PM Morrison's WeChat Account Stolen Triggers Tensions Between Australia And China, Here's Why!

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, his WeChat account stolen. (photo: doc. twitter)

JAKARTA - A little-known Chinese technology company has taken over the WeChat social media account created for Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison. They said on Monday 24 January that they wanted to buy an account with a large fan base in Australia, and didn't realize it belonged to PM Morrison.

Australian politicians said Morrison's office lost access to accounts on the platform, which is owned by Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings Ltd, several months ago. Politicians claim the move represents censorship amid escalating diplomatic tensions between Canberra and Beijing over the agenda for national elections to be held in Australia in May 2022.

The account, which features a photo of Morrison and posts information about his policies in Mandarin targeted at the ethnic Chinese Australian electorate, has 76,000 followers.

The account was renamed 'Australia China New Life' this January by its new owner in China, Fuzhou 985 Technology. The company, based in Fujian province, told followers the account would promote Chinese life in Australia.

An employee from Fuzhou 985 Technology, who gave only his last name as Huang, told Reuters by telephone that they were not aware that the account was previously linked to Morrison.

He said the transfer of ownership was made to a man of Chinese nationality living in Fuzhou, whose identity he did not reveal.

"We thought this account had a large fan base, so we decided to buy it," Huang said, adding that the company was looking for an account whose target audience was the Chinese community in Australia. He declined to say how much his company had paid to take over the account.

Australia's two major political parties have been using Chinese social media platforms to communicate with ethnic Chinese Australian voters in the tightly contested electorate since 2019. The ruling Liberal Party will use Morrison's account to promote its policies during Chinese New Year celebrations from February 1.

Both the Liberal Party and the main opposition, the Labor Party, set up WeChat accounts for their leaders through outsourcers. Scott Morrison's account was registered in 2019 using the name of a Chinese national in mainland China as the operator of the account, WeChat records show and government sources confirm this.

According to two sources familiar with the matter, the agency that handles Morrison's social media account claimed to have lost access to the account since last July. They then emailed WeChat on January 10 saying that the account was acting on behalf of the Prime Minister, and asked for the account to be returned. They declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Meanwhile, there was no response from Tencent regarding this issue. Of course, this further complicates the problem.

In a statement on Monday, as quoted by Reuters, Tencent said, "This appears to be a dispute over account ownership. The account was initially registered by a PRC (Chinese) individual and then transferred to its current operator, a technology services company."

Tencent added the dispute would be handled "according to the rules of our platform", and they promised to investigate the matter further.

In Beijing, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said at a regular press conference on Monday that, "Australian politicians' WeChat account issues are between them and WeChat."

Meanwhile Liberal Senator James Paterson, chairman of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, told media the incident was an example of "censorship" and "foreign interference".

"There are 1.2 million Australians of Chinese descent who overuse this service and now can no longer access news and information from their Prime Minister," he said on Australian radio Monday 24 January.

Fergus Ryan, senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said having the Prime Minister's WeChat account registered in the name of a Chinese national was "always risky and erroneous", and appeared to be a violation of WeChat rules.

At Fuzhou 985 Technology, Huang said the company plans to delete the account content, but will wait for confirmation.

"Initially we wanted to delete [Morrison's previous post], now that we are faced with this situation, we can only wait for the final answer from Tencent," he said.