What We Know About the Liberal Party Member Who Was Allegedly Bribed and Murdered by China

Allegations that a Chinese spy attempted to infiltrate the Australian parliament have raised serious alarms around China's influence on local politics.

An explosive report from 60 Minutes on Sunday night suggested that 32-year-old Melbourne car dealer "Nick" Zhao was groomed by the Chinese government in Beijing and offered $1 million to run as a Liberal Party candidate. In March of this year, after reportedly telling Australia’s domestic spy agency ASIO about the deal, Nick was found dead in a Melbourne hotel room. And this morning, following the 60 Minutes report, ASIO released a rare statement confirming that they were aware of these events.

“Australians can be reassured that ASIO was previously aware of matters that have been reported today, and has been actively investigating them,” director general Mike Burgess declared in the statement. “Hostile foreign intelligence activity continues to pose a real threat to our nation and its security. ASIO will continue to confront and counter foreign interference and espionage in Australia.”

So what’s actually going on here? What do these allegations mean and, if they’re true, what are the implications for Australia and its geopolitical relations with China?

Doctor Sow Keat Tok is a lecturer specialising in Chinese politics and foreign policy at Melbourne’s Monash University. VICE gave him a call to see if he could help break this down.

VICE: So it's alleged that Chinese authorities offered $1 million to bankroll Nick Zhao's tilt at federal parliament. What actually happened here, and what does it all mean?
Doctor Tok: Well the news just broke, so we only have very limited information, although it seems there's something fishy about Nick Zhao's murder. For the time being we're classifying it as a murder, we don't know what exactly the situation is yet—and most of the information came through 60 Minutes. This morning Asio's director general issued a statement, but really if you look at his statement very closely, he was merely confirming they were aware of [Nick Zhao's death] and also that the methods are of concern and they're actively pursuing investigation. But they really didn't give a lot of details about what exactly happened.

If you look over the weekend, there were several issues that came out. First there was Paul Keating's statement about how Australian security agencies have been pretty uptight over foreign influence—which was then rebutted by Tony Abbott—and subsequently the former director-general of Asio also commented that China was trying to influence Australia. So I think that forms part of the backdrop of what is going on, and it became explosive when 60 Minutes set out the interviews of that Chinese spy defector and followed on with this whole revelation about Nick Zhao's death.

What will happen now to answer those questions? Are these just matters for investigation?
Yes, definitely. Asio currently has been quite tight lipped about things, so until Asio stand up and publish a report on what's going on, I think it is far too early to speculate about exactly what happened. We just see pieces of the jigsaw but we don't really have the entire picture. The Chinese definitely are the biggest suspects over here, but to make them guilty of this charge I think a lot more still needs to be done.

Who is likely to be responsible for Nick Zhao’s death?
It could be anyone—but China will be the most likely suspect should all these allegations be proven true. [Possibly] to silence the whistle-blower. But again, this is highly speculative and will not hold up to tests until more evidence is found.

What about the $1 million? Where might that have come from?
There are a lot of questions about how that money came about, I'm sure. But until recently the idea about campaign donations and political donations were not very clear, and even now I would argue that they're not as clear as they should be. On top of that, when politicians campaign—especially when Chinese politicians campaign—there usually is a lot of backing from the Chinese communities over here [in Australia].

So without getting into speculations, I really cannot tell you where that money came from. It could be as was alleged, that it came from the Chinese government. But it is also just as likely that there was strong backing from the Chinese community to fund or to promote the election of a particular ethnic Chinese candidate. As I say, I do not have the whole picture.

What would the implications be if a Chinese spy did end up in Australian Federal Parliament?
I think that the repercussions would be huge, of course. I mean you have a foreign operative working within the political circles, voting and influencing on policy matters. I think that will be a huge, huge issue. But I don't want to overplay it because it is just one MP. You have a parliament out there—and Nick Zhao was still fairly young. So even if he was invested in by the Chinese intelligence agencies, it would take him years if not decades before he could get into the inner circle of the decision makers. So I think he was still hovering outside, but that whole prospect of having a foreign operative working within political circles can be quite chilling.

How concerned should the Australian public be about this potential attempt to influence parliament?
I think if all these allegations hold true we should be very concerned. But is it life and death for Australia? No, I don't think it's critical as yet. I think you're looking at probably a mid-level threat to Australian security at the moment. Until there is greater exposure of Chinese intelligence activities within Australia, such that they are more coordinated and they are infiltrating into defense agencies or intelligence agencies… think about the times during the Cold War times when the Soviet Union and the Americans were infiltrating each other's intelligence agencies and defense agencies; think of that level. That is when things become matters of critical importance. At this stage I think we're still looking at a fairly mid- to low level-threat, and it remains to be seen how this threat will become more prominent in the future.

Is this an isolated case or have there been other attempts by China to essentially strongarm Australian politics?
I think this is probably something that is not isolated. You would expect the Chinese to use both covert as well as overt operations to find out more or to influence Australian policy. If this is really proven true, then I think this is probably going to be just one small part of the bigger picture. Again, I don't want to speculate, but I would say that the Chinese, as they become more and more confident and as they become more and more aware of the kind of geopolitical situation that they're in, [surrounded] by not -so-friendly neighbors, then you'll see that they will increasingly try to use different methods to exert influence overseas.

What about the Liberal Party? Do they have a lot to answer for in regards to these particular allegations?
Now that is a big and very interesting question. I don't know how to answer it, but without getting into all the conspiracy theories the Liberal Party do have a huge stake in portraying China as a potential adversary, whereas Labor seems to be a lot more open to a more friendly relationship with China.

But that notwithstanding, the situation is that the Liberals have been in power for quite some time. If it’s the case that during their watch the Chinese have managed to infiltrate, then of course they have a lot to answer for. But I'm not going to discount that this could be an overreaction or something, and until we have a firmer picture of what's going on, I won't speculate too much.

Where do things go from here? Can we expect to find out more in the next few days, or will this remain a mystery for some time?
I think more information will be available in the next few days. Prime minister Scott Morrison just stood up and said that this is something of great concern to Australia, so people will definitely be demanding some answers, that's for sure.

You know, given the kind of threat level that China is posing, the kind of threat perception that we have towards China, I would be very concerned if we don't have any operatives over there. It's just a matter of not getting caught. It's the same thing as between the Soviet Union and the United States: we all believe that everyone is living peacefully but under the water there are some strong currents. That's what I do see. And I think there's going to be a lot of tit-for-tat going on here, so we'll probably see a lot more of such incidents in the future.

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