AUSTRALIAN TASK FORCE THWARTS CHINESE ESPIONAGE; INDIA MAY BE NEXT

While Delhi has been handling ISI, the same needs to be the case when it comes to dealing with MSS, China's agency.

- ABHINANDAN MISHRA

In 2020, Australian policymakers decided to constitute a specialised team, "the Counter Foreign Interference Taskforce" that would work under its intelligence agency, Australia's national security agency (ASIO) in order to carry out intelligence-led disruptions to stop attempts to monitor and harass members of Australia's diaspora communities and identify people who were being possibly recruited or were already recruited by the intelligence agency of specifically one foreign county, China.

China's intelligence agency, the Ministry of State Security has a dedicated desk to handle matters related to Australia, as it has a dedicated set of officers who handle India and Indians.

Since then, in the last four years, the task force has executed more than 120 such counter intelligence operations alone to fulfil its objectives, which come to 30 attempts that were successfully identified every year or more than two attempts every month.

Some of the operations include intervening to stop an Australian field expert on foreign policy and trade from being entrapped by the intelligence officers of the Ministry of State Security, who had approached him for a consulting role and insights in lieu of a handsome remuneration, a fully paid travel to and stay in a city outside Australia to decide the consultations details. ASIO, however, stopped this cultivation, at the very last moment.

These are the attempts that the ASIO was able to stop from reaching the intended conclusions.

However, there are many such cases, where ASIO could not intervene in time.