Zhao has also been appointed an overseas delegate of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference,a key CCP advisory body.
In 2019,at a CPPCC event to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China,Zhao was quoted in a Communist Party news organ as saying:“In Fiji in the South Pacific Islands,my heart beats with the pulse of the motherland! I love you,China!”
Beyond the patriotic posturing,it is Zhao’s ability to rub shoulders with Fiji’s most powerful figures that has earned him a reputation in Suva and beyond as a wealthy businessman capable of seeking and wielding influence.
According to two senior Australian officials and one high-ranking Fijian public servant,Zhao had a “direct line” to Bainimarama during the latter’s reign as prime minister between 2007 and 2022.
Bainimarama could not be reached for comment. Zhao appeared dismissive of the suggestion he had enjoyed special access to the now-former prime minister when he was briefly quizzed at his hotel by this masthead,saying “everyone knows Frank”. He implied his relationship arose only from Bainimarama dining at the Yue Lai restaurant.
But in Chinese language news outlets,including the CCP-controlledTa Kung Pao,Zhao was variously described as an “adviser” or “special economic adviser” to Bainimarama.
With Zhao’s help,China “got in very,very deep and very,very close” to Bainimarama’s government,the ANU’s Graeme Smith said.
Reporting in state-controlled outlets suggests Zhao also played a key role promoting China’s security interests in Fiji. In 2016,company registry documents show that Zhao set up at his hotel an official Overseas Chinese Service Centre. Beijing has denied claims from Western governments and researchers that some of these centres are part of a global network of offices engaged in “united front work” and,in some cases,help monitor Chinese citizens.
Rubbing shoulders
As head of the centre,Zhao attended and hosted several high-level meetings on security co-operation.
They include a March 2017 meeting with Fijian Defence Minister Ratu Inoke Kubuabola to complain about crime affecting Chinese residents. Zhao sought assistance from a special police taskforce or Fiji’s military,securing a promise from Kubuabola of increased police interaction with Zhao’s centre to “discuss solutions”.
In January 2021,Zhao was a speaker at a public security forum co-organised by the Chinese embassy and attended by senior Fijian policing officials. Twelve months later,Zhao was a key figure at another Fiji Police and Chinese Community Exchange Forum on Public Security,sitting on a panel with the Chinese ambassador and the then Fijian police commissioner,Sitiveni Qiliho.
The same year,the Australian Federal Police’s liaison officer in Suva sent an intelligence briefing to Canberra describing suspicions that Zhao may be part of an organised crime group whose senior members had a “demonstrated ability to co-ordinate their operations in the region”.
The cable identified one of Zhao’s suspected key associates as a Chinese-Fijian businessman convicted of drug trafficking in 2004 who is the business partner of a senior Fijian politician.
When confronted by this masthead at his hotel about his alleged links to organised crime,Zhao denied the claims and told reporters to contact the Fijian police force to vouch for him. Twenty-four hours later,a Fijian officer called this masthead to follow up on a complaint lodged by Zhao.
According to former and serving officials,the decision of Australian agencies to investigate Zhao and his network via his designation as an “Australian Priority Organisation Target” in July 2023 points to an escalation of Canberra’s efforts to disrupt China’s levers of influence in the region as it seeks to exert its own.
“In layman’s terms,it means it’s[putting Zhao at] the top of the top of targets in this country,” said former AFP intelligence officer John Coyne,who is now a senior analyst for the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. Previous Australian Priority Organisation Targets have been international bikie bosses or Middle Eastern money launderers.
Coyne said the significance of the priority target listing lay in Zhao’s dual role – as an influential figure advancing the interests of the Chinese Communist Party in Fiji and someone suspected of having links to organised crime in the Pacific.
Such a listing,he said,“to my knowledge has not occurred before”.
“It is all about China,” said a serving official,in a comment repeated by a senior Albanese government minister who sits on the cabinet’s national security committee.
Australian intelligence reports seen by this masthead describe suspicions that Zhao has been connected to international drug trafficking networks targeting Australia since at least 2004.
One intelligence report circulated among federal agencies alleges that Zhao “exploits his favourable position within the Fijian community to benefit his criminal network” and that the network has been “associated with a range of criminal activities impacting Australia including large illicit drug shipments,money laundering,migration fraud and human trafficking”.
The report outlines suspicions that Zhao is involved with a regional crime network that “seeks to influence the environment to provide cover for Chinese organised crime” and that he is “well connected to other Chinese organised crime leaders in the Pacific”.
His network is suspected of being “involved in ... providing a Fijian ‘safe hub’ for drug shipments,on behalf of South American cartels and[other Australian Priority Organisation Targets]”.
Coyne said the designation of Zhao as a priority target is the strongest suggestion yet that Australian security agencies believe that China is using figures allegedly involved in serious transnational organised crime as part of its strategy to gain influence.
Security probes
This is not the first time police or Australian spies have investigated Chinese Communist Party-linked figures for involvement in serious organised crime. In 2018,the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission intensively probed a Macau businessman called Alvin Chau over allegations he was “facilitating large-scale money laundering between Australian and China”. Chau,like Zhao,was a representative on one of the CCP’s key united front bodies.
Chau was also suspected to answer to a notorioustriad leader nicknamed “Broken Tooth”,whom the Chinese government has reportedly relied on to advance its interests elsewhere in the Pacific.
In 2019,ASIO and Victoria Police gathered intelligence on another key CCP United Front figure in Melbourne,Tom Zhou,for organised crime activity and for foreign interference activities,including his dealings with a staffer in the Victorian government. Tom Zhou was backed by the Chinese consulate in Melbourne as a united front leader,despite being wanted in China for serious crimes. He alsoplotted to bribe Vanuatu’s Prime Minister,Charlot Salwai,to win a casino licence there,although no money was ever paid. Both Chau and Tom Zhou were arrested by Chinese authorities after their activities were exposed in Australian reporting.
Speaking generally,experts have claimed that China has a track record in using “patriotic” organised crime figures as proxies abroad,particularly when part of the job is to influence local elites.
“You need fixers. You need people who know people. And often criminals have a really good Rolodex,” ANU’s Smith said,speaking in general terms.
“If you can find people that are successful business people and involved in criminal activities,then they’re often your most effective vectors in-country because they know people and they’re willing to do the stuff that the state doesn’t want to do.”
Last year,on the sidelines of a Melbourne meeting with AFP chief Reece Kershaw,FBI deputy director Paul Abbate said he had “no doubt” the Chinese state was still using organised crime groups as agents of influence in Pacific Island nations. Abbate was speaking generally and did not name individuals.
“They’re[the Chinese government] leveraging these[criminal] groups to undermine,again,our democracy,” Abbate said.
Kershaw refused to comment on the FBI deputy chief’s claims,but said a $300 million funding package from the Albanese government would help the AFP counter “any organised crime group that’s actually eroding away democracy and the economies of the Pacific”.
Last week,Kershaw was in China to sign off on agreements the AFP has with Beijing to share information about transnational drug trafficking. The AFP and the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission refused to comment on this story. But government sources have confirmed the AFP is pushing for additional funding to ensure Canberra,and not China or its proxies,is the first port of call for Pacific Island nations seeking police training,equipment or other resources.
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Fiji is eager for outside help,but it is also keeping its options open. While Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka said he was far more comfortable partnering with Australia than China when it comes to police and other security support,his home affairs minister,Pio Tikoduadua,defended his recent decision to re-enliven Suva’s “extensive” police partnership with Beijing on the basis that it is as “extensive as the one that we have with Australia”.
Even if the investigation produces no charges,or was dismissed as politicised,John Coyne,the former AFP intelligence officer,said the targeting of the Yue Lai hotel owner by Australian authorities would be a blow to Beijing.
“If the allegations are correct,then it will have a significant impact on their influence operations in the region.”
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