Warning issued to Australia over Chinese disinformation and cyber techniques

Director of Foreign Policy and Defence at the US Studies Centre Ashley Townshend says Australia “needs to be very sensitive to the way China is using both cyber and disinformation techniques to advance its interests”. “When the Foreign Minister announced Australia’s lead on an independent inquiry into COVID-19 origins, we saw China really turn on the screws with regard to its propaganda,” he said. “The key message was this; Australia in trying to call for such an inquiry was acting at the behest of Washington and therefore should not be taken seriously. “And that’s a false narrative.” Mr Townshend warned China was taking advantage of “concern in Australia that at times the government makes decisions that are too closely aligned with Washington”. “And so what Chinese disinformation does is it zeroes in on a point of weakness or division within a society such as disagreements around undertaking foreign policy decisions that are in step with US interests and it magnifies those to make them an issue and divide us and prevent us from operating in ways that we would otherwise,” he said. The Director of Foreign Policy and Defence said Australia needed to lay down markers for the Trump administration as well as the potential Biden administration for how Australia independently wanted to see US-Indo Pacific strategy unfold. “Because it’s no secret to say that there has been much that this administration has done with regards to its Asia policy that has not been in our interests and I would argue hasn’t also been in US regional interests,” he said. Image: News Corp Australia Via news.com.au — Australia’s leading news site https://www.news.com.au