{"id":327893,"date":"2017-09-27T06:04:48","date_gmt":"2017-09-27T05:04:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/australian-government-plans-anti-democratic-laws-on-pretext-of-chinese-sub-espionage\/"},"modified":"2017-09-27T06:04:48","modified_gmt":"2017-09-27T05:04:48","slug":"australian-government-plans-anti-democratic-laws-on-pretext-of-chinese-sub-espionage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/australian-government-plans-anti-democratic-laws-on-pretext-of-chinese-sub-espionage\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian government plans anti-democratic laws on pretext of Chinese \u201csub-espionage\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"content\">\n<h3 class=\"nomargin\">\u00a0<\/h3>\n<h2>Australian government plans anti-democratic laws on pretext of Chinese \u201csub-espionage\u201d<\/h2>\n<h5>\n<p>    By<br \/>\n    Oscar Grenfell<br \/>\n    <br \/>26 September 2017<\/p>\n<\/h5>\n<p>An \u201cexclusive\u201d in the Fairfax-owned <em>Sydney Morning Herald<\/em> and <em>Age<\/em> newspapers last Friday reported that the Australian government is preparing a \u201conce in a generation shake-up\u201d of espionage laws, on the McCarthyite pretext of combating \u201cclandestine Chinese Communist Party influence over politics in this country.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The article, which provides no evidence for its hysterical warnings of a Chinese \u201ccommunist\u201d plot to undermine Australian democracy, reads like a press release by the government or the country\u2019s intelligence agencies to promote the planned legislation.<\/p>\n<p>Attorney-General George Brandis and the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), the main domestic spy agency, appear to be the only sources for the story.<\/p>\n<p>The headline of the article declares: \u201cGeorge Brandis considers new laws cracking down on Chinese spying in Australia.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The article, however, states the legislation will target \u201csub-espionage.\u201d In the Orwellian double-speak of the intelligence agencies, adopted uncritically by Fairfax Media, \u201csub-espionage\u201d has nothing to do with spying or espionage. It covers political donations, lobbying and the funding of research projects and think-tanks.<\/p>\n<p>The proposed laws have not been detailed anywhere, except in sketchy outline in the Fairfax report. Yet the <em>Sydney Morning Herald<\/em> followed up with an editorial yesterday hailing the planned legislation. It said there was \u201cgood reason to toughen and update protections against foreign interference,\u201d but repeated the previous vague talking points about \u201csub-espionage.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The repeated anti-China witch-hunts over the past year have been aimed at creating&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wsws.org\/en\/articles\/2017\/09\/26\/espi-s26.html\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 Australian government plans anti-democratic laws on pretext of Chinese \u201csub-espionage\u201d By Oscar Grenfell 26 September 2017 An \u201cexclusive\u201d in the Fairfax-owned Sydney Morning Herald and Age newspapers last Friday reported that the Australian government is preparing a \u201conce in a generation shake-up\u201d of espionage laws, on the McCarthyite pretext of combating \u201cclandestine Chinese Communist [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2526,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-327893","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2526"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327893\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}