australia pm morrison loses wechat chinese

The ruling Liberal Party would have aimed to use the Morrison account to promote its policies during the Chinese New Year celebrations starting Feb. He declined to say how much his company had paid to take over the account.Īustralia's two major political parties have used the Chinese social media platform to communicate with Australian voters of Chinese ethnicity in tightly fought electorates since 2019.

'We thought this account had a large fanbase, so we decided to buy it,' said Huang, adding that the company was looking for an account whose target audience was the Chinese community in Australia. He said the transfer of ownership was conducted with a Chinese male national living in Fuzhou, whose identity he declined to disclose. The account was renamed 'Australia China New Life' in January by its new Chinese owner, Fuzhou 985 Technology, based in Fujian province, which notified followers the account would instead promote Chinese life in Australia.Īn employee from Fuzhou 985 Technology, who only gave his surname as Huang, told Reuters by telephone was not aware the account was previously connected to Morrison. The account, which bore Morrison's photograph and posted information on his policies in Mandarin targeted at Australian voters of Chinese ethnic origin, had 76,000 followers. The politicians claimed the move represented censorship amid growing diplomatic tensions between Canberra and Beijing with a national election to be held in Australia by May. Australian politicians said Morrison's office lost access to the account on the platform, owned by Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings Ltd, several months ago.

Australia pm morrison loses wechat chinese