In Beijing, China’s foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told a regular press conference on Monday that, “The issue of Australian politicians’ WeChat accounts is between them and WeChat.” Tencent added the dispute would be handled “in accordance with our platform rules”, and it would look into the matter further. In a statement on Monday, Tencent said, “This appears to be a dispute over account ownership – the account in question was originally registered by a PRC (Chinese) individual and was subsequently transferred to its current operator, a technology services company.” No response was given by Tencent, the sources confirmed. They declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter. 10 saying it acted on behalf of the Prime Minister, and requesting the account be returned, two sources with knowledge of the matter said. The agency handling Morrison’s social media account lost access to it last July, and emailed WeChat on Jan.
The Scott Morrison account was registered in 2019 using the name of a Chinese citizen in mainland China as its account operator, WeChat records show and a government source confirmed. 1.īoth the Liberals and the main opposition Labor Party set up WeChat accounts for their leaders through outsourced agencies. The ruling Liberal Party would have aimed to use the Morrison account to promote its policies during the Chinese New Year celebrations starting Feb.
He declined to say how much his company had paid to take over the account.Īustralia’s two major political parties have used the Chinese social media platform to communicate with Australian voters of Chinese ethnicity in tightly fought electorates since 2019. “We thought this account had a large fanbase, so we decided to buy it,” said Huang, adding that the company was looking for an account whose target audience was the Chinese community in Australia. He said the transfer of ownership was conducted with a Chinese male national living in Fuzhou, whose identity he declined to disclose. The account was renamed ‘Australia China New Life’ in January by its new Chinese owner, Fuzhou 985 Technology, based in Fujian province, which notified followers the account would instead promote Chinese life in Australia.Īn employee from Fuzhou 985 Technology, who only gave his surname as Huang, told Reuters by telephone was not aware the account was previously connected to Morrison. The account, which bore Morrison’s photograph and posted information on his policies in Mandarin targeted at Australian voters of Chinese ethnic origin, had 76,000 followers. The politicians claimed the move represented censorship amid growing diplomatic tensions between Canberra and Beijing with a national election to be held in Australia by May.
Australian politicians said Morrison’s office lost access to the account on the platform, owned by Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings Ltd, several months ago.
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