![Huang Xiangmo and Sam Dastyari at a press conference for the Chinese community in Sydney in July, 2016.](http://web.archive.org./web/20171208013720im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/5/s/0/2/image.related.landscape.460x307.gzy0sl.png/1512397781176.jpg)
'Icebreakers': How Beijing seeks to influence the West
Huang Xiangmo is only one of the Chinese businessmen whom ASIO warned against, and influencing political parties is only one of his fields of operation.
Peter Hartcher is the political editor and international editor of The Sydney Morning Herald. He is a Gold Walkley award winner, a former foreign correspondent in Tokyo and Washington, and a visiting fellow at the Lowy Institute for International Policy. His latest book is The Sweet Spot: How Australia Made its Own Luck and Could Now Throw it All Away. His 2005 book, Bubble Man: Alan Greenspan and the Missing Seven Trillion Dollars, foresaw the collapse of the US housing market and the economic slump that followed.
Huang Xiangmo is only one of the Chinese businessmen whom ASIO warned against, and influencing political parties is only one of his fields of operation.
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The President is a clown and Asia does not take him seriously.
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There is simply no prospect that the federal government will reverse its policy.
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