Tencent’s WeChat to skip Australian social media hearing on ‘political interference’ amid backlash

WeChat has declined multiple invitations to appear before an Australian Senate hearing on social media interference, according to politician
WeChat has been under fire in Australia for its alleged influence over Chinese-Australians, amid souring relations between Beijing and Canberra

Tencent

Iris Dengin Shenzhen

Published: 10:00pm, 10 Jul 2023

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Chinese social media app WeChat will not be sending a delegate to a hearing at Australia’s parliament on foreign interference in domestic political affairs, as a backlash continues to mount in the country against the super app owned by Tencent Holdings.

According to a letter penned by Australian Liberal Senator James Paterson, a prominent China hawk who has warned against WeChat’s influence in the country, the Chinese social media platform has declined multiple invitations to appear before the hearing by Australia’s Senate Select Committee on Foreign Interference through Social Media, which begins on Tuesday.

The hearing, which is set to highlight the potential of “foreign interference” through social media in Australian politics, will be attended by executives from social media giants TikTok, which is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, as well as Western platforms Twitter and LinkedIn.

As WeChat has no permanent staff in Australia, the country’s parliament cannot force executives from the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, where Tencent is headquartered, to show up at the hearing.

“WeChat takes compliance seriously in all markets in which we operate. We look forward to continuing to engage with stakeholders in Australia,” said a Tencent spokesperson on Monday.

WeChat has been under fire in Australia for its alleged influence over Chinese-Australians. WeChat was the third-most popular social media platform used by Chinese-Australians on a daily basis, behind YouTube and Facebook, according to a survey by Sydney-based think tank Lowy Institute in April.

Around 76 per cent of Australians born in China said that they use WeChat everyday, and the app plays a central role as a source of news for Chinese-Australians, according to those polled.

With 690,000 users in Australia by the end of 2020, WeChat has been a crucial communications tool for Chinese diasporas around the world, who rely on the app to communicate with families and friends.

However, the app’s function as a platform for news and opinion pieces has invited scrutiny from Australian politicians, amid souring relations between Beijing and Canberra. WeChat has faced calls for a ban over national security concerns, and government agencies including the Department of Defence have restricted the use of the app by their staff.

WeChat is not the only Chinese app that has raised concerns in Australia. In April Australia announced that it would remove TikTok from all federal government-owned devices, following similar moves by other Western countries in the so-called Five Eyes intelligence-sharing network.

TikTok and WeChat were also the targets of a ban proposed by former US President Donald Trump in 2020, but a WeChat user group sued against the move and succeeded when a court blocked the ban. The order was officially withdrawn by US President Joe Biden in 2021.

WeChat, known as Weixin in China, is a hugely-popular social media tool in China and among overseas Chinese communities, with 1.25 billion monthly active users across the globe, the great majority of which are based in China.