‘Wouldn’t normally comment’: Marise Payne declines to confirm rumoured Chinese defection
Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne says she doesn’t want to comment on the rumoured defection to the United States of a senior Chinese spy but has urged Beijing to fully comply with the next phase of the investigation into the origins of COVID-19.
Chinese vice-minister of State Security, Dong Jingwei, has reportedly defected to the US and given information about the Wuhan Institute of Virology which is at the centre of the COVID-19 lab leak theory.
Dong was responsible for China’s counter-intelligence activities and if the reports are true, it would be the highest-level defection in the history of the People’s Republic of China.
The rumour of the defection has been spreading on Chinese language media and Twitter in recent days, which included reports that Dong fled to the US via Hong Kong with his daughter in February.
It was given a boost in credibility after SpyTalk, a newsletter covering US intelligence, reported Dong was believed to have given Washington information about the Wuhan laboratory that led to the Biden administration giving the lab leak theory extra credence.
