{"id":472392,"date":"2026-02-11T07:53:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T07:53:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/472392\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T07:53:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T07:53:12","slug":"two-more-chinese-nationals-accused-of-foreign-interference-after-allegedly-gathering-information-in-canberra","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/472392\/","title":{"rendered":"Two more Chinese nationals accused of foreign interference after allegedly gathering information in Canberra"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">Two Chinese nationals have appeared in the ACT Magistrates Court accused of covertly gathering information on a Canberra Buddhist group to send back to China.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">The Australian Federal Police (AFP) allege the 25-year-old man and 31-year-old woman worked with a <a class=\"Link_link__kR0xA Link_link__5eL5m ScreenReaderOnly_srLinkHint__OysWz Link_showVisited__C1Fea Link_showFocus__ALyv2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/news\/2025-10-17\/act-chinese-national-charged-foreign-interference-granted-bail\/105906106\" data-component=\"Link\" data-uri=\"coremedia:\/\/article\/105906106\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">previously charged woman<\/a> to gather information about the Canberra branch of Guan Yin Citta.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">Police said the alleged spying was on behalf of a Public Security Bureau in China.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">The pair was arrested in Canberra this morning before the man was charged with covertly collecting information under foreign interference laws introduced in 2018.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">He spoke only to tell the court he understood what was being said to him, replying: &#8220;Yes, I do.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">The man and woman will spend tonight behind bars after choosing not to apply for bail until tomorrow.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">Police said they expect to charge the pair with one count each of reckless foreign interference.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Warning from ASIO Director-General<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">The arrests stemmed from intelligence the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) gave to the AFP and Counter Foreign Interference Taskforce last year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">It prompted Operation Autumn-Shield, which saw search warrants executed in July and the <a class=\"Link_link__kR0xA Link_link__5eL5m ScreenReaderOnly_srLinkHint__OysWz Link_showVisited__C1Fea Link_showFocus__ALyv2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/news\/2025-08-04\/chinese-national-charged-under-foreign-interference-laws\/105611300\" data-component=\"Link\" data-uri=\"coremedia:\/\/article\/105611300\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">arrest of the initial Chinese woman in August<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess said foreign players are putting pressure on their citizens abroad.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Multiple foreign regimes are monitoring, harassing and intimidating members of our diaspora communities,&#8221;  Director-General Burgess said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">&#8220;This sort of behaviour is utterly unacceptable and cannot be tolerated.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">&#8220;It is important to note, one of the best defences to foreign interference is increased community awareness of the threat and the reporting of suspicious activity to authorities.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">The charge of reckless foreign interference carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in jail.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two Chinese nationals have appeared in the ACT Magistrates Court accused of covertly gathering information on a Canberra&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":472393,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[2666,114632,31945,25103,64,63,29622,48350,2667,4690,82508,240976,35430,9392,48345,2668,621,44,156722],"class_list":["post-472392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-act","tag-act-magistrates-court","tag-asio","tag-association","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-federal-police","tag-buddhist","tag-canberra","tag-chinese","tag-collecting","tag-covertly","tag-foreign","tag-information","tag-interference","tag-local-stories","tag-national","tag-news","tag-principal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=472392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/472393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=472392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=472392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=472392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}