Australian Councillor Calls for Severing Sister-City Relations With Chinese City

This aerial photo taken on April 11, 2023 shows buildings during a sandstorm in Linyi, in China's eastern Shandong province. (Photo by AFP) / China OUT (Photo by STR/AFP via Getty Images)

A Western Australian city is considering severing its sister-city relationship with its Chinese counterpart amid concerns that Beijing is using the ties for foreign interference.

On July 12, Albany city councillor Thomas Brough sent a notice of motion, calling on Albany to terminate its sister city relationship with Linyi City, Shandong Province in China, which was signed in 2014, before the executive council meeting on Oct. 31.

“In terms of the relationship, I guess there are simple reasons for severing the ties,” Mr. Brough told The Epoch Times. “The relationship doesn’t fulfil any of the criteria that local government has for having a civic affiliation.”

The City of Albany in Western Australia on July 26, 2023. (Susan Mortimer/The Epoch Times)

According to Albany’s Civic Affiliations Policy, the council desires to “maintain a small number of active civic relationships based upon the benefits that may accrue, including trade, tourism, and cultural, educational, and sporting activities.”

The criteria for establishing new civic affiliations stipulate that preference will be given to “cities in countries where Australia has a free trade agreement or a proven trade record.”

Mr. Brough noted that since April 2020, when former Prime Minister Scott Morrison called for an independent international inquiry into the origins of COVID-19, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has embarked on a series of retaliatory actions against Australia’s $20 billion worth of trade in a number of sectors.

“It’s supposed to be a relationship of friendship, and the CCP demonstrated that they are not our friends. With the trade warfare they conducted against Australia from 2020, and hurting local businesses within the city of Albany, that’s not what friends do, so that’s the simple reasons,” he said.

Ships waiting to be loaded are seen near piles of iron ore and bucket-wheel reclaimers at the Fortescue loading dock located at Port Hedland in the Pilbara region of Western Australia on Dec. 3, 2013. (David Gray/Reuters)

In addition, Chen Xianyun, the then mayor of Linyi who signed the sister city arrangement with Albany, has been purged from his role due to corruption.

However, the councillor said that his main concern around the issue “relates to threats to national sovereignty over Australia and United Front Work.”

Mr. Brough, who is also an emergency department GP and a former Australian army reservist, raised these concerns after attending a recent meeting between the Albany council and a delegation headed by Long Dingbin, the Chinese Consul-General of WA.

According to Mr. Brough, the delegation had shown special interest in Albany’s airport, which is wholly owned by Albany but in need of a $30 million upgrade of its tarmac, as well as the Chinese-owned Ferngrove Estate winery near Albany, the fish stocks in Albany’s waters, and the area’s minerals.

“It’s well documented that the CCP uses sister city relationships as a means of soft power projection. [It’s a united] front work through elite capture. This is the sort of their modus operandi,” Mr. Brough said.

“The relationship has bought nothing positive to the community of Albany, having a sort of direct access to the political leadership of a strategically important regional city. Knowing how the United Front works, this doesn’t seem in the best interests of the people of Albany or Western Australia.”

City of Albany councillor Thomas Brough. (Supplied)

Acting WA Premier Questioned the Motion

The proposal to cancel the sister-city relationship was met with criticism though by WA Treasurer and Acting Premier Rita Saffioti, who called the motion “some sort of bad plot for a Netflix drama.”

“WA is a trading state. Albany is built on a port with very much an external focus, so people want to play politics on these issues, but we have to look at the long-term future of WA, the economy and making sure we continue to drive jobs and investment,” Ms. Saffioti told The Australian.

China is WA’s biggest trading partner due to its consumption of the state’s iron ore production.

Mr. Brough said he was “really disturbed and disappointed” by the Acting Premier’s attitude.

“The acting Premier, Rita Saffioti, is trying to deflect the matter and be dismissive of it when [we] really have issues of such importance that transcend the local government,” he said.

“I’m really disturbed and disappointed that the acting Premier is trying to play it off as a local issue when this is relevant to Albany, Western Australia, and the whole of Australia.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, retiring WA Premier Mark McGowan and Transport Minister Rita Saffioti board the first train during the opening of the METRONET Airport Line at High Wycombe Train Station in Perth, Australia, on Oct. 8, 2022. (AAP Image/Richard Wainwright)

Mr. Brough cited a 2018 incident in Rockhampton, Queensland, in which the City Council painted over children’s displayed artwork which featured a Taiwanese flag due to Chinese diplomatic pressure sparking outrage at the decision.

Chin Jin, the global chair of the Federation for a Democratic China, said that the sister-city relationships are usually actively promoted by the Chinese side and passively accepted by other countries.

“The Chinese side usually looks for rich countries and cities to tie the relationship. I don’t know if the CCP has sister cities in Africa and other poor countries,” Mr. Chin told The Epoch Times.

Global Action Urges Severing Sister City Relationship with CCP

Mr. Brough is not the first Australian councillor calling for an end to a sister city relationship with Beijing.

In April 2020, Councillor Paul Funnell of Wagga Wagga, New South Wales’s largest inland city, called for an end to the city’s sister city relationship with Kunming City in China’s Yunnan Province.

“The provincial governing body of Kunming and Chinese national institutions are an extension of the totalitarian communist regime of China–nothing more, nothing less,” Mr. Funnell said at the time. “We must end that relationship arrangement and not condone such behaviour.”

In July 2022, 19 Hong Kong organizations around the world launched a “Global Joint Campaign” to urge 163 cities in seven countries, including Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom, to sever their sister-city relations with Chinese cities.

“China’s notorious record of human rights violations and non-compliance with international treaties highlight its totalitarian nature. Yet many countries choose to turn a blind eye for economic benefits,” reads the statement by Hongkongers in Deutschland e.V., one of the organizations involved in the campaign.