 was raised for Labor and which starred Kevin Rudd, Bob Hawke and Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews.
The Turnbull government's attack on foreign interference appears to have soured Mr Jiang's political dealings.
"Australia on the one hand takes benefits from China and on the other hand is pro-America in its international positions. I have no issue with this, but there's no need to target China," Mr Jiang said.
Under Mr Turnbull's proposed foreign influence laws, Mr Jiang and his fellow Australian company directors will likely have to declare their relationship with the Chinese Communist Party's propaganda operation on a federal government register.
According to three sources who have worked at radio station 3CW, Mr Jiang's company directors are part of efforts to stop the station's more provocative hosts or talkback callers from criticising the Communist Party.
Chinese officials have been dispatched to Melbourne to issue warnings to those who don't toe the party line, although the sources said Mr Jiang has previously fought to resist overzealous consulate staff from ordering hosts sacked.
"Who will use it [3CW] if there is only one voice, only one opinion being expressed?" Mr Jiang said in a 2013 interview, seemingly acknowledging the disparate views in the Chinese community. Since then, under the leadership of Chinese president Xi Jinping, the Communist Party has expanded its international media presence and sought to limit opposing voices.
In his recent interview with Fairfax Media, Mr Jiang was coy about his own media expansion plans, declining to to divulge details of the 36 radio licences or stations he is acquiring or their seller, other than to say they will be in "lots of cities - I can't list them one by one".
Asked if they, too, would broadcast Communist Party content, Jiang said: "Not necessarily," before cutting the interview short.
