Australia’s efforts to reset the country’s troubled relations with China have been thrown into turmoil after an MP alleged that a prominent Chinese-Australian businessman had bribed a senior UN official.
Andrew Hastie used parliamentary privilege to name Chau Chak Wing, a big donor to Australian political parties, as the man behind an alleged $200,000 bribe, who is referred to in US court documents only as CC-3.
In a parliamentary speech late on Tuesday, the Liberal party MP also alleged Beijing was working covertly to influence Australian politics, universities and the media — a growing concern among many western intelligence agencies.