I was recently sent a complete list of China’s invasions of other countries in the last 2,245 years to demonstrated that China is historically an imperial nation and hence dangerous. (more…)
Category: China
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US-China electric vehicle dispute shows old trade rules imperil climate action
“The climate crisis is too urgent for the U.S. or any country to allow outdated trade rules… to distract us from enacting bold climate policies,” argued one campaigner. (more…)
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The United States, China, and the Future of the Global Order
“Happy to have engaged in a provocative yet always civil dialogue with the famous China expert Orville Schell at the Asia Society in New York on Thursday, 21st March. Hope you will enjoy it too.”
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Lunacy: Australia pays the US billions to “keep those Chinese at bay”
When Canberra told us we had to join the US in its cruel attempt to prevent a Vietnamese peasant army from overthrowing a US-armed Saigon government, some of us thought the politicians were plain stupid. (more…)
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China steals a march on a distracted world
For China these days it doesn’t get much easier to pursue it geostrategic objectives. With the US distracted on two fronts in Europe and the Middle East, and Russia mired in its intractable invasion of Ukraine, among the great powers, China is largely free to advance its interests on an increasingly global scale. Sabre rattling over Taiwan only further serves to distract the US from China’s much larger game. (more…)
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America’s latest move to block China’s economic rise
US lawmakers have introduced a bill that would bar US mutual funds from investing in indexes that track Chinese stocks (Bloomberg). According to Bloomberg “The legislation targets mutual funds that invest in indexes tracking primarily Chinese stocks, rather than those investing in indexes that only include some Chinese companies, according to Sherman’s office. However, the lawmakers left it to the Securities and Exchange Commission to write rules that’d ultimately determine which products are impacted.” (more…)
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Have we passed ‘Peak China’?
Saul Eslake, the renowned and independent economist, has updated his China chart pack which was last prepared in January 2023. The chart pack gives a bird’s eye view of the economic challenges China needs to address. By using the term ‘Peak China’, he does not mean that China will collapse, but that its future economic growth will be much slower than in the past. (more…)
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Why are Liberals trashing relations with WA’s biggest export customer?
Andrew Hastie and Tony Abbott are trying to install a candidate in WA who has written a fictional book to scare people about a Chinese invasion of Australia. (more…)
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BYD says plug-in electrics will exceed 50 pct of new car sales in China in next 3 months
The CEO of BYD, the Chinese giant challenging Tesla as the world’s biggest electric vehicle maker, says sales of New Energy Vehicles (NEVs), including battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in hybrids (PHEVs), will make up more than half of all new cars sold in China within the next three months. (more…)
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Que sera sera: “Australia will be Australia; China will be China.”
Penny Wong has a new mantra for Australia China relations. (more…)
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Chinese universities want more Australian students: we should send them
Australia is trailing its neighbours in the race to acquire China knowledge and capability, which can only come from in-country experience, writes Louise Edwards. (more…)
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If TikTok is banned in the US or Australia, how might the company – or China – respond?
TikTok’s owner is once again navigating troubled waters in the United States, where the US House of Representatives has issued an ultimatum: divest or face shutdown within six months. (more…)
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Do China’s leaders fully grasp foreigners’ concerns about the country?
Beijing has been slow to address the visa and e-payment woes of foreign travellers, and some officials remain complacent about the exodus of foreign investment. (more…)
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Tea for two: Preparing for talks with China’s Foreign Minister
We shall never get anywhere with the Australia-China relationship if we are not pragmatic, as Bismarck famously said. While we must avoid over-ambitious goals, forthcoming official talks with China’s top foreign affairs official Wang Yi will present a unique opportunity to test the government’s relationship reset. (more…)
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Six peculiar ‘Peak China’ myths we all should question
In recent years, there has been a notable shift among certain Western politicians, media outlets and think tanks regarding their perspective on China’s developmental trajectory. The once popular theory of an imminent collapse of China, famously asserted by Gordon G. Chang over two decades ago, has finally begun to lose traction. (more…)
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Scholar or ideologue?
The Economist, a leading British weekly, enjoys wide global readership. It recently covered the thoughts and written work of two scholars, both Chinese, one now government-based, in Beijing and the other based in an academic institution in the US. Only the former, was branded as an “ideologue” however. Paraphrasing Professor Julius Sumner Miller: Why is this so? (more…)
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Why does the West abound with misreaders of China’s economy?
As 2024 marks the Year of the Dragon in the Chinese zodiac, whether this mythical creature should be named “Dragon” or “Loong” in English has puzzled many and stirred heated discussions. (more…)
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The CPC is brainwashing its members to not attack other countries says AI
Recently there was an interesting piece in the South China Morning Post on “Communist Party orders cells to study Xi Jinping Thought and learn speeches” See China’s Communist Party orders cells to make Xi Jinping Thought a priority, cadres must study president’s speeches, South China Morning Post. (more…)
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Is ASIO’s paranoia hypocritical?
Some of my best friends are Chinese. This is entirely unsurprising given my frequent visits to the PRC, the Chinese students I have supervised and the colleagues I have collaborated with over the years. I used to think such relationships were unambiguously a good thing and the possible basis for a better understanding between our two countries. (more…)
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Lessons on genocide from Xinjiang and Gaza
Days before the International Court of Justice’s initial ruling late last month that found there was a plausible risk of genocide being committed by Israel in Gaza, the United Nations Human Rights Council conducted its “universal periodic review” of China’s human rights record.
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Is China repeating Australia’s mistake on Indigenous Affairs?
The South China Morning Post recently published an illuminating article on China’s policy towards ethnic minorities, with a particular focus on Inner Mongolia that has strived hardest to assimilate its Mongols with the rest of the Chinese population to promote a single national identity. But does China’s policy reflect the assimilation policies towards First Nations that Australia adopted in the 1930s and has now come to regret?
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Europe, U.S. are losing charm for Chinese tourists
Mr. Liu Dafeng has been a fan of overseas travel. He lives in China’s Shenzhen city, southeastern Guangdong province. After weeks of preparation and paperwork, his plan of a long-awaited trip to Britain was shattered after his visa application was denied. (more…)
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The odds of China using nuclear war to resolve the Taiwan issue
Recently the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a thinktank in Washington, DC, did a survey asking U.S. and Taiwan Experts if China might use nuclear weapons in a conflict with or over Taiwan. The results were astonishing to most who read the study. Almost half of U.S. experts reported they thought China would. Only one quarter that number of Taiwan experts, 11 percent, so opined. (more…)
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Does China want Trump to win in 2024?
Agathe Demarais is a senior policy fellow on geoeconomics at the European Council on Foreign Relations and a Foreign Policy columnist. She recently argued in that journal (with a clear anti-Trump tilt)-that “China is Rooting for Trump” (more…)
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Being back home in China for Lunar New Year feels different
An undutiful daughter’s atonement trip after four years. (more…)
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Why do Chinese EVs meet so much resistance?
There was a time when the world looked to China to reduce its emissions. China was, they quite rightly pointed out, one of the globe’s worst polluters. (more…)
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When celebrated dissidents find the grass isn’t greener on the other side
Ai Weiwei joins a long line of dissenters such as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Liu Xiaobo who became disenchanted by the West. (more…)
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Welcome the year of the Dragon!
The Year of the Dragon is bound to be big. Among the twelve zodiac animals that mark the traditional cycle of calendar years, the dragon is the only mythical beast and the most powerful. It stands in marked contrast to the rabbit that will hand over its psychic reign on 10 February. Soothsayers may well emphasise prosperity and good fortune in their forecasts, but most people will not believe them. Those of a scientific cast of mind may discount astrological beliefs as mumbo jumbo, but they certainly affect the expectations of a large proportion of the peoples of East Asia. (more…)
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The materialisation of Chinese Christianity
As the Lunar New Year approaches, many Chinese families clean the front door of their home and hang poetry around it. This is a rich and age-old Chinese tradition, both cultural and religious. (more…)
