An Australian scientist of Chinese descent has been denied security clearance to access top secret information nearly a year after he took up his post as head of the aerospace division of Australia’s Defense Science and Technology Directorate (DST). The former head of the defense intelligence agency said it was not personal, but the Chinese Communist Party’s way of doing things that forced Australia to scrutinize all the backgrounds of important department heads.
The head of the agency, who has been in office for a year and still cannot get a security clearance, is Dong Yang Wu, a scientist who became a naturalized Australian citizen in the 1990s and reportedly graduated from Sun Yat-sen University with a degree in chemistry and worked for the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) before taking up a position as head of the Australian Defense Science and Technology Agency’s space division.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, three defense and security sources with inside knowledge confirmed that nearly a year after taking office, Wu had not been granted high-level security clearance, possibly because Australia’s security clearance agencies had difficulty verifying her studies, employment and other related activities in China.
Paul Monk, former head of the defense intelligence agency’s China desk, said Wu Dongyang’s appointment posed problems for the agency and that the heightened security clearance was not personal, but had to do with the way the (Chinese Communist Party) had behaved under Xi Jinping.
“If you’re going to appoint someone to head the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, you have to be sure you can verify everything about their background,” he said.
Monk also said that background checks for Chinese-Australians are particularly difficult given the current tensions between China and Australia. To properly assess Wu Dongyang’s background, reviewers had to trace her studies since the 1980s in addition to verifying her recent five-year stint as vice president of Boeing China and her years of academic ties to Chinese scientists and universities.
Wu Dongyang is known to have served as head of the aerospace division of the Australian Defense Science and Technology Agency in mid-2017, leaving for undisclosed reasons two years later. It is unclear whether she passed a security clearance with access to top state secrets prior to her departure.
Prior to her departure, Dong Yang Ng managed more than three hundred scientists, engineers and technicians who were responsible for the maintenance of Australia’s fighter fleet, which includes the U.S.-built F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.
Australia’s security and intelligence agencies have become increasingly concerned about Chinese Communist Party information gathering and influence in Australian research institutions and have therefore imposed stricter background checks on employees, but verifying information coming from China is difficult and reviewers must weigh all sides.
In 2018, a Chinese-American scientist at the Australian Department of Defence was handed over to the Australian Security Intelligence Service (ASIO) by the Department after it was revealed that he had a side relationship with a subsidiary of a major Chinese missile manufacturer.
In 2013, the CSIRO had to spend tens of millions of Australian dollars to upgrade its cybersecurity and IT systems after a Chinese scientist based in the CSIRO’s Melbourne office suddenly left Australia and took a large amount of sensitive data with him.
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