by Ganesh Sahathevan
In one fell swoop, a strike on Obama and Turnbull
As reported on this blog, the Turnbull family's business interests may be a factor in Turnbull's favouring China See :
Crouching (Turn)Bull, Hidden Rabbit Part 5-Election result means no more Asian favours, the end of Keshik Capital, and the unraveling of the Turnbull empire.
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Reference
Is Malcolm Turnbull 'soft' on China
because of his family connections?
John Garnaut, Asia-Pacific Editor
Alex Turnbull, son of the new Prime Minister, has knocked down "absurd" claims that intelligence agencies are concerned about the family background of his Chinese-born wife.
The younger Mr Turnbull has told Fairfax Media he cannot make sense of claims reported on Tuesday that Australian and American spies are worried about his father's "soft" China policies and his wife being the "princeling" child of senior Communist Party officials.
"Malcolm has had a healthy scepticism for the intelligence community," wrote Christopher Joye in the Australian Financial Review.
"This is reciprocated in spades with Australian and US spooks insinuating Malcolm is soft on national security and the China threat while noting his Sinophile son is married to the princeling daughter of senior Chinese Communist Party officials."
The author, Mr Joye, is a fund manager who has known the Turnbull family for decades and has written extensively on Western counter-intelligence and Chinese cyber-espionage.
But Mr Joye's claims about senior party ties are "utter rubbish", according to Alex Turnbull.
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"It's a pity Chris was so busy he could not be bothered to clear up basic biographical information, especially as he has my phone number," he said.
The AFR removed the word "princeling" from the online story yesterday and Mr Joye declined to comment.
Alex Turnbull, 33, worked at Goldman Sachs before joining a private equity firm in Singapore. In 2012 he married Yvonne Wang, or Wang Yi Wen, who works as a public relations adviser for Trip Advisor.
They had their first child, Isla, in May.
Her parents were well-connected in cosmopolitan Shanghai and were known to be on good terms with former president Jiang Zemin. But they did not hold any senior party or military rank.
Ms Wang's mother, Tu Chongling, was a Canadian music graduate who died in July, aged 78. Ms Wang's father, Wang Chunming, was an international relations scholar.
He was born into a "capitalist" family in Ningbo, Zhejiang, and fled to the United States before being chased back again by McCarthyism in the 1950s.
Mr Wang returned to China to spend the better part of a decade tending pigs in the Cultural Revolution, and then worked with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
Mr Wang is 91 years old and in poor health.
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