Another Manchurian Candidate?  Australian Police Raid Office Of NSW MP Moselmane Over Suspected Chinese Links

The Australian Federal Police has launched a search operation at the home of New South Wales Labor MP Shaoquett Moselmane as part of an investigation by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) into allegations that his office was infiltrated by covert Chinese government agents, The Australian reported.

Moselmane, who is is the first Muslim member of the New South Wales Parliament, has been suspended from the Australian Labor Party.

Moselmane, who was born in Lebanon, has repeatedely praised Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, for what he described as XI’s "unswerving leadership" in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In an op-ed he penned for the East China Normal University, Moselmane again praised China's authorities and accused "the obsolete scum of white Australia" of fostering Sinophobia in the country. Following uproar over his remarks, Moselmane resigned his position as assistant president of the NSW Legislative Council in April 2020

Moselmane served the honorary chair of the Australian Shanghainese Association and a member of the Australian Chinese Association. Both these organisation are viewed as astroturfed by Beijing as part of its secretive network of foreign influence operations known as the United Front.

In 2019, reports emerged that Moselmane had hired a staffer who completed a propaganda training course in Beijing run by the Chinese Communist Party. The staffer who was identified as John Zhang had participated in a 2013 training course organised by the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office, a branch within China's State Council, the highest organ of state administration.

Moselmane had also undertaken several privately-funded trips to China since entering Parliament in 2009. Disclosure records show his transport and hospitality costs were often met by Chinese government officials or agencies.

In 2017, a federal senator Sam Dastyari (who was born in Iran to parents who had participated in 1979 Islamic revolution) resigned in ignominy after allegations that he was influenced by Chinese Communist Party-donor Huang Xiangm.

In 2019,it was reported that Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (Asio) were investigating claims that a Chinese espionage ring attempted to recruit an agent (identified as Bo "Nick" Zhao to run as a candidate in the last parliamentary election in a bid to place a spy in the the country’s parliament.

In 2018, Bo "Nick" Zhao, a 31 year old a luxury car dealer, had informed ASIO that he had been offered $1 million by Melbourne businessman Brian Chen to run as a candidate of the governing Liberal Party. Zhao, was a Liberal party member in the parliamentary seat of Chisholm in Melbourne’s suburbs. Bo 'Nick' Zhao was later found dead in a hotel room in Melbourne in March this year.

The scope of the investigation including unearthing the extent of widespread Chinese spy networks in Australia and a foiled plot to install a Liberal Party candidate in Parliament.