According to Sydney’s ‘The Daily Telegraph’, in early January, more than 76,000 WeChat followers of Morrison were informed of the change of the name of his account to ‘Australian Chinese New Life’. Not only this, Morrison’s picture was also removed from the account.
The paper claimed that these changes were made without the Australian government’s notice. However, Morrison’s office declined to react to the report.
James Patterson, chairman of Australia’s Joint Parliamentary Committee on Intelligence and Security, said WeChat has not yet responded to the government’s request to restore Morrison’s account.
Patterson accused the Communist Party of China of censoring Morrison in the wake of Australia’s proposed elections in May. He said the move was akin to an attempt to politically interfere in Australian democracy.
Patterson, a member of Morrison’s Liberal Party, also appealed to all lawmakers to boycott the app run by the Chinese company ‘Tencent’.
He said it was a matter of grave concern that the 1.2 million Chinese-Australian citizens active on WeChat had been blocked from access to news coming from the Morrison government, but he could comfortably see criticism of the government by opposition leader Anthony Albanese. -can read.
Another Liberal Party MP and former diplomat Dave Sharma alleged that the interference was probably approved by the Chinese government.
China has been critical of a new alliance announced in September 2021 between Australia, Britain and the US. Under this alliance, Australia is to be provided with a nuclear submarine.
AP Parul Shahid
Shahid