Paul Barratt’s recent article, favouring a freestanding Trade Department should be supported. As our nation stumbles through the fog of the Corona virus, it is time to navigate a path toward economic recovery in our relations with China. (more…)
Category: China
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W. Gyude Moore. China has built more infrastructure in Africa in two decades than the West has in centuries,
Where is the European or American equivalent/alternative to China’s BRI? Where is it? If Chinese loans are deceptive and are a trap and are wrong – where are the Western alternatives? How come our “shared” values do not exclude building our infrastructure? (more…)
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Exposing the Hidden Hand
Clive Hamilton’s new book Hidden Hand: “Exposing How the Chinese Communist Party is Reshaping the World” is a diatribe. We do not need this hysteria when we are trying to maintain a modicum of practical relations with the People’s Republic of China. (more…)
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My Kafkaesque Trial
After Jim Kable wrote in reply to Henry Reynold’s Pearls and Irritations article, ‘When the War on Terror Turns inward’: “are there any updates” on what has become of Mr Moselmane, I feel compelled to provide a brief response.
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No war with China, cold or hot
Australia must say no to any war with China, cold or hot. We must not follow US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in characterising US-China relations in Manichean terms, such as “freedom and democracy against tyranny”. (more…)
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Do we share values with the US?
In the escalating Sino-American tensions there is a constant refrain that while China is important for our economy, we are tied to the United States by “shared values”. But what are these shared values and how far should they guide foreign policy? (more…)
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The US hypocrisy on the South China Sea and Diego Garcia
The U.S. has publicly accused China of violating the existing international order, bullying other claimants, and crimes against the environment in the South China Sea. China may well be guilty—at least from the US perspective. But the same and more can be said of U.S. behaviour regarding disputed Diego Garcia in the southern Indian Ocean. (more…)
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A silent cry of Chinese Australians in this difficult period
As the Australia-China relations deteriorate further, we are trying to highlight our government focus to maintain and protect our trade relations for the sole national interest of sustaining our economic, providing jobs and peaceful co-existence for all nations in the Asia Pacific. (more…)
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Uncle Sam grabs CCP playbook (APAC News, 3 August 2020)
The US State Department is quietly funding a Chinese-language news service in Australia, a move more typically associated with China’s state media propagandists.
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The Communist Party of China and the Idea of `Evil’ (Oxford Politics Review, April 24 2020)
Labelling an entity like the Communist Party `evil’ or bad might work polemically. But it ends up doing a massive disservice to the many Chinese still in China who are not members. Some are deeply opposed to their government. Some are supportive. Some are in between. … But the idea that they are silent, suppressed, and without agency is profoundly condescending. (more…)
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The Australian Government advice on travel to Hong Kong is ‘one sided, misleading, fanciful and absurd’
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade(DFAT) seems to have joined the anti China push with misleading advice on what the new security laws mean in Hong Kong. (more…)
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Pragmatism not American Militarism is the answer
Just as most Australians probably do not wish to see the ‘Americanisation’ of our police services – through excessive militarisation, more powerful arms, more sophisticated equipment and battlefield tactics – so we should resist the call to arms from the anti-China enthusiasts in Washington. (more…)
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Media in the Asian Century
As it turned out, Marise Payne seemed to be using the John Howard playbook of alliance management in the Washington visit. (more…)
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When the war on terror turns inward
We now have evidence of a campaign conducted in Australia to attack the credibility and the reputation of individuals and organisations seen as being too close to China.
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Payne sensibly says no to Pompeo’s coalition of the willing (AFR 29 July, 2020)
Australia has avoided joining the Trump administration’s new cold war. But big questions about handling the escalating US-China rivalry remain unanswered.
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Disagreeing with the US over China
The AUSMIN talks are an important first, demonstrating that the Australian government won’t go all the way with Trump’s USA. The next step (if only) would be for the Prime Minister to change his telephone number. (more…)
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US Assistant Attorney General fuels Chinese hacking conspiracy
Despite what the US alleges against China, would any government spy agency be so stupid as to combine extortion for profit with spy activities?
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Out of sight, out of mind. What’s happened to Trade?
Trade does not get the attention it requires as all external issues are viewed through the prism of the defence/intelligence agencies, subordinating the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade itself. This has become worse since trade was integrated into that department. (more…)
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Hysteria over China.
Despite decades of contact, something in the Australian DNA makes it impossible to think rationally about China. (more…)
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Australia-China relations affected by COVID-19 crisis (RN Breakfast with Fran Kelly )
China has hit back at Australian calls for an international investigation into the origins and spread of the coronavirus pandemic.
Guest: Hugh White, Emeritus Professor of Strategic Studies, ANU.
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Payne and Reynold’s collision course with China
Ministers Payne and Reynolds have presented their brief for the AUSMIN20 discussions in Washington for which the scene has been set by a series of aggressive anti-China speeches by Secretary of State Pompeo and other senior US ministers.
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Don’t Pick a Cold War You Can’t Win (Slate 24 July, 2020)
Trump and Pompeo are ratcheting up tensions with China, but have no way to back up their threats.
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US, China, Australia. Now we know what we’re getting into: a full-fledged anti-China campaign
Very recent actions by the US and Australian governments, and statements in both countries, make it clear that our Foreign and Defence Ministers will be invited to sign on to a full-fledged anti-China campaign and even a coalition when in the US this week. (more…)
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Ignorance or malice on new security laws for Hong Kong?
The announcement made in May this year that Beijing would enact national security laws for Hong Kong aroused hysteria worldwide. One wonders whether this came from ignorance or malice.
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Three identical and inaccurate reports on the South China Sea.
Several leading Australian journalists have made identical but inaccurate statements on the recent letter sent by the Australian government to the UN on China’s South China Sea claims. Were they briefed by a political staffer pushing a false interpretation? (more…)
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The dragon in the room next door
He’s one of China’s most high-ranking and experienced diplomats yet he was caught on TV squirming when confronted by video showing manacled men shunted onto trains. The prisoners were alleged to be Chinese Uyghur, a Muslim ethnic group.
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It is Orwellian to say that America has preserved the peace in Asia.
On 14 July, US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia, David Stilwell, gave a speech elaborating on US China policy in the South China Sea, and further increased tensions with China there. (more…)
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Hong Kong from the inside
Reporting by outsiders on Hong Kong tends to be over-simplistic and seen through Western eyes. We need to look at things through the eyes of Hong Kongers. The old Hong Kong is dead but the new one may emerge not quite like either the West or China would foresee. (more…)
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The Australian state propaganda outlets are as unrelenting as their Chinese counterparts
Australian media loves to publish and broadcast stories about Chinese protest rallies. On the 13th of July, Su-Lin Tan, an Australian journalist now working for the South China Morning Post, published a story of Chinese protesters rallying in Adelaide titled ‘Asian-Australians hold protests as community faces rise in racist attacks’.