Until recently, Australians and their governments have believed that it doesn’t matter what values are held by the nations and people with whom it deals.  

That’s understandable, given we are a free trading nation, believing in an open economy and the morality of free exchange.  If prosperity is the measure, it has served us well.  

Yet, the recent leak of China’s secret Overseas Key Individual Database — OKIDB — from a Chinese intelligence agency should shake us from our slumber.

Knowing that the Chinese Communist Party’s intelligence agencies are using a combination of complex bots, advanced big data tools, hacking and other methods to conduct mass digital...