Australian PM’s WeChat account hijacked and renamed | Technology

The government senator describes the blocking of accounts as a case of “foreign interference” in Australian democracy.

China’s popular WeChat messaging app seems to have blocked access to the account of Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, and a senator has called for a boycott of the entire parliamentary service.

Senator James Paterson, chairman of the Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security in Parliament, said on Monday that the Prime Minister’s team has been having trouble accessing the WeChat account for months. Eventually, he was removed from government control in early January, although Morrison’s office received formal representations, he told 4BC radio.

“In my opinion, WeChat is a company so controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, which leads to foreign intervention in our democracy and in an election year,” he said.

The prime minister’s office had no immediate comment on Monday. Efforts to find Scott Morrison’s WeChat account in China on Monday morning were unsuccessful.

With over 1 billion users worldwide, WeChat is one of the most popular messaging applications in the world. The Chinese government regularly censors sensitive content, including WeChat, which is owned by Tencent Holdings Ltd.

A Tencent spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Many Australian politicians, including the leader of the opposition Labor Party, Anthony Albanese, publish their WeChat accounts in Mandarin in order to connect with the great Chinese diaspora. In the 2016 census, about 5.6% of the population said they had a Chinese ancestor, more than one in 20 people.

Paterson has called on all Australian politicians to stop using WeChat until the Prime Minister’s account is restored.

“No one should legitimize their censorship and control over our public debate,” he said.

In comments to 4BC, Albanese said he would talk to Morrison about the WeChat incident, adding that it could have “consequences for national security.”

Former diplomat Dave Sharma, now a member of Morrison’s coalition lawmaker, told Sky News that the decision to block access to the prime minister’s account was “safer than the state.”

“It shows an attitude towards freedom of expression and freedom of expression coming out of Beijing,” he said.