Fear of China is currently dominant in Australia’s public discourse, as reflected in recent opinion polls, surveys, and mainstream media. Fear of China is of course not new in Australia. It was a driver of Federation at the end of the 19th Century and the first act of the new Federal Parliament was long recognised as ‘The White Australia Policy.’ (more…)
Category: China
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China policy: A casualty of Australia’s addiction to imperial power
It’s now close to five months since Labor came to office, but little has changed in the government’s position on China or the dangerous escalation in great power tensions. (more…)
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The Australian electorate is being misled by its media
A well informed electorate is a prerequisite to democracy. Yet, on China, Australians are being misled by our mainstream media.
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Western anxiety attacks intensify with the Chinese National Congress
On October 16, President Xi Jinping delivered his report to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC). During the weeks prior to this, we witnessed a conspicuous intensification of Sino-phobic censures from across the Mainstream Western Media, triggered by the approaching National Congress. Leading commentators and core Western politicians have been straining to make themselves heard above this recharged hullabaloo. (more…)
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China: How do I fear thee? Let me count the ways
A deep-seated ontological fear is complicating any possible moves towards restoring some semblance of normality in relations with China. There are many strands in this tangled skein. Let me try to pick some of them apart. (more…)
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Truss misrepresentations on China
While the campaign for the UK prime ministership was more about domestic issues than foreign policy, China still made fleeting appearances. Prime Minister Liz Truss had long pushed for a more ‘hawkish’ approach to China, commenting in the past about the need for the United Kingdom to avoid ‘dependency’ on the People’s Republic. (more…)
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Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party
Neither Xi Jinping nor the Chinese Communist Party are as all-powerful and domineering as they might seem. (more…)
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Peace, prosperity are ASEAN watchwords
Southeast Asian nations must call out US attempts to destabilise the region with anti-China rhetoric. (more…)
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Learning to hate China – how well have we learned the lessons
Toward the end of 2019, an article titled Lessons in how to hate China was published in Pearls and Irritations. Those lessons have been learned and learned well. Three years is a short time but the collective memory is also short. China is now the accepted enemy and the likelihood of war is spoken of more openly. (more…)
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Australian media think that only China has a human rights problem
Australia has a mixed relationship with the United Nations Human Rights Committee. Irritation, dismissal and even the occasional openly hostile comment, have registered. But in 1994, the Toonen decision filtered through the Australian legal process, leading the federal government to remove archaically noxious provisions in the Tasmanian criminal code criminalising sodomy. (more…)
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Finding a way on China ties
Beijing and Canberra remain deadlocked in a trade war. But there is a step-by-step means for both parties to climb down gracefully. (more…)
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When facts are not necessarily facts. The Uyghurs and China
Repeat a supposed fact sufficient times and it will become assumed truth. That seems the case very much when it comes to claims about China’s oppression of the Uyghurs in its western Xinjiang province. Supposedly one million or more Uyghurs have been imprisoned in vast re-education camps with the term ‘genocide’ being frequently used. Even the charge of infanticide has been laid. Not all that is supposed however, is reality. (more…)
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Beijing ‘won’t be threatened’ into changing Taiwan plans, analysts say
China’s foreign ministry lodged ‘stern representations’ with the US after President Joe Biden again said American troops would defend the island if the PLA attacks. (more…)
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Britain’s opium era strategy to deal with China
THE DAOGUANG EMPEROR tasked Commissioner Lin Zexu with suppressing the opium trade bedeviling China in 1839.
Lin initially tried diplomacy. (more…)
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Dealing with the ‘China threat’: An Asian perspective
Forcing Asian countries to choose between the USA and China is unlikely to work. Even close Asian allies of the US have shown that they prefer to go their own way in geopolitics. (more…)
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Despairing China teacher in the US encouraged by social voices
Bias confirmation is nearly impossible to overcome, and if reinforced by subliminal anti-Chinese racism, even more so. (more…)
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The Defence Strategic Review: China is not a military threat
Australia’s defence policy is based on an assumed “China Threat”. If this assumption is maintained, it will be used to justify increased defence spending and a closer defence engagement with the United States and other “like-minded” countries, including Quad and AUKUS partners. (more…)
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Is China Expansionist?
China’s emergence as a great power has prompted many fears that it will start to become aggressive and militaristic. But while European powers have acted this way historically, China’s own long history tells us that it wields power in a very different manner. (more…)
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Making the sensible choice: Australia can support peace between US, China in the Taiwan Strait
US-China relations continue to be in free fall. A confident China under the leadership of strongman Xi Jinping is more assertive in defending its national interests. While China has changed, so have Western powers who, unable to adjust to the new reality of global power transition, are treating China as the primary threat. Animosity has been growing between China and the West. Both sides seem to have abandoned the shared interests in combating real global challenges such as climate change, nuclear nonproliferation, and public health. (more…)
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What drives the Chinese Party of China to success?
Editor’s note: Since its founding more than 100 years ago, the Communist Party of China has led the country in making remarkable achievements at home as well as contributing to global development and peace. Combining political theory and practice to make those remarkable achievements, the CPC has set a great example for the world. Three experts share their views on the CPC’s governance philosophy with China Daily. (more…)
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Vanguard behind the country’s achievements
The past century has witnessed the Communist Party of China leading a revolution, founding the People’s Republic and relentlessly pursuing economic development and social change for the better. The Chinese people have changed their fate, made great contributions to humankind, and are now on way to realising national rejuvenation. (more…)
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Leadership has improved China’s global standing
China is facing the most immoral and unprecedented attacks from myriad quarters because of its ability to remove the obstacles to its economic growth at a time when almost all other countries are encountering economic downturn, which began with the global financial crisis. (more…)
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Fostering trade beats making war every time
It is over a month since Nancy Pelosi’s vexing visit to Taipei and China’s disapproving response, which included large scale air and naval exercises around Taiwan. This ill-omened stopover by the third-ranking person in the US political hierarchy ineptly created, amongst other things, further acute doubt about Washington’s continuing commitment to the one-China principle. (more…)
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UN report on Xinjiang is depressing in more ways than one
‘May” is such a wonderful word in the English language. It can support perhaps the deadliest of accusations but can simply be justified by “Hey! I said ‘may’, didn’t I?” (more…)
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The Defence Strategic Review: The US Taiwan Policy Act would be a game-changing act of provocation
The Australian government, perhaps initially through the DSR, must explain clearly to the Australian public what cost it is prepared to pay as a tool of American policy, or how it intends to maintain its sovereignty and ensure the security and safety of Australians. (more…)
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Provoking China is dangerous for Australia as a US proxy: former Australian official
Editor’s Note:
After the Anthony Albanese government took office, there are voices from both China and Australia saying that it is time for China-Australia relations to reset, and there are some signs of thawing. To what extent will Australia continue to follow the US in provoking China? (more…)
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It is time to question the US alliance
The US wars for the most part have been concocted on lies, illegally declared, and mostly lost. (more…)
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Death of Elizabeth marks return to Little England
The passing of the beloved monarch will herald the inevitable descent of this once-powerful nation from global empire to no more than a fractured island. (more…)
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The Defence Strategic Review: Can we rely on the US?
Strategy: ‘a plan designed to achieve a particular long-term aim’. The strategic defence review is presumably intended to produce a plan that will guide decisions by the new Labor government on the acquisition of weapons and the use of other resources (such as people) to protect Australia against future threats to its people, its territory and its interests. (more…)
