Several Australian media reported that Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s WeChat account was suspected of being hacked and turned into a pro-Beijing account “Aohua New Life”, and some anti-China politicians described China as taking advantage of Australia’s election year to interfere in local democratic elections.
“Daily Telegraph” reported that Morrison’s WeChat public account has 76,000 followers, but it was renamed “Aohua New Life” in January this year without knowing about him and the Australian government. The account was also changed to share Chinese government propaganda posts.
The report mentioned that the Morrison government used to entrust an intermediary in China to handle the WeChat public account, and regularly shared information from the Australian government on a weekly basis. An unnamed Australian government official confirmed that the agency had been unable to log into the WeChat account since July last year. Although there have been attempts to negotiate with WeChat and to restore Morrison’s public account, there has been no result.
Australian Parliamentary Security and Intelligence Committee chairman James Paterson said the WeChat accounts of Australian opposition Labor politicians still shared content that attacked the ruling Liberal National Party coalition, describing Morrison’s WeChat account being hacked as China’s regulated speech Extends overseas, and there is solid evidence of political interference in democracies.
Paterson, chairman of the Australian Parliamentary Security and Intelligence Committee.
In the 2016 Australian census, about 5.6% of the population said they had Chinese ancestry, that is, one in every 20 citizens was Chinese, so many Australian politicians, including the leader of the opposition Labor Party, Anthony Albanese, will Use a WeChat official account published in Chinese.
According to WeChat regulations, only Chinese citizens can open an official account in their own name. To bypass this obstacle, Morrison’s office commissioned a Chinese agency to register an account through a Chinese citizen from Fujian surnamed Ji.
It is believed that the person surnamed Ji, who was entrusted by the intermediary, finally sold Morrison’s WeChat account to Fuzhou 985 Information Technology Co., Ltd.Huang Aipeng, the legal representative of Fuzhou 985 Information Technology Co., Ltd., said that he bought Morrison’s WeChat public account because he wanted a platform with a large number of fans. He bought an account from a Chinese citizen surnamed Ji in November last year, and Ji did not tell him. Who was he using the account in the past, he didn’t even know who Morrison was
Huang Aipeng would not disclose the amount spent to buy the official account, but stressed that the transfer of ownership had been approved by WeChat and the account would not be returned to Prime Minister Morrison’s office.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian.
When asked about Morrison’s loss of his WeChat official account, Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian suggested that reporters ask Morrison and his official account operation team, saying that the so-called Chinese interference is pure slander and nonsense. “We have never and have no interest in interfering with other countries.”
A Tencent spokesman responded that Morrison’s account had not been hacked and that “based on our information, this appears to be an account ownership dispute” and will be handled in accordance with the platform’s rules.
A team of a head of state first bypassed WeChat regulations and asked Chinese citizens to open WeChat public accounts, which is already a violation. The WeChat public account was suspected of being sold due to poor management. Morrison and his team did not understand the mistakes of their own team when they entrusted others to handle it. Instead, they linked the problem to China’s interference in other countries’ elections. It’s hard to improve on the inside.
