Chen Yonglin update

ABC online reveals that Chen Yonglin, defector extraordinaire, met with ASIO to discuss his claims that China has an elaborate spy network in Australia. Although details are still quite sketchy, it appears a key project of the network is to spy on dissidents. Chen has alleged that Chinese dissidents have even been forcibly removed from Australia.

There's another interesting thing hidden away in the ABC report, something which you'd think would be something of a bombshell. It reads like this:

Mr Chen also claims he has evidence that some Australian politicians have been encouraged into supporting China's Communist party.

"The consulate's senior officials will host dinners for them or meet them on some occassions and ask them to help on the issue of dissidents," Mr Chen alleged.

Excuse me, what was that? Isn't national security one of the great holy cows of federal politics? Aren't we waging a war on all manner of crazed outsiders bent on destroying our way of life? Where is Alan Jones on this one? How come Andrew Bolt and Gerard Henderson have neglected to publish another one of their polemical masterpieces of detective fiction? Perhaps it has something to do with the truth of the matter. Not to forget the fact that the offending party is a large trading partner. To put it more forcefully, China is a significant revenue source for both government and big business, the same big business which owns and operates our mainstream media.

If only Osama offered to sign a free trade agreement and purchase bucket loads of our natural resources...