Pro-Beijing Chinese language newspaper pushes City of Perth candidates
A Chinese-language newspaper owned by a businessman with ties to WA Labor and Chinese Communist Party-linked associations is pushing candidates in the City of Perth elections.
The Australian Chinese Times, which is owned by Edward Zhang, has one employee standing in the elections and has promised favourable treatment to another.
The newspaper's marketing and public relations manager, Leah Xia, who also runs a dance studio, has raised almost $12,000 in small donations from the state's Chinese-Australian community.
She described herself on LinkedIn and on a now deleted Instagram account as working at the Australian Chinese Times, but does not reveal this in her candidate statement.
Donors to Ms Xia's campaign include the Jiangsu United Association, real estate agents, restaurants, and a karaoke bar.
Migration agent David Ho said he had known Dr Zhang for 20 years and was running with the Australian Chinese Times' support.
In election campaign advertising in the newspaper, Mr Ho names Dr Zhang, who is prominent within WA's Chinese-Australian community, as one of his supporters, alongside a string of Chinese community associations such as the WA-China Chamber of Commerce.
"All those people that I list in the newspaper ad are those people who said 'yes, go ahead ... we need people like you to run for the election'," Mr Ho said.
"In terms of Mr Zhang's support, to answer your question, he said we can try to put you in a more beneficial position in the newspaper but I still have to pay for the ad.
"I [have known] him for over 20 years. I remember I saw him when he first started the newspaper."
According to the Australian Chinese Times, Mr Zhang was an advisor to the Australian Chinese Labor Association, which was founded by Labor MP Pierre Yang in 2015.
Mr Yang, who made headlines in 2018 after failing to declare membership to organisations promoting Beijing's foreign policy interests, previously described Dr Zhang as "like an uncle to me".
The businessman has also appeared with prominent Labor politicians at formal events hosted at Parliament House and at a dinner with Premier Mark McGowan and the former Chinese consul-general to WA Dong Zhihua.
Dr Zhang was a founding member of the WA branch of the Australian Council for the Promotion of the Peaceful Reunification of China, which is a group that has been linked to the Chinese Communist Party's United Front Work Department. Dr Zhang has not personally been linked to the Chinese Communist Party.
Perth businesswoman Gloria Zhang, a former secretary of the WA branch of the ACPPRC, was tipped to sway the Chinese vote in the council election but dropped out of the race after the City of Perth ruled she was ineligible to run because she was not personally on the electoral roll.
Ms Xia received a $500 donation from the Jiangsu United Association, according to City of Perth declarations.
Both the Jiangsu United Association and the ACPPRC signed a 2016 statement published widely in Chinese media declaring they "resolutely opposes the show of force and military provocations by the United States in the South China Sea to threaten China's sovereignty and core interests, [and] jeopardise peace and stability in the South China Sea".
It called on the Australian government to "support the just position and tireless efforts of the Chinese people and overseas Chinese in Australia over China's territory in the South China Sea".
Ms Xia declined to comment, but said she trusted "the WAEC is keeping track" of donations ahead of Saturday's mayoral elections.
Dr Zhang did not respond to requests for comment.
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