Chau Chak Wing
[3] Journalists and think tanks have reported on Chau's links to Chinese Communist Party (CCP) entities and interests throughout his career.
[16] In 2001, Chau joint-ventured with the Guangzhou, PRC, provincial government's Yangcheng Evening News to commence publishing the New Express Daily there.
[13] In 2004, Chau established the pro-Beijing The Australian New Express Daily (Chinese: 澳洲新快报), a simplified character Chinese-language newspaper published in Australia under the management of his daughter Winky Chow, a former ethnic policy affairs adviser to New South Wales State Premier Bob Carr.
[8] The Australian New Express Daily ceased printing newspapers in 2019 and eventually stopped updating its websites and social media in 2021.
[9] In 2015, Chau paid a reported $70 million to buy the Vaucluse mansion 'La Mer' from Australian billionaire James Packer.
[23] In May 2009, Chau, then still domiciled in Guangzhou, donated CN¥3 million to a Chinese Public Security Bureau training centre in order that society "be well managed".
[40] Chau was named in a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) probe in the case of bribery of the former president of the United Nations General Assembly, John Ashe.
In 2013, the FBI alleged Sheri Yan (Shiwei Yan),[41] an Australian-Chinese suspected by Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) of Chinese intelligence activity, used A$200,000 of Chau's money to bribe John Ashe to attend a conference held at Chau's Imperial Springs resort in China.
[18] In 2016, Chau brought defamation proceedings against Nationwide News Pty Ltd, the publisher of The Daily Telegraph and its sister company News Life Media Pty Ltd in the Federal Court of Australia, claiming that articles published in 2015 conveyed imputations that he himself had “bribed Mr. John Ashe”.
[49] In February 2019, Chau obtained judgment in an action against Fairfax Media in New South Wales, establishing he had been defamed in The Sydney Morning Herald in a 2015 article about the affair.
[53] A joint Four Corners and Fairfax Media investigation claimed that Chau, among others, was the subject of a briefing by ASIO warning of Chinese government influence over the Australian political system.
