The WeChat Election: How Labor Weaponised Chinese Social Media, By Brian Simpson

While Aussies scrolled X, Labor conquered WeChat—courting votes and risking our nation's soul. In the 2025 Australian federal election, the Australian Labor Party (ALP) secured a landslide victory, bolstered by an unprecedented 65–70% of the Chinese-Australian vote in key seats like Bennelong, Reid, and Menzies. From a Christian conservative nationalist perspective, Labor's masterful use of WeChat, a Chinese social media platform, was a game-changer, leveraging Beijing-friendly influencers and CCP-linked groups like the Chinese Building Association of NSW (CBANSW) to dominate digital campaigns. This strategy, while electorally brilliant, raises grave concerns about foreign influence, echoing earlier warnings about Labor's cozy ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The Liberals' failure to counter this digital juggernaut cost them dearly, underscoring the need for a unified minor party alliance to protect Australia's sovereignty.

WeChat, used daily by nearly 60% of Chinese Australians (over 700,000 people), became Labor's secret weapon in 2025. The platform, heavily censored by Beijing, is a cultural lifeline for Chinese-Australian communities, offering news, chat, and commerce in Mandarin. Labor's campaign exploited this, deploying targeted content through influencers and community groups to secure votes in 10 marginal seats with high Chinese populations, including four in Sydney, four in Melbourne, and one each in Brisbane and Perth.

Key Examples: A Beijing-based influencer with 3 million followers circulated a WeChat video of Anthony Albanese's March 2025 birthday lunch with CBANSW, a group tied to Chinese state-owned firms. The clip, showing CBANSW's Carson Gao presenting Albanese with a sparkler-topped cake, framed Labor as culturally inclusive, contrasting with Peter Dutton's hawkish rhetoric. Similar posts on WeChat's Rednote platform, where Foreign Minister Penny Wong attacked Dutton, reached thousands in seats like Moreton.

Electoral Impact: AEC data shows Labor flipped Liberal strongholds like Bennelong (5–7% swing) and Menzies (5–6%) with Chinese voters, who comprise 10–15% of these electorates, favouring Labor at 65–70% in two-party-preferred terms. In Reid, where over 50% of Burwood residents have Chinese ancestry, Labor's Sally Sitou held the seat with a 5.2% margin, boosted by WeChat-driven turnout.

Labor's strategy included micro-targeted ads on WeChat, promising cost-of-living relief and education opportunities, resonating with Chinese-Australian families. Community events, like Wong's yum cha with United Front-linked donor Peter Zheng in Brisbane, were amplified on the platform, creating a sense of personal connection. This digital blitz outmanoeuvred the Liberals, whose X-centric campaign failed to penetrate Chinese-Australian networks.

Labor's WeChat success is inseparable from its troubling ties to CCP-linked entities, as previously discussed. The CBANSW, which hosted Albanese, is led by figures like Hao Liu, tied to state-owned Hubei Fuxing Science and Technology Co., and Harvard Shen, linked to the United Front's Australian Chushang Entrepreneurs Association. Zheng's Australia China Cultural and Economic Promotion Association, a key United Front group, further illustrates Labor's entanglement. Clive Hamilton, author of Hidden Hand, notes that such groups often take cues from Beijing, aligning with the CCP's goal of influencing diaspora communities and suppressing dissent.

Labor's broader softening of Australia-China relations—Albanese's meetings with Xi Jinping in 2022 and 2023, his silence on Chinese warships in 2025—complemented its WeChat strategy. By projecting a CCP-friendly image, Labor assuaged Chinese-Australian voters alienated by the Liberals' anti-China stance under Morrison and Dutton. However, this raises alarms about foreign interference. ASIO's 2024 warning of an MP "selling out" Australia and the 2025 investigation into United Front volunteers in Clare O'Neil's Hotham campaign suggest Labor's WeChat reliance may have opened doors to CCP influence, threatening national sovereignty.

The Liberals' inability to counter Labor's WeChat campaign was a self-inflicted wound. Internal sabotage, as George Christensen highlighted, crippled Dutton's campaign, with moderates delaying ads and diluting messaging. The party's focus on X and traditional media ignored Chinese-Australian voters, who rely on WeChat for news. Dutton's 2021 war-preparation remarks and Morrison's trade disputes, which cost Chinese-Australian businesses in wine and lobster exports, lingered in community memory, unaddressed by Liberal outreach. A 2022 Carnegie survey showed only 30% of Chinese Australians trusted the Coalition, compared to 45% for Labor, a gap that widened in 2025.

The Liberals' failure to engage authentically—beyond token gestures like preselecting Peter Zhuang for an unwinnable Queensland Senate spot—left them outmanoeuvred. Minor parties like One Nation, with limited digital infrastructure, also failed to tap WeChat, underscoring the need for a coordinated conservative response.

From our perspective, Labor's WeChat triumph is a spiritual and political betrayal. Australia, a nation founded on Christian values, faces a secular, globalist tide led by Labor's progressive agenda and CCP-friendly diplomacy. The WeChat campaign, while effective, risks ceding influence to an atheist, authoritarian regime that persecutes Christians and suppresses freedom—antithetical to our vision of a sovereign, faith-driven Australia. The Chinese-Australian community, many of whom share conservative values like family and hard work, deserves outreach that respects their culture without compromising national security.

The Liberals' collapse, driven by their moderate drift and digital ineptitude, echoes their broader abandonment of the Christian heartland. Minor parties—One Nation, Australian Christians, Libertarians—must fill this void, uniting to counter Labor's digital dominance and foreign entanglements. A black swan event, like a PLA fuel blockade, could expose Labor's vulnerabilities, but conservatives must act now to limit their power.

To combat Labor's WeChat stranglehold, conservative minor parties must form a cooperative alliance, as previously proposed, with a focus on digital strategy:

WeChat Engagement: Pool resources to hire Mandarin-speaking campaigners and launch a "Menzies Pact" channel on WeChat, promoting shared values—family, sovereignty, economic independence. Highlight Labor's CCP ties to sway socially conservative Chinese voters.

Preference Coordination: Align preferences to boost minor party votes (15–20% by 2028), targeting seats like Bennelong and Reid. A Senate voting bloc could block Labor's legislation, forcing minority governments.

Grassroots Mobilisation: Leverage Christensen's 50,000-subscriber platform and church networks to counter WeChat's reach. Partner with Chinese-Australian Christian groups, who represent 10% of the community, to promote Biblical principles.

Computer analysis estimates a 50–60% chance of this strategy reducing Labor's Chinese-Australian vote to 55–60% by 2028, if minor parties invest in digital infrastructure. The Canadian Reform Party's 1990s digital campaigns, targeting ethnic voters, offer a model.

Labor's WeChat-driven victory in 2025, fuelled by CCP-linked groups and cultural outreach, secured the Chinese-Australian vote but imperilled Australia's sovereignty. The Liberals' digital failure, compounded by internal sabotage, left them impotent. From a Christian conservative nationalist lens, this is a call to arms: minor parties must unite, harnessing WeChat and grassroots networks to challenge Labor's dominance. By forcing minority governments, conservatives can stall Labor's secular agenda, awaiting a crisis to awaken the nation. The WeChat election was a wake-up call—Australia's soul hangs in the balance.