Mike Burgess: ASIO spy boss takes aim at China, accusing Beijing of widespread intellectual property theft

China has been accused of widespread intellectual property theft and political meddling by Australia’s spy chief who has also warned that several unnamed nations are “willing and capable” of carrying out assassinations here.

In a speech to the Lowy Institute, ASIO Director General Mike Burgess has detailed attempted foreign interference plots from Russia, but has also taken aim at Beijing and vowed to continue calling out Chinese Communist Party threats to Australian interests.

“We all spy on each other, but we don’t conduct wholesale intellectual property theft. We don’t actually interfere with political systems, and we don’t undertake high-harm activity,” Mr Burgess said when later asked about China.

Appearing in front of an audience at Sydney’s Town Hall on Tuesday night, Mr Burgess explained that when Beijing denies his accusations, it is displaying an ignorance of ASIO’s role in Australia.

“Every time I’ve done that (called China out), there’s an army of Chinese government officials that go around complaining to almost everyone in this country across the system — public and private — but not to me,” Mr Burgess said.

“If they were as smart as they should be — and they are smart — they would understand a Western liberal democracy and the role and the statutory standing of the security service. We work for the government of the day, but our security assessments and our security action are independent.

“They clearly don’t understand the system, because if they want to complain about ASIO doing its job and explaining the threats to the people we’re protecting, including calling out China when we need to, it won’t stop my resolve, it won’t stop my officers from doing the job and we’ll continue to call them out when I need to,” he added.

A senior government source familiar with ASIO operations has told The Nightly that it was “good to see Mr Burgess being open about this” and stressed the spy chief was right to point out it wasn’t just China interfering in Australia.

Relations between Australia and its largest trading partner deteriorated to new lows in 2020 over several issues, including Beijing’s anger at the then-Morrison government’s laws aimed at stamping out covert foreign interference in Australian politics.

Diplomatic and trade ties have improved since the Albanese government was elected in 2022, but security relations with Beijing remain strained as Australia increases cooperation with the United States to counter China’s rising influence in the Indo-Pacific.

Asked about Australia’s intelligence cooperation with the United States since Donald Trump’s return to power, Mr Burgess insisted it was “as strong as it’s ever been” and said he had a “strong relationship” with his counterpart, FBI Director Kash Patel.

“When it comes to protecting Australians, the Americans are great mates and they help us every day and we do our fair share of helping them as well. That’s the way it should be. I’ve seen no change to things since President (Donald) Trump was re-elected”.

During his prepared remarks to the Lowy Institute, Mr Burgess warned at least three countries are “willing and capable” to order assassination hits on Australian soil, possibly by using criminals for hire as Iran did to direct recent arson attacks here.

Citing the “degrading trajectory of our security environment”, ASIO has assessed there is now a “realistic possibility a foreign government will attempt to assassinate a perceived dissident in Australia.”

“This threat is real. We believe there are at least three nations willing and capable of conducting lethal targeting here. It is entirely possible the regimes would try to hide their involvement by hiring criminal cut-outs,” Mr Burgess warned.

Although the Director General deliberately did not disclose which countries were considered capable of murdering opponents here, Australia’s “Five Eyes” intelligence partner Canada has previously accused India of killing a Sikh leader on its soil in 2023.

Mr Burgess also revealed investigations are underway into acts of foreign interference that involve Moscow-controlled influencers in Australia who promote divisive messages on social media.

“These state-sanctioned trolls are more than propaganda puppets; they want to turn hot-button issues into burning issues, tipping disagreement into division and division into violence.”

Both the Chinese and Russian embassies in Canberra have so far declined to comment on the spy chief’s comments when contacted by The Nightly on Wednesday.

While outlining the security threat to Australia, Mr Burgess said the religiously motivated Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir’s “provocative ­behaviour, offensive rhetoric and insidious strategy” was “very similar” to the tactics of the far-right National Socialist Network.

“Hizb ut-Tahrir wants to test and stretch the boundaries of ­legality without breaking them. As with the neo-Nazis, this does not make its behaviour acceptable. I fear its anti-Israel rhetoric is fuelling and normalising wider anti-Semitic narratives.”

Following the speech, Shadow Home Affairs Minister Jonno Duniam accused the Albanese government of not doing enough to support senior intelligence and law enforcement officials “to do their job properly to protect our nation in the way Australians expect”.

Back in July Mr Burgess used another speech in Adelaide to warn foreign espionage was costing Australia at least $12.5 billion a year, while revealing ASIO has disrupted 24 “major espionage and foreign interference” operations in the last three years alone.