WeChat declines Australian senate appearance

Senator James Paterson has urged Chinese social media platform WeChat to "reconsider" repeated refusals to appear before a senate committee, saying the operator risks adverse recommendations being made against it.

Ahead of this week’s hearing of the senate select committee into foreign interference through social media, which Paterson chairs, a letter sent to WeChat owner Tencent Holdings' head of corporate affairs, legal, Elizabeth Byun was published.

Requesting that WeChat “reconsider its decision” to decline invitations to appear before the committee, Paterson wrote: “I ask you to consider the message it sends about your company and its willingness to comply with Australian law if you continue to refuse to appear before the committee”.

"If WeChat continues to refuse to appear before the committee, we will inevitably draw conclusions about your willingness to cooperate with Australian law and make recommendations accordingly," Paterson wrote.

Paterson added that as WeChat has no local presence, its representatives could not be compelled to appear.

The committee’s program for hearings on July 1 and July 12 lists executives from Facebook parent company Meta, LinkedIn, TikTok, Google (including a separate appearance by YouTube), and Twitter.

In his letter seeking WeChat's participation, Paterson cited “compelling evidence” that WeChat “functions as a ‘narrative machine’ for the Chinese Communist Party”, along with “disturbing allegations” that it has been used to “intimidate and harass Chinese-Australian human rights activists and their families”.

He referred to hearings in April in which at least one expert, Dr Seth Kaplan, called for a ban on WeChat “to protect Australians from infringement on their freedoms”.

According to Lowy Institute research, WeChat has nearly 700,000 Australian users, most of them part of the Chinese diaspora, and it’s used often or sometimes by 86 percent of Chinese Australians.