Archival Rescue 54 ~ Seeking Asylum

Australian Government abandons asylum seeking diplomat;

Australia left me out to dry, says defector
By Tom Allard June 6, 2005 Sydney Morning Herald

The fugitive diplomat Chen Yonglin says Australian officials immediately tipped off his bosses when he defected and repeatedly urged him to return to the Chinese consulate, despite his pleas that he was in grave danger.

Mr Chen, a long-term diplomat in Sydney with access to highly sensitive information, is the highest-profile defection since the Petrov affair in 1954. But in an interview with the Herald yesterday he said his request for political asylum was refused within 24 hours of his defection 11 days ago - without even a meeting.

Mr Chen, 37, who is in hiding with his wife and six-year-old daughter, said the information he offered on China's spies and kidnappings in Australia had been spurned. At every turn, he had been discouraged from applying for asylum and denied a safe haven. "I didn't think it would happen like this," Mr Chen told the Herald. "Australia is a democratic country. I thought they would help me. My family is desperate. We are helpless. We need to be in a safe place."

But the Chinese embassy said Mr Chen had been due to return to China and he "fabricated stories which are unfounded and purely fictitious" as a ploy to stay here.
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Ties with China have never been closer and Australia is pushing for a new trade deal and lucrative gas contracts. The Australian Workers Union yesterday accused the Government of putting trade negotiations ahead of human rights, and the Greens leader, Bob Brown, said Mr Chen had been treated disgracefully.

Since going public at a rally on Saturday, Mr Chen has alleged there are 1000 Chinese spies in Australia and that abductions sponsored by the Chinese Government take place. ASIO has been concerned about Chinese spies but no intelligence official has yet sought to talk to Mr Chen.

On May 26 he walked from the Chinese consulate in Camper-down into the Department of Immigration offices near Central Station with his wife, Jin Ping, and daughter, Chen Fangong. He says his request to meet the department's state director, Jim Collaghan, was rejected, and other officers called the Chinese embassy. The Chinese consulate then called his mobile, so he fled with his family, taking a train to Gosford. He left behind a letter, a copy of which has been obtained by the Herald. It revealed he had been given the task of monitoring the activities of "five poisonous groups" of Chinese dissidents for four years, including the Falun Gong, democracy advocates and separatists from Tibet, Taiwan and East Turkistan. Mr Chen said he had helped the dissidents, an act that would be viewed as treason and would soon be discovered by his successor.

"As a first secretary, I am able to access top confidential documents," he wrote, suggesting he could be an asset to Australia.

When Mr Chen finally got a meeting with Australian officials last Tuesday, he says he was advised to apply for a tourist visa.

The Immigration Minister, Amanda Vanstone, said yesterday Mr Chen would not receive any special treatment and his application for political asylum would be considered "in the normal way". She refused to comment when asked if it would be embarrassing to grant a Chinese diplomat political asylum. "I'm simply not going to add to that," she said.

Mr Chen has now applied for a protection visa. The Foreign Affairs Minister, Alexander Downer, asked if he believed Mr Chen would be persecuted in China, told Channel Nine: "That's something the Immigration Department will obviously have to weigh up."

It is the foreign minister who approves the very rarely granted visa for political asylum for diplomats. His office and department did not return calls.

The Falun Gong movement's spokeswoman, Kay Rubacek, said the group was shocked when Mr Chen admitted his sympathies, as he often used to confront its members. But she said he was brave to speak out. She said practitioners in front of the Chinese consulate in Sydney had been assaulted and sprayed with hoses, and "we've seen Mr Chen with cameras taking photographs of us".