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Second China defector
backs Australia spy claims
June 7, 2005
Hao Fengjun told Australian Broadcasting Corp.
television late on Tuesday that he had worked for
China's security service, known as 610, in the
northern port city of Tianjin.
Hao said he traveled to Australia as a tourist in
February and then applied for political asylum.
Hao's comments came after Chen Yonglin, a 37-year-old
political affairs consul at China's consulate in
Sydney, sought asylum saying spies were hunting him
for aiding pro-democracy groups.
Hao said he supported claims made by Chen that Beijing
operated a vast spy network.
"I worked in the police office in the Security Bureau
and I believe that what Mr Chen says is true," Hao
told Australian Broadcasting Corp.'s Lateline program
through an interpreter.
"As far as I know, they have spies in the consulate,
but they also have a network -- spies they've sent
out. Like the National Security Bureau and the Public
Security Bureau in China, they send out businessmen
and students to overseas countries as spies. They also
infiltrate the Falun Gong and other dissident groups."
Falun Gong is an amalgam of religions, meditation and
exercises that the Chinese government considers an
evil cult.
Hao told Lateline he was currently in Australia on a
temporary visa while he waited for his refugee
application to be decided by the country's immigration
department. Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone was
not immediately available for comment.
NO FEAR
Chen made his bid for political asylum public on
Saturday when he told a Sydney rally to mark the
anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy
protests that Beijing saw him as a threat because he
offered help to democracy groups and Falun Gong.
Chen, who is in hiding with his wife, Jin Ping, 38,
and six-year-old daughter, has written to Australian
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer asking for a rare
"territorial asylum visa" and applied for a protection
visa through the immigration department.
China's Ambassador to Australia, Madame Fu Ying, on
Monday laughed off Chen's claims about a Chinese spy
network and fears that he could be kidnapped and sent
home. Fu said Chen had no reason to be afraid about
returning to China.
A spokeswoman for the Chinese Embassy said on
Wednesday no further comment would be made on Hao's
claims.
Both Hao and Chen said they would be persecuted by the
Chinese government if they returned home.
"If I go back to China there's no doubt the Communist
government will certainly persecute me. They know I
have confidential information, some of it top secret,
and I'll be severely punished," Hao said.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. embassy told Reuters on
Tuesday Chen had also contacted a U.S. consulate in
Australia about his situation, but she was unable to
comment further.
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