Chinese academic accused of being an Australian spy slams ‘outrageous slander’ in Beijing-run tabloid

Name: Australia and China cooperation too valuable for 'nonsensical' decoupling
Uploaded: 2020-07-02T21:00:17.000Z
Duration: 7 min 34 s
Description: Australia and China cooperation too valuable for 'nonsensical' decoupling

Feng Chongyi, an academic accused by the Global Times of being an Australia spy, slammed ‘propaganda machine of the Chinese Communist Party’ for tabloid splash

State media story is the latest in a series of accusations of espionage from both Australia and China, as geopolitical tensions creep up

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Feng Chongyi, who was detained for 10 days in China in 2017, told the South China Morning Post that allegations in the Global Times, a tabloid affiliated with Communist Party mouthpiece People's Daily, were “outrageous slander”. Photo: Handout

Su-Lin Tan

Published: 5:00am, 3 Jul 2020Updated: 11:59am, 3 Jul 2020

A Sydney-based Chinese academic has slammed Beijing-run media reports labelling him an Australian spy, three years after an espionage case against him was “closed” by authorities in China.

Feng Chongyi, who was detained for 10 days in China in 2017, told the South China Morning Post that allegations in the Global Times, a tabloid affiliated with Communist Party mouthpiece People's Daily, were “outrageous slander”, as the two countries locked horns again in a worsening geopolitical spat.

The diplomatic war of words between the Chinese and Australian governments has intensified again this week, with each accusing the other of espionage.

On Monday, Chinese state media resurrected a 25-year-old bugging scandal, when Australian agents were alleged to have slipped eavesdropping equipment into the floor slabs of the Chinese embassy in Canberra during its construction in the 1980s, as part of a US-led spying effort.

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Australia and China cooperation too valuable for 'nonsensical' decoupling

The Global Times published photos of the 1995 affair, and alleged that Australia had trained nationals in secret locations before sending them to China and Hong Kong to gather intelligence. One of those accused was Feng, an associate professor of China Studies at the University of Technology Sydney, who was stopped from leaving China after he completed a study on lawyers’ rights in the country in 2017.