It may be a statement of the bleeding obvious, but a face-off with the People’s Republic of China would not be a good idea.
From any perspective – military, economic, political, simple weight of numbers – Australia cannot hope to compete on a level playing field with our dominant neighbour.
And to pretend that somehow we should be seen as equal partners, as Scott Morrison is apparently urging, is a dangerous delusion. At best, we can never be more than a client trader – keen to deal with whatever China is willing to buy from us and what we are desperate to buy from it.
So when our deputy prime minister Michael McCormack trots out the old line about “China needs us as much as we need them” it is not only silly but provocative. Apart from being demonstrably untrue, (Chinese investment in Australia has fallen from $16 billion to $2.5 billion since 2016) it is a feeble attempt to give our most important customer the finger during particularly fraught times.
So it behoves us to tread with caution, and when Beijing warns us to back off, kiddies, it cannot be dismissed as just a bit of diplomatic chit chat, however much the backbench crazies might wish it to be.
Nor is it simply what Morrison calls a list of 14 grievances, more of the same old demands over things such as Huawei and a COVID inquiry. The complaints go deeper, to what is obviously seen as a conscious anti-China agenda on the part of the Australian government.
Ominously, China’s foreign ministry is now using the word “enemy” in communiques to and about Australia. But Morrison seems to think this is more of a challenge than a threat. His response remains that we are a sovereign country, our standards cannot be compromised, that we can bluff it out.
But Beijing is not just unrepentant, but positively proud of its relentless imposition of totalitarian rule on its hapless citizens.
Detention without trial or charge, forced labour, strict censorship, repression of minorities and the politically incorrect, physical and mental torture are the norm. This cannot be condoned.
But as it is around most of the world, it can be and generally is ignored. And there are times when it is better to be tactfully silent than to shout futile defiance.
No one is suggesting we lower our standards, which may not be impeccable but are obviously far less abusive than those of the Chinese, the most tyrannous regime on the planet.
But our own record is hardly beyond reproach and the Chinese are not averse to pointing this out. They have already targeted Australia’s failure to redress the inequalities across the indigenous community and now, of course, they have extra ammunition with the highly convincing evidence of Australian war crimes in Afghanistan. This is not the best time to assume the high moral ground.
That does not mean that we have to negotiate on our knees. But as we have been repeatedly told, the relationship has to be managed with care. Respect is essential, and an acknowledgement of the manifest power imbalance.
Last week in Tokyo Morrison tried to secure an alliance of resistance with the Japanese Prime Minister Yoshishide Suga, and has been offered support from his stand by US heavy hitters like Marco Rubio. Our departing emissary, Arthur B Culvahouse Jnr, has provided a farewell cheerio. But all this only underlines Australia’s own impotence.
So when Morrison scrabbles for purchase, declaring that Australia’s actions should not be interpreted through the lens of the strategic competition between China and the United States, Beijing hears another message: “China noticed a Prime Minister Morrison’s positive comments on the global influence of China’s economic growth and China’s poverty alleviation efforts,” a Foreign Ministry spokesman noted approvingly. Tribute received and accepted.
And this is precisely the dilemma: Beijing obviously thinks we do have a choice and we have got to make it. We are either with them or against them – sitting on the barbed wire fence is not an option.
There is a lot of history in this. The Jade Empire has had a couple of centuries of having sand kicked in its face by the colonial bully-boys of Europe but now if it is not quite yet the toughest kid on the block, it is bloody close to it. Time to kick back.
And giving Australia a gob full is entirely appropriate – even karma. China’s own resources – economic, innovative, even spiritual – have been ruthlessly exploited by invaders. With Australia depending on China to do the exploiting and pay the bills, there is no better time to turn the screws.
So the news comes through that some 80 Australian coal ships have been held up indefinitely at Chinese ports. Environmental concerns, explains Beijing, in what is no explanation at all. And there may be an element of that, but no one in Canberra doubts that this is really all about ramping up the political pressure. And the same applies to the wine tariffs, imposed in retaliation for improbable allegations of dumping.
Morrison is looking for the old comforters: rules-based trade, nuance and accommodation, latitude and room to move. But his pleas are becoming more frantic.
“It’s as if Australia does not have its own unique interests or its own views as an independent sovereign state,” he implored. “This is just false. And worse, it needlessly deteriorates relationships.” Well, not to the Chinese it doesn’t. That’s just the kind of relationship they like – the one where they win.
And let’s be honest, the relationship has seldom been entirely amiable. China has been seen as more of a threat than a friendly neighbour. Long before it was rechristened during the cold war as The Red Menace, China loomed large over our future. There was always the fear that the teeming masses to the north would engulf us by the sheer force of gravity.
And the Chinese themselves? Mysterious, inscrutable – and therefore sinister, overtones of an undercover regime under the iron rule of the evil genius Dr Fu Manchu. Or perhaps his successors: the current suspicion of hordes of cyber-hackers hidden behind secret vaults, tirelessly sabotaging and subverting Australia and its diplomatic allies have gained considerable purchase.
Inherent racism? Almost certainly. And this will be just another problem for Morrison as he tries to reframe a confrontation which he may wish to end, but his antagonist is happy to pursue to its inevitable conclusion.
Mungo MacCallum is a veteran political journalist and commentator. His books include Run Johnny Run, Poll Dancing, and Punch and Judy.
mungomccallum@staging-johnmenadue.kinsta.cloud
Comments
80 responses to “Australia against China: a face-off which must be avoided”
Just admit it. You committed inexcusable war crimes in a extremely unhumane way in Afganistan.
It’s horrifying those soilders have done and are still doing!
Stop being hypocritic.
You are just a nobody-country, stop making yourself a laughing stock!!!
Morrison’s shouty, ignorant and Sky-after-dark ‘informed’ approach to China is childish. It will not work. For all the reasons Mr MacCullam articulated we had better wake up to contemporary realities. China would willingly plough two and a half proviences into the ground to achieve a longer term strategic goal. This includes getting respect from Australia. We should not be subservient, but we regularly turn a blind eye to our own failings and American excesses to achieve a long term goal. Perhaps we should apply a similar lens to China.
‘But Beijing is not just unrepentant, but positively proud of its relentless imposition of totalitarian rule on its hapless citizens.
Detention without trial or charge, forced labour, strict censorship, repression of minorities and the politically incorrect, physical and mental torture are the norm. This cannot be condoned.”
I note that somebody has already targeted Mungo with this quote, but it cant be emphasised enough, the west has been peddling porkies about China for its own malign reasons. One scarcely knows what proof Mungo thinks he has for these charges, but I guess it will the usual stuff – persecution of Uighurs, interfering in Hong Kong, weaponising shoals and reefs in the Sth China Sea.
All these events and others have been grossly misrepresented by western media and governments, and certainly the propaganda arm of the US government. Apart from solitary voices from the Uighur diaspora, which has its own motives for lying about how China behaves towards them, and a few satellite pictures which could be anything, we have a dearth of evidence about the predicament of the Uighur in Xinjiang. However we do have a constant stream of video footage from western visitors to Xinjiang showing the the Uighurs are mostly all alive and well, their shops are very much open and the Uighur language can be heard in the streets of Xinjiang cities. And the mosques seem open for business.
The Chinese themselves quite obviously dont feel oppressed with millions of them leaving China for holidays overseas and then returning home. As for totalitarian rule, please explain how Beijing manages the feat of imposing totalitarian rule over the 3o provinces with elected representive bodies that administer Beijing’s edicts and laws. This narrative needs to stop. All governments, avers Chomsky, are a threat to their own people, and this is true for China as well as elsewhere on the planet, but Beijing being a single party government is constantly under threat from its people, since it cant blame some alternative opposition party for failures and mistakes. Beijing is fully aware that if it fails the expectation of the people it rules, it will be overthrown.
If you look at the big picture, the existing Western establishment can’t say anything positive about China because if China succeeds, the plebs in the existing Western establishment will start questioning its own political system which will threaten the interest of the elite and political class that benefited from the existing system.
One benefit of the current Western political system is the emphasis on procedural legitimacy. What this allows the elite and political class to do is to gain power without accountability, legalising corruption, funneling money through revolving doors, PPPs and outsourcing government responsibility while lining up the connected with gold while the plebs, rather than demanding performance from the political elite, they actually criticise themselves for electing the “wrong” leader. It’s quite the ingenious system.
Anything that upset this illusion, i.e. that there are alternative political systems that can also reach modernisation and industrialisation would be an existential threat to the existing political and financial class that benefit from the existing system. There is nothing to be gained from NOT demonising China from the Western political point of view.
Actually I completely agree with you that the west cannot let China succeed because it would undermine local systems and ideas of governance, or rather they fear that would happen. But I can see a place for some kind of merger between what we have and what China has, something that seems preposterous only because we define our own system in idealised terms of Freedom and liberty (when really it isnt), while at the same time calling China a totalitarian dictatorship (which it isnt).
China calls itself a democracy. A democracy with Chinese characteristics. And the US is a democracy with American characteristics. The problem at present is that America insists that only its form of democracy is valid and true. But many scholars and ordinary people do not see the US as a democracy at all, more a plutocracy or an oligarchy. But it still has democratic elements, and if we could start talking honestly about these various alternatives we might make something much better than we presently have. And if China survives which I certainly hope it does, this will inevitably happen. But of course this is not presently appealing to many in the west.
I think the problem is why would the existing establishment change? There is simply no gains or upside of any kind to be had here. Making truce with China calls for political reforms at home and that’s going to upset some very powerful people. It’s simply not going to happen unfortunately.
they will change by gradual attrition. Right now, tempers are high and conflict ratcheted up. But over time, this will change. A cursory glance at changes in the political landscape of Europe over the past five hundred years, or so, illustrates this process. This is perhaps a too complicated process to go into the details of it in this place, but there are umpteen examples one could mention. But it is all encapsulated in Hegel’s three step process of thesis, antithesis and resolution. However, right now, any movement forward along this path relies on China surviving the present stage of polarised conflict. Nice chatting with you.
.
Jeeze
Is the author kidding me ?
Are we in two parallel universe ?
Washington is the one demanding Oz to join its anti
Chinese banwagon…
‘YOu’r either with us or against us’
Uncle sham is the one who wants Oz to choose a side.
and we have obeyed US demands…. but Scumo keeps saying we make our own decisions?…
guess Scumo is just waiting for Rapture….. doesnt care about anything else
Yet Canberra keep saying
‘We should stand up to ……China‘
LOL
How do they hope to get outta this self made
hole by ….barking up the wrong tree ???
Ah! the Rapture! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3N2bOVd9_n8
I am sure when it happens, Pompeo will throw a rope down so that Scomo can grab hold of, and then Heavens, we are coming to you, God!!
Confucius sez…
‘Its rude not to return a favor’
China demands probe into Aussies’ crimes in Afghanistan
Yes, and they also demand Australia apologise to Afghanistan.
Here’s the difference: we are probing what happened, and we have already apologised.
Hell will freeze over before the repellent regime in Beijing ever apologises for anything at all. How many apologies by the PRC can you point me to?
This Afghan debacle is just kindergarten stuff
compared to nam,Cambodia, Laos, INdonesia, Kosovo,
Iraq [Fallujah anyone], Libya, Syria, …Yemen.
Apologize eh !
We dont even need any whistle blower.
There’r enuff evidence in the west very own MSM to put the entire [[[five liars]]] leadership behind’ bar.
Really? Is this the same mainstream media that you and other posters stigmatise as biased and creating fake news? How come you’ve decided suddenly to believe it?
And I’m afraid that as a matter of fact we did need whistleblowers, and very brave ones, one of whom is facing decades in jail out of government vindictiveness.
I am of course happy to see the evidence to which you refer.
Oh, and did you find any example, ever, where the Chinese government apologised? Eg for initially hiding the pandemic? Or will you ignore this question as just slightly difficult?
Just for starter.
This report is culled from the west very own MSM.
http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m18007
Tip of an iceberg.
wHY do I believe them ?
Are you telling me these empire mouth piece dare to concoct fake news to
frame its master ?
btw
I up vote you by mistake 🙂
Steven, how generous of you! Thank you, dear chap. I will treasure that up-vote; I don’t get many here. Or anywhere in fact. 🙂 Wherever I go, right or left, I always seem to be a contrarian.
I don’t think I can accept your link as Western mainstream media. But you are right: there is a lot of evidence in the mainstream media precisely because it is not preoccupied with fake news.
Western MSM are the empire mouth piece.
They propagated the official lies to justify fake R2p campaigns in Iraq, Kosovo,…promoted fake news on Xinjiang, Tibet etc to demonise China and other non compliant countries.
So its all very simple really.
When the anti Chinese MSM reported accusations on China etc., we should treat it as Innocence until proven guilty
When the MSM reported negtive news about the empire and its minions, it should be ,
GUilty until proven innocence.
Elementary Watson !
btw,
Here’s another report culled from
the MSM.
tip of an icerberg
Cold blooded mass murders,
Deliberate targeting civilians…
Exhibit Kosovo.
https://web.archive.org/web/20120115150147/http://home.windstream.net/dwrighsr/a3820cf4d2861.html
Tip of an iceberg,
btw,
The [[[five liars]]] led wars have killed at least 20M civilians since WW2, majority MUslims.
The west have zero credibility on
human rights and rules of law.
They belong in the Hague to answer for their monstrous crimes against
humanities.
Its an obscenity that these criminals are still prancing around the world with total impunity, anointing themselves judge, prosecutor and executioners,.
I see. I think you’ve gone a bit borderline here. In fact I think you’ve crossed it. And you’ve even got two approvals. Humans are indeed fascinating.
I’m dropping out.
Hey don’t drop out, I’m still waiting for evidence that China “initially hiding the pandemic? Or will you ignore this question as just slightly difficult?”
See my reply to Bob above
Why are you ‘dropping out’, you ask for evidence and you got it.
Oz was up to its eyeballs in hundreds of US wars since WW2, its hands are drenched in blood, DU, agent orange.
There’r tons of heart churning images on the web showing deformed , monstrous looking babies in NAM, iRAQ etc, victims of Nato carpet bombing.
China should take up the cudgel for
these people in the UN forum, dont let the !@#$%! get away again and again.
Dont let them think they’r above the law, that they are the ones who dispense ‘justice’ to the world !
This scandal in Afghan is just the tip of an iceberg,.
Nato Targeting civilians have been a feature , not a bug.
Exhibit A
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/27e/080.html
Its more than sadism.
There’s method in the madness.
IN Nam, they called it ‘draining the pool to kill the fish’
Making the civilians miserable in order to trigger an uprising, a regime change.
A fragrant violation of the Geneva convention.
Exhibit Yugo
From the horse mouth.
Gen Michael Short
“If you wake up in the morning and you have no power to your house and no gas to your stove and the bridge you take to work is down and will be lying in the Danube for the next 20 years… at some point, you make the transition from applauding Serb machismo… to thinking what your country is going to look like if this continues.”
http://www.srpska-mreza.com/Kosovo/NATO-attack/bombing-terror2.html
tip of an iceberg
LIke I say,
If China wants to ‘return the favor’,
there’r tons of irrefutable evidences in the open web.
Go for it China, before they wipe them all up.
Me crossing the line ?
The ‘west’ have crossed the line
of human decency since time immemorial, high time somebody
shoot it down from its moral high horse to face the music, get a taste of its own medicine.
“Wherever I go, right or left, I always seem to be a contrarian.” I am glad that I am not the only one. 🙂
Hiding the pandemic by telling WHO on 31st of December which subsequently published in a DON on 5th of January.
https://www.who.int/csr/don/05-january-2020-pneumonia-of-unkown-cause-china/en/
That’s a terrible way to hide information don’t you think or it’s from MSM must be true kind of thing?
Happy to debunk any other MSM jewels that you find as part of one’s daily propaganda feed.
Meeple, are you Godfree in disguise?
Ad hominem arguments won’t save the likes of you. Are you saying who.int is fake news but Fairfax is fair and true? Where’s your evidence China covered it up? Maybe they hacked the WHO website, give us something?
Why even bother with P&I, MSM writes all the stuff you like to believe, go there instead?
1: That wasn’t an argument; it was a question. Why would you think it ad hominem, since you are just as unctuously servile to China as Godfree? Why aren’t you flattered?
2: When you moderate the site, and can ensure that there is only total conformity with your own highly warped views, I agree, I will have to leave.
3: Thank goodness that probably isn’t close. You have no right, however dictatorial and bullying you would like to be, to instruct me to leave this site. I love P&I, and I’m staying. It’s immensely valuable, but that doesn’t mean I have to agree with every asinine poster. Or even every columnist – P&I has pretty good diversity.
4: There has been a vast amount of evidence. It’s clearly built into your system for seeing the world that you will only accept that which reinforces your prejudice. That’s a matter for you; I’m not going to waste my time, as nothing would convince you. It would just be fake news. You’ve learned a lot from Trump.
“where the Chinese government apologised? Eg for initially hiding the pandemic?”
back to facts – response to the WHO link supplied ?
Its kind of relevant to assessing what’s just assertions (probably based on widely disseminated stories) and what’s got substance.
OK, fair enough. The fates of two Wuhan doctors who tried to alert authorities is exhibit A, especially Li Wenliang who was censured for trying to warn colleagues and later died of COVID-19.
Here’s what I consider a fair and succinct summary from the Wall St Journal: “In the critical first weeks after the initial outbreak, Beijing actively suppressed essential information and prevented World Health Organization investigators from entering the country while samples were destroyed. When a courageous Chinese biologist posted the sequenced genome of the virus online, his lab was immediately shut “for rectification.” The Chinese government has forbidden scientists to discuss publicly the origins of the pandemic. Citizen journalists investigating the issue have disappeared. In the words of a European Union report that were controversially later removed from the final version, “China has continued to run a global disinformation campaign to deflect blame for the outbreak of the pandemic.”
Here is a link with specific claims, if the above is too general.
https://qz.com/1801985/the-changing-coronavirus-outbreak-narrative-pushed-by-china/
But, Bob, let’s be honest. You and everyone else here have read many, many accounts of this. For some reason not clear to me you (plural) don’t believe any or much of it. It’s as though you think there’s a vast conspiracy of journalists who independently sit at their desks and use their imagination to invent stories. The news media just doesn’t operate like that. There may be agendas, yes, and incompetence, yes, but not the sort of manipulation that is so commonly alleged on this website.
https://nationalpost.com/news/world/coronavirus-silently-infecting-americans-before-first-cases-emerged-in-wuhan-cdc-study
Remember the Belt and Road Initiative that Victoria’s Premier Andrews executed an MOI for and Scotty bagged it unmercifully and threatened legislation to kill it. The BRI is president Xi’s baby.
No wonder Australia is being clobbered.
Yesterday PRC and Indonesia took a momentous step. The two countries reached a bilateral agreement to trade in their own currencies. The PRC is killing off the US dollar in Asia. This agreement has not been reported in the Australian press. Australia’s leading satirist Peter Hartcher believes his bosses mate is winning on twitter. The US dollar denomination in trade, the sheet anchor of the US empire is being killed off by Beijing with remarkable speed and adroitness. An empire is crashing. Australia is tweeting.
Here you go, showing your ignorance again. Tell me Paul “doesn’t” Matter, what is the value of Yuan trade in the Asian area in relation to USD?
With respect you dont understand. I take it you are referring to the renminbi which is the PRC medium for international exchange. There is actually no international exchange in yuan which is used for internal finance. So actually the yuan transactions in Asia are zero. No doubt you have read and enthusiastically devoured the recent IMF paper entitled “Reserve Accumulation and International Monetary Stability”? China’s weight in global trade and sheer size of its domestic market ranging from cars to wine, means that it is simply opting to reject all US dollar transactions. PRC is forcing its trading partners and corporations operating in PRC to agree to currency swap agreements, such as it has with Russia, the European Central Bank and now Indonesia. Watch the ASEAN countries follow. This strategy can be quickly expanded to bypass the US dollar. Its already happening in Africa with PRC transactions. Its over chum. Next year as PRC surges head economically the US dollar as a trading denomination will be killed off in Asia. Particularly as the US Fed under Biden ramps up the printing presses. Champ the current US government debt load is 22 trillion and Biden will be committed to more pump priming. And there is the war machine. Anyway Australia is winning the twitter war according to Peter Hartcher so we are ok with American paper.
“Anyway Australia is winning the twitter war according to Peter Hartcher so we are ok with American paper.”
lolz touché
Mostly I’ve seen them used interchangeably.
I don’t think Michael Pettis agrees with your view.
Being such a China expert you would know that the reminbi (RMB) 人民币 which literally means the people’s currency is the official currency of China and one of the world’s reserve currencies. Pettis – you are having a laff right? Pettis was a failed night club owner who has been consistently wrong about the Chinese economy. Pettis wouldnt know if a yuan or a reminibi was up him. He even warned against Belt and Road. May i respectfully suggest that you read the works of the greatest economist of modern times Xue Muqiao. Some of his works are available on line.
https://archive.org/details/ChinasSocialistEconomy1986/page/n1/mode/2up
Xue retired in ’91.Btw, how’s the B&R going?
Don’t know enough about Xue, but you are a die hard.
Xue certainly did retire. He passed away in 2005. Xue received the first Outstanding Achievement Award of Economics in China. The fact you have never heard of him or even bothered to read his work probably says everything about your cultural enthnocentrism, racism and total ignorance about Chinese economics. As for BRI you probably haveent heard of Halford McKinder and his “The Geographical Pivot of History” have you?. He died in 1947 so he is also not worth reading? The theory of the Eurasian heartland? Under BRI China extended debt relief to 28 out of 31 of the most heavily indebted countries in the world – and totally cancelled the debts owing in the cases of Afghanistan, Guinea and Burundi. Yes Afghanistan. But the Shire warrior is winning his twitter war against Fu Yu according to Peter Hartcher. Your ignorance of Chinese economics and McKinder’s classic of geopolitics speaks volumes champ.
Thank you Mungo. Much to ponder, as usual and – unlike many posters below – I found it considered and balanced.
“But Beijing is not just unrepentant, but positively proud of its relentless imposition of totalitarian rule on its hapless citizens.
Detention without trial or charge, forced labour, strict censorship, repression of minorities and the politically incorrect, physical and mental torture are the norm. This cannot be condoned.”
This shows the complete lack of understanding of China on this side of the pond. It’s hard to figure out whether Mungo is truly ignorant painting this cartoony version of reality or just towing the party line. Has Mungo even read the UN declaration of human rights before? I highly doubt it. Forced labour? Is he talking about ASPI’s buddies?
https://www.wired.com/2011/03/prisoners-help-build-patriot-missiles/
The support for Chinese government is higher than its ever been and the so called “FREEDOM!” of the west and 260K COVID deaths in the US and counting is not convincing any Chinese that somehow the West has some kind of secret formula. What they do know is the West got rich by rape and pillage, the worst offender being the Anglo-Saxons taking 2 whole continents.
China has to get rich honestly so it’s going to be a long March. Its just amused that there is so much arrogance on so called “human rights” blasting out by people who are standing on technically stolen land.
lololol. everyone who isn’t a China Apologist is a member of ASPI. How about our 900 deaths?
Conversely, anyone who isn’t attacking China must be a CCP apologist because it’s PC to bash China right? Facts be damned.
It’s only the state premiers who copied exactly what China’s response to COVID, just with less efficiency that saved us from a US style situation. Freedoms were severely restricted yet we hear no human rights warriors that were so prominent in January when China was going through the same thing. If you leave it up to Scomo, we will be no different to the US.
Our state premiers saw what New Zealand did and followed; NZ did what it did because it saw how China did it. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-52344299 “The reason we know it works is because China has done it,” Professor Baker adds. “1.4 billion people haven’t got the virus. They have been protected from it.” If China can protect a population of that scale, surely New Zealand can protect five million people.” Very unfortunately, most Western countries were, shall we say, a little arrogant to think they had anything to learn from what the Chinese did in Wuhan and the rest of China. Totally agree that we were oh so lucky that Scomo didn’t have his hands on the wheel. Just like he said he was not holding the hose against the biggest bushfires ever.
Here we go, NOTHING China did was anything new. Closing borders and restricting movements etc has been around for a bloody long time, China didn’t discover that.
I’ve gotta laugh at this. Maple, point me to one post where you haven’t gone in hammer and tongs on behalf of China.
This blog turns a blind eye when it comes to China all the time, as do the vast bulk of posters. There is NEVER any middle ground. Notice any negative comment towards China over the present saga? Of course not!
Btw Maple, less efficiency; do you know why they were so efficient? Welding doors shut ring any bells for you?
If you just want to read stuff that China is bad, just go to Fairfax/Murdoch, why bother coming here. Or you can cut the middle man and go straight to NED/Zenz/ASPI/insert your favourite NGO here. You got a problem with China, list them here along with source, we can have a discussion.
The needle has moved so far past irrationality that a lot of effort need to be pushed just for the conversation to be rational. China isn’t perfect but pretty much nothing the Western MSM publishes has any truth to it.
Sorry, but this just doesn’t cut it. I don’t come here to read “negative stuff” on China, if I wanted that I could go to the Murdoch press, SMH or MB as you suggest, but since this site poses itself as nuanced and more intelligent than the msm, so I expect more, I expect to see an honest appraisal, not the polar opposite of the bs press.
I don’t really give a damn that China is a one party state and not a democracy as we are, likely it wouldn’t work for them anyway. But the points I take exception to is the manner in which the state reacts to its people who have different views. Is there any discussion, no, outright abuse of power. In Tibet and the north west states, how does the CCP react, does it help the majority people improve their overall position? No, like all totalitarian states it moves its people in like Indonesia did in E. Timor and West Papua, while suppressing the locals. No autonomy, banning their native tongue, basically trying to wipe out their cultural norms to be replaced by Han customs.
How have they handled HK? Like an insecure married man; use of force, doubt Taiwan will see that as a viable future vision.
Basically, don’t rock the boat, accept your position without protest or you will be put back in your place. Tiananmen Square wasn’t, imo, an aberration.
Yes, lifted millions out of poverty, great, but doesn’t give them an excuse to ride rough shod over their people like they do. The “100 yrs of humiliation” is no excuse for the present.
China could have had its rise to a position equal to its economic importance, instead acted like a spoiled brat.
Interested in Chinese practices in maintaining minority cultures in education institutions ? Reading the research of Gerard Postiglione will be informative. Some open source articles will be found via Google Scholar.
I only got time to respond to your one point. How to respond to people. Chinese government works differently to Western governments so if you use Western assumptions to judge Chinese government workings, you will come to extremely weird conclusions.
Chinese government is a professional organisation. People’s daily is the company newsletter, it’s not a newspaper in the western sense. The way Chinese government receives feedback is via direct feedback mechanism. If you got grievances, you raise with the local government. If they don’t handle it and its seriously enough, you can escalate your claims to the county level, then to province level and ultimately, the central level.
Chinese government cares very much what the people feel and thinks because it is a one party state, it comes with absolute responsibility and accountability. Chinese government derives power from what it can provide to the people and not through process legitimacy like the west. In eastern cultures, harmony is valued more than individuals, consequently, China values social harmony.
Subsequently, the Chinese government is keen to understand problems local citizens are having, but what they are not interested in is “down with government” kind of behaviour as that is not productive and what grievance is it trying to address anyway. In fact it doesn’t want any kind of mass movement regardless of what it is, even if you want to support CCP and you organise a March, you will still get arrested as the March serves no purpose and it incites mass movement. There is an excellent study that goes into actually what China censors and its not government criticism as painted by MSM.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/43654017?seq=1
Your typical human right activist are all about down with government types if you read into their claims or are just corrupt officials escaping Chinese law.
When China comes up with a solution to bigger problems after soliciting public opinion, the government trial it in only a few places called trial spots, and if it’s successful, they will roll it out more widely. They even trailed local village direct elections. None of this is talked about in MSM or even P&I.
The cartoony version of China is basically Xi is king and calls the shots. If that’s the case, why do you get things like this in China?
https://pic4.zhimg.com/v2-5fbeef2673222ddfb03b360310b34c5d_1440w.jpg?source=172ae18b
Meeple, link doesn’t work!
“…..so if you use Western assumptions to judge Chinese government workings, you will come to extremely weird conclusions.”
Sorry, but I don’t accept this excuse, it’s a non explanation. It works for toddlers and that’s about it! A lot of good has come about in China and I don’t see why they need to behave in a totalitarian manner. I’m not saying they have to roll over, but surely there is a better way than steamrolling the different ethnic communities and those with different ideals, give them room to voice their opinions
I don’t see Chinese citizens being product of the state.
Sorry which link? Link is flaky in Disqus.
How Censorship in China Allows Government Criticism but Silences Collective Expression
https://www.jstor.org/stable/43654017?seq=1
Picture of a road with a house in the middle typical when people in China refuses to move to make way for development.
https://pic4.zhimg.com/v2-5fbeef2673222ddfb03b360310b34c5d_1440w.jpg?source=172ae18b
You will have to define what does totalitarian mean. China’s #1 priority is raising living standards and rapid industrialisation.
Also avoid separating Chinese government from Chinese people. The word political party doesn’t even exist in the Chinese vocabulary until Japan translated it in the 1800s. Government has more paternalistic context in eastern culture. There is a responsibility and accountability expectation built into the culture that is absent in the western context. This is fundamentally different to what British colonies view their own government.
Well most of your comments are cliches, endlessly repeated in the mainstream media. Possibly you are right and there needs to be a dispassionate place where the evidence can be weighed and pronounced upon, free of bias, fair and balanced. I would suggest the 1950s.
However as Meeple has suggested, please make your own points and they will be listened to. You make comments about Tibet that certainly dont correlate with what I have heard from other westerners who have recently been to Tibet, nor with comments I have heard from the Dalai Lama, but I am always willing to be convinced by documented evidence.
Your comments about Hong Kong and China behaving like ‘an insecure married man’, I simply reject. Despite constant harassment by the west in 2019, Beijing held its tongue despite having legal obligations to protect Hong Kong’s security. When it finally acted in May of this year, I thought it was about time it did so. Nor have I seen any evidence that Beijing ‘rides roughshod over its people.’ To the contrary, it seems to bend over backwards to accomodate and satisfy its people.
If you want middle ground go elsewhere. Try the ABC, the Sydney Morning Herald, Crikey or the Murdoch press, you’ll find plenty there. And better still all those outlets are quite keen to go further and attack China relentlessly. Yes, there are a lot of voices here supporting China, but note, many are not simply supporting China for its own sake, they are also trying to protect Australia by warning of the dangers of misrepresenting China or maligning it with false accusations, which pisses China off, understandably, to the point that they are beginning to decide that Australia is an enemy. And as Mungo points out, that for us is zero sum game.
Not all members. There are the dupes and the poor mugs that swallow the US war machine/ Rupert propaganda hook, line and sinker. No names no pack drill mind.
Sir,
I agree with most of what you say. However, I am in complete disagreement with the following statement:
“And this is precisely the dilemma: Beijing obviously thinks we do have a choice and we have got to make it. We are either with them or against them – sitting on the barbed wire fence is not an option.”
I do not think that it reflects in any way China’s demand on Australia. In this present fracas, it has been forgotten that we traded very well with the Asian giant for more than three decades. In all that time, be it a conservative or labour government, no Australian Prime Minister had been so proactive in marshalling other forces against China e.g. patrolling the South China Sea with the US led forces, Quad, recent defence agreements with Japan etc. There was the gratuitous megaphone criticisms of the most sensitive of their internal affairs such as Hong Kong, Xinjiang and their relationship with Taiwan; notwithstanding the attempt by Eric Abetz to coerce three young Chinese Australians to condemn China, regardless of the fact that 2/3 were not from China. When they were feeling particularly embarrassed over the outbreak of COVID19 in Wuhan China, our foreign minister called for an Iraq style inspection. These erstwhile Prime Ministers paid heed to sensitivities and kept their own counsel most of the time. I believe that the change today comes largely from hawkish agencies having the ear of the government and PM.
The Chinese, like the Japanese, Koreans and Singaporeans are pragmatic people. They tend to keep their politics out of their trade interests. Japan and Korea are US allies. Singapore sits in the middle. I believe that their business partnerships China will remain strong and perhaps grow. The US and Europe are China’s biggest markets albeit that both are politically polar opposites of China. The ASEAN countries are also examples of cooperation based on keeping out of each other’s internal politics.
What I like about your article is that you did not spare either party to the face-off.
Sincerely,
Teow Loon Ti
AS always, I am interested in your views, and here too I generally agree. But I’m afraid the gap between us still exists when you say the Chinese tend to keep their politics out of their trade interests. How much more evidence of them doing precisely the opposite would you like to see?
And in my view, and many others, that is why we need to diversify as fast as possible. It won’t be fast, and it will be painful, but China is an utterly unreliable trading partner precisely because it does not keep its politics out of its trading.
Some interlocutors at this point usually say, well the US has a track record here too. It does, but it is utterly irrelevant to our predicament with China.
Hi Barney,
When China stops buying Australian beef, barley, wine, timber etc., I do not see their actions as using trade in their geopolitics but as steps to disengage. It’s like “I won’t buy your wine because you have been rude to me.” It’s NOT like “I will not trade with you unless you do what I tell you to do” – silly theory advanced by the likes of Peter Hartcher. I have not seen similar examples elsewhere. The trade with the US has turned in favour of the US, albeit marginally. They have reliable business arrangements with Europe and their trading partners in Asia. The only glitch is with India because of the last border problem. They built their economy on their reliability as a trader. Do you have evidence to the contrary?
Sincerely,
Teow Loon Ti
Dear Teow Loon Ti. (May I ask which of these names I should address you by? It’s slightly unwieldy to write out three words, but I don’t want to offend by cultural insensitivity. Or if you prefer all three, that’s not so arduous after all.)
I’m not sure whether you are right about the difference between your view and Hartcher’s, but it’s not that important because the effect is the same either way. I must say, I see it as an attempt to punish Australia, but that fits in with your account.
The most important evidence is the case with Australia this year, but other countries have complained. Canada and Finland spring to mind, plus those countries who were required to provide fulsome expressions of gratitude for equipment used in the fight against the pandemic. It’s fine for China to use its economic heft to gain advantageous deals for itself – every nation either does that or would like to – but I think this dispute has gone beyond that and the effect is politics dominating trade.
Hi Barney,
My friends call me “TI”. My personal names are Teow Loon. The two words go together. Please don’t call me Teow because in the Hakka dialect, it is an expletive of the “f…” kind.
I know the Canadian affair was precipitated by the detention for extradition to the US of the HuaWei founder’s daughter. She has more support from both the government and people of China than our Julian Assange case. As for Finland, I am not fully aware of what really happened. Thanks anyway for pointing out.
Sincerely,
Teow Loon Ti
Dear Tl. Glad I checked, as I could certainly have caused offence. I was wrong about Finland, it was Sweden and Norway. Faulty memory, sorry.
“Detention without trial or charge, forced labour, strict censorship, repression of minorities and the politically incorrect, physical and mental torture are the norm. This cannot be condoned”. These allegations have to be toned down or stopped if we want China to come to the negotiating table to talk peace on the current trade war. An image posted on Twitter by a Chinese official hit the raw nerve as if the acupunture needle was so precise that it hit the nerve that gives the most pain! The SMH published comments is reproduced here:
https://www.smh.com.au/national/twitter-post-garbage-the-clearest-sign-yet-of-desperation-in-beijing-20201129-p56iye.html#comments – Casting politcal ideological based arguements aside, the observation is simply that both sides have ratched up the rhetorics & also play the good cop bad cop game. The Chinese is getting better at this game and managed to hit a raw nerve causing the recent olives branches delivered by both sides to fall in the wayside. Whatever adverse terms used to describe Chinese actions on Australia including an apology, is futile. Minister Tudge had a teleconference with Chinese Australian leaders (30Nov2020) on ths issue and the most leaders suggest the toning down of the rheterics on both sides and start diplomatic negotiations with China without playing geopolitics. His intiative is appreciated by the Chinese Australian community.
The buffoon hasnt seen anything yet. The most ominous threat to Australia’s economic interests is in Africa. The giant Simandou mine in Guinea could deliver more than 100 million tons a year of the highest quality ore just as Chinese demand plateaus. In March this year Rio Tinto shares fell 2.2% in London, BHP Group lost 2.5% on the announcement that China is going ahead with Simandou. Its ore is rated at 65% quality, the highest in the world. For those morons that claim that we should develop our own domestic steel industry, well we have one blast furnace at Port Kembla behind a 150% tariff wall. Maybe five years or maybe two years the iron ore exports will be diversified. By China. Maybe the Shire warrior can send a gunboat up the Yangtze. Or maybe he has just paddled Australia up shire creek.
Against, your lack of knowledge comes to the fore. Simandou is 5 yrs away, IO prices are likely to be half what they are prior to that, and regardless of our relationship with China (unless we ended up as a vassal state, which you so desire), China would develop Simandou anyway for the obvious reason of supply diversity. So, at the present China is stuck with our IO as we make up over 65% of the seaborne trade and Brazil cannot cover that, China’s port stock would last maybe 2 mths).
Bring on a I.O. tariff.
PRC is developing Simandou for a number of reasons. Its not supply diversity but supply replacement and price control. China’s iron ore demand has plateaued. The supply from Simandou is enormous, the quality is the best in the world (really important to assist PRC to meet its greenhouse gas emissions targets) and importantly the trade with be in bilateral currency exchange. No value plummeting US paper. All Chinese companies denominate their contracts in RMB in Africa. Australia in regard to iron ore is dead in the water in perhaps five years, maybe less. Dont underestimate Chinese engineering it could be three. PRC is going to crash the price of iron ore in a couple of years with over-supply. Do you have a super fund? Shares in BHP and Rio? So in three years when the Chinese steel mill quietly suggest the Australian iron ore contracts be made in RMB you would tell them to go jump? Vassal? You havent seen anything yet. Good luck to ya. Champ i spent a decade working in the Port Kembla steel works as a BHP wage slave a while ago. Not an expert but i might have the drop on Peter Hartcher and the ASPI mob in regard to the steel industry.
It’s a 650km railway over pretty interesting terrain, but 3 yrs or 5yrs, doesn’t matter. prices is going down regardless.
PRC wiped out the debt of Guinea and under BRI PRC has financed more than 3,000 strategic infrastructure projects in Africa. The railway wont be a problem. The Winning Group which beat Fortesue in the bid has already started exporting bauxite from Guinea which has replaced Austrlian bauxite supplies. Its over for BHP, Fortesque nd Rio. But jeez Shire President Scotty is doing well against Fu Yu on twitter LOL
This is what happens when you have a dorky, snotty pighead for a ‘PM’.
You may be right with your generous summation, but Albanese is in lock step with Morrison, as was Turnbull. It’s playing very well inside Australia.
As the Grayzone etc show, there is no hard proof re Xinjiang – Washington is quite capable of lying about all this Uighur stuff. On the contrary, we know quite clearly that over a million Muslims have been, frankly, murdered by Bushes and Blairs of the world.
Superb piece, Mungo.
I find the media reporting on this issue mostly utterly stupid. Take Katherine Murphy’s wide eyed piece this morning asking why oh why?
What most fail to see is that China sees Australia along with its Quad partners Japan, India and the USA as a strategic military threat. It is not really to do with trade except that just as people abused “Pig iron Bob” for sending iron ore to a potential military enemy, so too our trade with China is seen by Chinese as China helping a military enemy and I guess possibly our iron exports to China are the modern day “pig iron Scotty, Malcolm, Tony, Julia, Kevin, John, Paul and of course Bob”.
We need to face the harsh reality that China regards us as an enemy. We are to them what North Korea is to the USA, an irritating if minor military threat. Just as the US (with our support) puts sanctions on North Korea as a means of weakening a strategic partner of China (and Russia), so we are the collateral damage in the battle between China and the USA.
Australia needs to choose one of three options;
1. Stick firmly with the USA expecting that they will come (with adequate resources) to protect us in the case of conflict and of course that if there is a conflict between China and the USA, USA will prove the victor.
2. Reject the USA and throw in our lot with China – a difficult and probably politically impossible option.
3. Firm independent genuine neutrality, whereby we take no sides in the dispute, provide no military, strategic or information support to either side and only criticise the positions of either party (or their allies) when such criticism is fully justified and consistent ie no hypocrisy of turning a blind eye to abuses by Western countries but condemning it in Asian countries.
This is a debate which Australia urgently needs to have.
And this is why this site is viewed as a China Apologist site!
Tell me Janet, when has the west done anything remotely like this to make a point?
Hate to tell you this, but you’ve lost the debate, the general community isn’t gunna support any backdown.
the French (are they in the west?) have been similar in poking the muslims….
It depends on what particular thing you mean.
Since I did not accuse anyone of anything except to point out perceptions I am puzzled by what you mean
If you mean China blocking Australian barley. wine and coal I think you obviously can say that Australia blocking Huwei and several other major investments started the trade war.
I think my point 2 implicitly accepted your point regarding the politics of the situation in Australia
Er um er um er um hey!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! the west makes strategic points using international trade via sanctions all the time. Let me think now!!!!!!!! North Korea, Venezuela, Iran, Cuba, Russia, Syria and now China. Since WE are compliant with all of the sanctions listed above, we can hardly say poor me when we cop the same back.
Perhaps you are referring to something else. If so please state it.
my apologies Janet. I responded too quickly after reading the 1st para, thinking it was the meme saga going at present.
I get your point, though I don’t agree with sanctions on Iran, Venezuela (not sure about Syria). Didn’t realise we had followed the US on sanctions on Cuba (f…ing outrageous). Mind you China hasn’t stated we are under sanctions!
“He who walks in the middle of the roads gets hit from both sides.” It may be so, but I still like your option 3. Unfortunately this will never happen.
The malice and overt racism of the tweet reminded me of a Bill Leak cartoon
yes it did, because from a certain perspective it comes across as a bit bitchy, and I was going to use Bill Leak as a reference, because of course a lot of people like Bill Leak. But really it is only a superficial resemblance, since the person who created the image is not the person who posted it. The creation of the cartoon is not itself being discussed. The artist who created the image is a young man, and seen outside of the Chinese official who shared it on Twitter, his motives appear sincere, at least to me. We have a picture of a child clutching a lamb, which is a universally understood representation of innocence, and behind the child a soldier seemingly either about to cut his or her throat, or has already done so. And below we have some text – ‘dont be afraid, we are coming to bring you peace.’ I really have no objection to the image as it stands, except the appearance of the Australian flag and that the soldier is Australian. But why should that make a difference, if the statement being made here is essentially true, which it certainly seems to be. We may resile from it for our own reasons, but for denizens of the global south who see us as handmaidens to US imperial outreach, that would not be a problem.
Thank you Mungo and I see your sharp pen still cuts through the BS bleating of the dopey and infirm who occupy Oz political life. I just discovered this mighty informative report on Al Jazeera that sheds some light. https://tinyurl dot com/y2e6m6lh The time to stop being the USA yapping pooch is here.