'Think tank' pushes anti-China barrow

Australian group accused of being backed by US military corporations

The questioning encountered by three Chinese-Australian citizens in a recent Senate hearing on issues facing diaspora communities in Australia had an eerie resonance.

As Yun Jiang, Osmond Chiu and Wesa Chau came away from the hearing they might have been forgiven for wondering whether they had been transported back to the 1950s and the communist witch hunt of senator Joseph McCarthy in the United States.

At the hearing on Oct 14 Senator Eric Abetz asked all three if they were prepared to "unconditionally condemn the Chinese Communist Party dictatorship". The line of questioning was straight out of the McCarthy handbook and received a swift backlash on social media.