Chinese agent in Australia found guilty of foreign interference, in first of its kind court verdict

An Australia court found Di Sanh Duong guilty of planning an act of foreign interference, the first verdict of its kind under a law introduced in 2018

The court heard Duong had been in contact with Chinese intelligence and sought to influence a government minister to further the aims of China’s Communist Party

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Former Australian Liberal Party candidate Di Sanh Duong has been found guilty of foreign interference. Photo: EPA-EFE

Published: 7:00pm, 19 Dec 2023Updated: 9:22pm, 19 Dec 2023

An Australian court on Tuesday recorded the first conviction under the nation’s foreign interference laws, with a jury finding a Vietnamese refugee guilty of covertly working for the Chinese Communist Party.

A Victoria state County Court jury convicted Melbourne businessman and local community leader Di Sanh Duong on a charge of preparing for or planning an act of foreign interference.

Duong, an ethnic Chinese from Vietnam who immigrated to Australia in the 1970s, is the first person to be charged under federal laws created in 2018 that ban covert foreign interference in domestic politics and make industrial espionage for a foreign power a crime. The laws offended Australia’s most important trading partner, China, and accelerated a deterioration in bilateral relations.

Duong, 68, had pleaded not guilty. He was released on bail after his conviction and will return to court in February to be sentenced. He faces a potential 10-year prison sentence.

Prosecutors had argued that Duong, a former member of the Liberal Party, planned to gain political influence in 2020 by cultivating a relationship with the then-government minister Alan Tudge on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party.

Duong did so by arranging for Tudge to receive a 37,450 Australian dollars (then equivalent to US$25,800) in a novelty check donation raised by community organizations for a Melbourne hospital.

Former federal minister Alan Tudge gave evidence at the trial of former Liberal Party candidate Di Sanh Duong. Photo: EPA-EFE

Prosecutor Patrick Doyle told the jury the Chinese Communist Party would have seen Duong as an “ideal target” to work as its agent.