“In many ways (Australians) were ahead of the curve in understanding influence operations and interference in domestic systems,” one senior US official told me. “They were pioneers and we have to give a lot of credit to Australia.” The official singled out former Australian senior intelligence advisor John Garnaut for praise…’
Legion of Merit to the wrong PM
Something strange happened this week. The ABC was the first to get hold of a highly sensitive American defence paper, titled US Strategic Framework for the Indo-Pacific, that had been mystifyingly declassified by the Trump administration two weeks ahead of the handover to Joe Biden, despite having been stamped “secret” and “not for release to foreign nationals” since it was written only in 2018.
Instead of the likes of Shari Markson and other security hawks with News Corp, it fell to the 7.30 Report’s Laura Tingle to convey its message to the world.
In a note on its publication to all this Wednesday, the US National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien said the release was “to communicate to the American people and to our allies and partners America’s enduring commitment to this vital region”.
Conjecture about deeper motives included that the US defence and intelligence community wanted to show they had actually been doing some structured thinking behind Trump’s erratic leadership, and wanted it out there for Biden to pursue.
The 10-page paper seems to firm up elements of US strategy that had been deliberately left hazy or ambiguous up to now, notably the marking out of the first island chain as the limit of Chinese power projection, making its enclosed seas contested, and effectively guaranteeing the defence of Taiwan. As well as this defence posture, the paper also calls for closer cooperation with allies in countering Chinese interference and espionage, and tightening the US-Japan-Australia-India “quad”.
Citing Australia’s participation in nearly all US wars since 1916, the Melbourne Herald-Sun’s Sarah McPhee commented: “In other words, if America was to take on China in defence of Taiwan, it’s assumed that Australia would jump to our ally’s aid – despite our increasing reliance on China as a crucial trading partner over the years.”
None of this is likely to delight Beijing, and guess who gets a lot of the credit for stiffening the US approach? “Australia’s experience with China strongly influenced the drafting of the 2018 Indo-Pacific strategy,” two researchers at the Aspen Institute wrote in the US political website Axios.
They quoted a “senior US official” as saying: “In many ways they were ahead of the curve in understanding influence operations and interference in domestic systems,” one senior US official told me. “They were pioneers and we have to give a lot of credit to Australia.” The official singled out former Australian senior intelligence advisor John Garnaut for praise, and said a 2017 report on Chinese influence operations by New Zealand-based scholar Anne-Marie Brady had also influenced the US strategy.
So Trump gave the Legion of Merit to the wrong man, it seems. Malcolm Turnbull, who employed Garnaut, should have been up there in the Pantheon of Indo-Pacific warriors, alongside Shinzo Abe and Narendra Modi, not Morrison.
But anyway, Canberra security figures were absolutely delighted. “This confirms that US strategic policy in the Indo-Pacific was in substantial part informed and driven by allies and partners, especially Japan, Australia and India,” ANU National Security College head Rory Medcalf wrote for the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
Another brick in the wall against China
New foreign investment rules came into force on January 1, requiring all proposals to be vetted for potential dangers to national security.
The regime kicks off as the Australian Financial Review’s John Kehoe broke the news that treasurer Josh Frydenberg had vetoed two more Chinese investments recently, apparently on these grounds – a $300 million takeover of builder Probuild by state-owned China State Construction Engineering, and a $300 million investment by a Chinese state power firm in a new gas-fired power station that Energy Australia plans for near Wollongong.
The objection to the Probuild buyout from its listed South African owner was apparently that it had recently built the new headquarters for Victoria’s police and was building a Melbourne office tower to house vaccine maker CSL. Getting hold of the blueprints for these buildings would apparently allow Chinese intelligence to do bad things. The other refusal suggests any infrastructure is sensitive.
Following refusals in agriculture and food processing, not much is left. “Most of the economy is now not available to the Chinese,” Kehoe quoted one unnamed investment banker as saying.
Lawyers and bankers believed the Foreign Investment Review Board, which advises the treasurer, had become a proxy security regulator, not just an economic body to facilitate foreign investment. “The FIRB is chaired by Australia’s former top intelligence chief and former ambassador to China, David Irvine,” Kehoe said. “The new head of Treasury’s foreign investment division, Tom Hamilton, has a defence background. Treasury officials work for the FIRB.”
The FIRB’s published guidance includes national security risks from the construction sector, including construction firms holding contracts with government agencies and critical infrastructure service providers, access to sensitive information such as building blueprints and supply chains.
“Such information may be of value to foreign intelligence services,” FIRB’s website says. “Foreign intelligence services may also pre-position for future intelligence activities such as by building surveillance equipment into the premises during construction, in order to gather information on intended sensitive tenants.”
Canberra officials were well aware of that long ago. In the 1990s our security agencies tried to do exactly that with the new Chinese embassy premises.
Cherry picking
This week’s payback from China came with the news that shipments of Australian cherries had tailed off. while the Chinese steel mills and other buyers of Australian coal sitting in ships off Australian ports have been told to find other markets for it.
The Chinese punishment is hitting hard in regional Australia already. In The Australian on January 6, Stephen Lunn and Angelica Snowden reported unease in Portland, where the struggling Alcoa aluminium refinery has an uncertain future, despite a $77 million lifeline from the federal government last month. Two other big employers, timber and crayfish, had been brought to a halt by Chinese halts to imports. The lesson is being driven home to new trade minister Dan Tehan, as Portland sits in his electorate.
But if Portland readers had turned to the newspaper’s opinion pages the same day, they would have felt exhorted to stand firm. China was out to bring Australia to heel, warned academic turned spy-catcher Clive Hamilton. “…some of the leaders of the industries being squeezed by China’s trade bans have become, in effect, mouthpieces for Beijing, calling on the government to “fix the relationship”, as if it’s all our fault. This is exactly what Beijing planned.”
A shocking thought
Now it can be told, as Trump crony Arthur Culverhouse packs up in Canberra and the US embassy awaits a Biden appointee as ambassador. The Sydney Morning Herald’s Anthony Galloway informed readers on January 7 that disinformation can come from American and Australian sources.
He instanced the notorious Sydney Daily Telegraph front-page story about a 15-page “dossier” on Covid-19 that laid “the foundation for the case of negligence being mounted against China”. The dossier was in fact an openly sourced “non-paper” authored by the US State Department, which contained no classified information from intelligence agencies.
Galloway said there were “widespread suspicions within senior ranks of the Australian government and the intelligence community that the document was leaked to the Daily Telegraph by a staff member in the US Embassy in Canberra.”
“The Trump administration’s promotion of the Wuhan lab theory did immeasurable harm to Australia’s efforts to push for an independent inquiry into the origins of the virus” Galloway said. “It allowed Beijing to claim the inquiry was part of a US propaganda bid to discredit China, leading to relations between Canberra and Beijing to deteriorate to their worst levels in decades.”
He concluded: “While you should always watch out for your adversaries, sometimes you need to keep a close eye on your friends.”
Xi Jinping’s sledgehammers
Australia’s part in the new US strategy and the foreign investment decisions undoubtedly mean more punishment is being considered in Beijing, and any hopes of invoking the free trade agreement or WTO appeals are not going to cut it. Under Xi Jinping, no agreements or rules get in the way of putting down challenges and opposition.
This was amply demonstrated at dawn on January 6, when some 1200 police fanned out across Hong Kong and arrested some 53 prominent politicians, activists and others for suspected offences against the territory’s new national security law imposed by Beijing. Most spent a night in police cells before being bailed the next day.
The offence as outlined by Hong Kong security secretary John Lee was organising an unofficial “primary” vote ahead of elections that were due last September for the elected seats in the Legislative Council, postponed ostensibly because of the Covid-19 epidemic.
This was a prelude to an effort by pro-democracy elements to win enough Legco seats to block government budgets and thereby force the resignation of the unpopular Hong Kong chief executive, Carrie Lam, whose position is filled by vote of a Beijing-vetted panel. Lee said the activists were planning on “mutual destruction” and plunging the city into an “abyss.”
That all the activities he cited were normal, open political campaigning for elections permitted under Hong Kong’s autonomy system is unlikely to deter prosecutions. The territory’s politics were evolving the wrong way, and had to be smashed.
As well as passports, about 200 mobile phones and computers were confiscated from the arrestees and family members, and were sent off to the mainland where authorities have sophisticated data-extraction technology, the Washington Post reported. The Ministry of State Security will then confect sedition charges potentially bringing lengthy jail terms.
It was also noticed this month that nobody has seen the Chinese e-commerce tycoon Jack Ma in public since he was hauled in for questioning after criticising Chinese state banks for a “pawn shop mentality” at a Shanghai conference attended by Xi Jinping’s consiglieri, Vice-President Wang Qishan, and central bank governor Yi Gang, on October 24.
Chinese authorities promptly halted the planned US$37 billion public share offering by Ma’s e-payments enterprise Ant, which would have been the world’s biggest float. As the AFR’s Karen Maley wrote on January 8, Ant (previously known as Alipay) had expanded from online payments into a virtual online bank where customers could park money in accounts known as Yu-ebao that earned higher interest than paid by the state banks.
“To the banks’ chagrin, Yu’ebao proved massively popular, becoming one of the country’s largest money market funds,” Maley reported. “Chinese banks also watched helplessly as Alipay, which was spun out as Ant in 2014, developed the largest payments business in the world, with some 730 million monthly users. But in addition to being a payment tool, Ant’s Alipay has become a major portal for personal credit, loans, investment and insurance.”
“By pulling the pin on the Ant IPO, Beijing made it clear that it would not tolerate such open defiance of its authority. Private companies, no matter how successful, still had to play by the political rules of the game, which include showing due deference for the state’s authority. What’s more, Beijing now appears to be gearing up for a more fundamental attack on Ant’s entire business model, no doubt with the blessing of the country’s massive state-owned commercial banks.”
Too much of a challenge to the system, even though Ma is a Communist Party member and his Alibaba enterprise is surely the kind of service sector thing you’d think Xi’s “dual circulation” economic strategy would welcome. Whether Ma has been purged, and will eventually appear in court accused of financial crimes remains to be seen. Possibly he has been told to lie low.
Meanwhile, Maley noted: “It’s likely that Canberra will be watching the punishment that Beijing has meted out to Chinese tech billionaire Jack Ma with huge interest and not a little anxiety.” No-one is too big to pull down. She asks: Are Australia’s education and tourism sectors next in line for punishment?
Hamish McDonald has been a correspondent in Jakarta, Tokyo, New Delhi and Beijing, and was Regional Editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review in Hong Kong and Foreign Editor of The Sydney Morning Herald. He has won two Walkley Awards for reporting from Asia and was made an Inaugural Fellow of the Australian Institute of International Affairs.
Comments
32 responses to “Media in the Asian Century. An Australian anti-China hawk helped draft US Strategic Framework for the Indo-Pacific”
We need an article on how to corrupt the Australian government…. is there an Epstein or Abramovitch at work?
All the ‘sage advice’ is just intellectual cover for decisions made elsewhere, implemented in Canberra.
When a government is light on intellect, they look to think tanks. These are funded, indirectly, by banks which are controlled by the bond market.
Time for a reset there!
The media remain silent of the tsunami weapon and also the plutonium held by Japan.
Control.
”….The Sydney Morning Herald’s Anthony Galloway informed readers on January 7 that disinformation can come from American and Australian sources….”
[Indeed Obama legalized the use of propaganda via the NDAA]
What is China’s crime? – If so – according to which particular laws?
There are none that I am aware of – Compared to the US and her cadre of willing submissive vassal states bombing and invading other people’s countries based on nothing but a series of outright lies.
Who is the US to accuse a Sovereignty nation of a crime when the US has not ratified international laws and treaties – Instead – the US claims to be exceptional while committing crimes against humanity on an ongoing basis.
China does not go around the world bombing and invading other peoples’s countries based on an endless series of lies.
The US does not respect or adhere to international laws – The US has gone as far as to actually threaten the ICC for daring to consider investigating US war crimes in Afghanistan & Iraq. [One judge resigned because of the threat made by Bolton]
China has been accused of building islands in the South China Sea – WTF is wrong with building islands – I see nothing wrong with that – however the accuser – the US – hasn’t even ratified the laws of the sea yet demands and expects innocent right of passage -as granted by the law of the sea – with a fully armed nuclear capable warship trespassing on the territory claimed by a Sovereign state.
China building islands is preferable to the US dropping a bomb on an unidentified target on average every 12 minutes all year round – however – for some dark and mysterious reason that doesn’t invoke any criticism by the proverbial WEST or the Canberra Poodle Club whatsoever.
China’s other so called crime is that she’s become far more successfull at Capitalism than the proverbial WEST – who are required by illogical and sovereignty shredding trade agreements to waste ever increasing amounts of public funds on military equipment. [2% of GDP?]
Compared to the illogical WEST China does not waste as much on defense but invests* on solid infrastructure projects – all over the world for that matter – As a Socialist that makes far more sense than wasting funds on lie based military adventures.
Compare that to the US wasteful and frivolous spending on the war machine – The Pentagone has proven unable to account for a whopping 21 Trillion. [21 000 000 000 000] of what are by definition public funds.
We’re living the long emergency – Covid is the decoy while another program is being installed right before your very eyes – you’d have to be blind to miss it.
* edit in to invest
China is also a decoy… Japan has the plutonium.
Could you volunteer a little bit more information so I might see where you’re going with this?
Japan has reactors that produce plutonium, supplied by UK/France. It is contracted to send the plutonium to Europe but has refused to do so. It has had enough for ‘5,000’ warheads, a few years ago. USA tested the tsunami weapon on Aceh. It accidentally discovered that clathrates are far more common than supposed hence the displacement of water was hundreds of times greater than calculated to eradicate the Independence movement in Aceh. Fukushima was a warning and an act of war, in law.
UKUSA would like China to be the hammer of Japan.
At least, it wants it to appear that way. Recall that the USSR was the target of the rearming of Germany.
The Russian Federation remains high up the Neocons bucket list – strange though that the US continued to import Russian made RD180 rocket engines while the Russians were under sanctions and under no obligation to have continued the supply – [Or that these rocket engines were destined to be used in the US militaristic space program]
Another objective of the second world war was the creation is Israel a contentious issue since the Zionist held talks with high level Nazi officials in 1932 – [ultimately that opens a very nasty can of worms since the advent of DNA testing wasn’t till the mid 80’s]
Re the re arming of Germany must have been the 4 years leading up to the second world war – [the only time when the US was not at war out of her 251 year history or 93% of the time]
Prescott Bush bailed out the nazi party in 1932 – however bankers and financiers require some sort of collateral in return for their ”investment” or a role in management – I’m extremely interested to find out exactly what conditionalities were attached to Prescott’s 1932 bailout.
To properly dispose of nuclear reactor fuel is an expensive business – However NeoLiberal greed has no limits there is far more money to be made turning nuclear waste into weapons that is one thing the other is that having nuclear weapons also serves as the backup for the rather spineless and therefor wobbly wonky flip flopping NeoLiberal narrative.
It’s the first time that I’ve heard anyone refer to Aceh Tsunami as something that was triggered by a nuclear device and it immediately becomes a false flag event.
The same logic could be applied to Fukushima tsunami – [and who know’s how many more Tsunami’s have been the result of underwater nuclear explosions.]
We’ll never know for sure unless Tsunami whistleblowers come forward – from what has been revealed by the Straussian Neocons nothing much is beyond them.
It might be worth looking at how winning and losing business and employment interests within Australia react to the economically momentous rise of China. While the winners have had their heads down making money, the losers have been frantically lobbying the Federal Government to make their China problem go away. When business is slack, idle hands get up to no good in Canberra, giving us Government of losers, by losers, for losers, turning Australians into the poor white trash of Asia.
China’s response to our obnoxious losers’ government has been to cut back trade, pushing winners into the losers’ camp. That may not be productive from their point of view, and certainly not from ours because it makes us poorer and trashier.
Perhaps the Chinese were not wrong- we have made ourselves their enemy. And in the process, set ourselves up for continuous economic punishment. It is now hard to see any light at all in the tunnel. Dumbos are leading us willy-nilly to a kind of major economic self-harm.
I wonder what it will look like in 10 years’ time when the economic lights of the US will have dimmed, and China becomes the new “shining city upon a hill.” We will probably look back and say to ourselves that, of course, we shouldn’t have betted all our chips on just one horse, and should at least have, without too much costs, hedged our bets better.
Or put it in a financial way, we have effectively discounted to ZERO the huge value of all the other options at our disposal. That is the effect of having the blinkers on, and betting on just one horse.
Only DUMB people would do what our current leaders are doing. Giving incalculable wealth away massively for probably nothing!!
(Unless, of course, you think a pat on the head is worth more than 2 cents…).
Forget the future, who would you rather want to be with now?
1. Making big money with a rising power who is only interested in trade
2. Not making big money with a dying power who is only interested in dominating and selling you out
The calculus is simple.
Coarsely put.
Sir,
Thanks for an informative and thought provoking contribution. Unfortunately for Australia, there are too many “experts” whose words are taken literally by the powers that be. What they say is self evident, a no brainer, that is taken as profound advice by the authorities. For example:
‘China was out to bring Australia to heel, warned academic turned spy-catcher Clive Hamilton. “…some of the leaders of the industries being squeezed by China’s trade bans have become, in effect, mouthpieces for Beijing, calling on the government to “fix the relationship”, as if it’s all our fault. This is exactly what Beijing planned.”’
This reads like a byline for “experts” like Peter Hartcher.
Let me create the same scenario from the point of view of a person with no expertise in politics but the elemental human ability to put oneself in another’s shoes to see it from that perspective.
Firstly, when you poke China in the eye gratuitously for no reason (there are plenty of reasons that can be manufactured) other than to please your “big brother” US, China will say, “Wait a minute, we are trading partners, why are you doing this?” (this is where ‘et tu Brutus’ comes in). The Chinese minds tick and say,”Maybe if we show them how important and mutually beneficial trade is to both of us, they might stop doing it.” So, they restrict the buying of beef and wine. That elicited no improvement because of the frenetic stoking of the flames of dissension by the “expert” for fear of losing the ear of the master. But the Chinese now see through the facade of bravado that it has hurt. But still the eye poking does not stop. The thrill of scratching the tiger’s rump is too irresistible. Now, the Chinese get serious and say, “We’ll show them that disengaging hurts them more than us since they are so bad at the abacus (being bad at the abacus is the Chinese way of saying that the person is a poor dealer)”. So they cut coal, cotton, timber, seafood etc. Now we have the “experts” telling the government, “There, I told you so. Right from the start, I told you that they will use their trade bans to bring us to our knees so that they can dictate terms.” And so the prophesy of the “experts” becomes self-fulfilling they become even more “trusted experts”.
Now that these ‘experts’ and their expertise are taken very seriously by the US, we will find ourselves in an even more dangerous phase in our (US/Australia/India/Japan) existential conflict with China.
I remember when I was about four, my mother told me the story of ‘The boy who cried ‘Tiger!”‘ (It’s ‘wolf’ in the West). It was a very effective way of telling me “If you tell lies, it will come back to haunt you!” To the “experts”, I can only say that we are so alike (East and West) even in our stories. If you would only see the Chinese as a member of the human species instead of “yellow skinned, slant eyed, communists, Fu Manchus”, we will get along very well; and this can still be a less threatened world because we can cooperate in the most serious of existential threats such as weather change, plastic pollution, cruelty to animals and each other, and hot conflicts.
Sincerely,
Teow Loon Ti
Excellent comment TLT. It seems that few people in Australia understand that MOST disinformation on the Coronavirus comes from American and Australian sources, and particularly the idea that the virus had its origins in Wuhan. Recent research demonstrating its apparent genetically engineered origins has been used by the US to pin the fault on the WIV, but ignoring the fact that the GOF research conducted there was being funded by the US and supervised by Peter Daszak of the EcoHealth Alliance. His presence on both the WHO team and as chair of the Lancet investigative committee does not augur well for the outcome of this “targeted investigation”.
We would do well to take the measured statements from FM spokesman Lijiang Zhao seriously – or should have; the damage has already been done, and things look only to get worse, unless WE have a change in thinking. Don’t imagine that’s going to happen under Joe Biden, given his selection of Dr Fauci as adviser, and indistinguishable or worse attitude to China.
Oh, so beautifully drawn this personal and human version of the nonsense of the anti-China poison being beaten up by our political ideologues and their US head-patters!
My Mum taught me a similar lesson in Port Melbourne back in the day. It was “Dont take on the big kids. They will beat the living suitcase out of you.” Apparently a lesson not taught to our genius Treasurer in the genteel environs of Brighton.
Treasurer is paid by others and has dual nationality with Israel.
Dual nationals cannot be elected to the Australian Parliament so I do not see how that can be correct.
I am emphatically not a fan of Scott Morrison and I despise Donald Trump. I have no illusions about the United States. However none of this blinds me to certain realities about China.
–Xi is already displaying the signs of paranoia that are the occupational hazard of any president for life. This will only get worse leading to ever greater repression.
–Want to see Foxnews on steroids? Watch Chinese language TV news. Chinese state media make Rupert Murdoch look like a pussycat. The regime is playing the nationalist card and, unlike in Australia and the the US there are no countervailing media. The result is that a large part of the Chinese population, perhaps as much as a third, resembles Trump’s most ardent supporters in their nationalistic fervour.
–China is running concentration camps in Xinjiang. There is no other ways to describe this.
–The Stasi would have killed for the surveillance capability the Chinese state is building
–When a great power engages in a large scale military build-up others in its region must prepare for the worst.
Xi reminds me of Germany’s last Kaiser – dumb and dangerous. I do know whether the Chinese regime is planning for war but with a paranoid in charge who knows what could happen. He might decide to invade Taiwan.
I would like to see the United States station troops and a few thousand anti-ship missiles on Taiwan. It may deter the Chinese regime from acting foolishly.
China’s greatest strategic vulnerability are its long supply chains. Much of its trade, including oil, has to flow through waters controlled by the US Navy. There are also a number of choke points such as the Malacca Straits.
This is a dangerous time and there are no easy answers for a small country like Australia. One thing I do know is we cannot afford a dumb blowhard like Morrison at the helm.
To make matters more difficult for Australia, while Trump is gone, Trumpism is far from dead.
Mr Meyer, I don’t know why you are trying to engage me on this. I can only guess. All I can say about what you have written is that your sources of information, what researchers call “epistemology”, is different from mine.
John Garnaut the princeling pseudo journalist.
John Garnaut, like many of his fellow travellers, is prepared to spruik blatant lies in their zealous anti-China extremism.
On this occasion, he was caught with his pants down: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/22/world/australia/chau-chak-wing-defamation-fairfax-media.html
Justice Wigney’s of the Federal Court of Australia conclusions in regard to Garnaut’s integrity and truthfulness are devastating. For this dishonest clown to be writing position papers that affect our national interest is a travesty. His Honor performed a complete judicial rogering of the dishonest clown In full His Honors reasons are here:
“If Mr Garnaut did intend to exercise caution so as to avoid conveying anything
beyond the strong suspicion that Dr Chau was implicated in the bribing of Mr
Ashe, he manifestly failed in that endeavour. For the reasons given in detail earlier, each of the first three imputations was in fact conveyed by the article. More significantly, in the present context, there are a number of features of the articles which reveal that insufficient steps were taken to ensure that the imputations were not conveyed. Those features were highlighted
earlier in the context of the question whether the imputations were conveyed.
In summary, and at risk of repetition, they include the following.
First, the language in the article was sensationalist and hyperbolic and generally
derisive and deprecating when it came to Dr Chau. Had Mr Garnaut genuinely intended to exercise caution, he would not have opened the article with the suggestion that Dr Chau might
prefer to “bunker down” in his “personal “imperial palace”” to avoid extradition in
connection with an “unfolding international bribery scandal”. Nor would he have referred to “offending” web pages being “scrubbed from cyberspace”; or referred to Dr Chau as “the king” and “No. 1 client” of the “social queen of Australia-China relations”; or concluded the article with the suggestion that “the extraordinary Kingold kingdom of Australia and China relations” may have been “built upon illicit payments and hot air”.
Second, the references to Dr Chau’s supposed fear or extradition and the “scrubbing” of “offending web pages” were not only unnecessarily sensationalist, they plainly implied consciousness of guilt on the part of Dr Chau. Why would he want to “bunker down” in China to avoid extradition, or “scrub” websites which supposedly showed his contact with Mr Ashe at the relevant conference, if he was innocent?
Third, for the reasons already given, there was no reasonable basis for the inclusion of either the extradition assertion or the “scrubbing” of websites assertion.
Fourth, as already explained in considerable detail, Dr Chau’s responses to the allegations were disaggregated and taken out of context, were in some respects portrayed in a misleading light, were generally subverted by their strategic placement in the article and were dealt with in a generally disparaging way. So too were the statements made by Ms Chow.
Fifth, the article does not sufficiently emphasise that the charges against Mr Ashe, Ms
Yan, and implicitly CC-3 or Dr Chau, were merely accusations. Most of the facts, including those that were not part of the Complaint, were portrayed as unequivocal facts.
To give one example, the article asserts that Ms Yan wrote the invitation letter to Mr Ashe on Dr Chau’s behalf. That was not a fair or accurate summary of the actual allegation in the Complaint. Even if it was, it was not said to be a mere allegation. By way of contrast, the Department of Justice media release emphasised not only that the charges and text of the
Complaint were merely allegations or accusations, but also that the defendants were presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. No such cautionary note was included in the article. Indeed, the references to the Complaint constituting only accusations or allegations are scant indeed.
Sixth, the extended discussion of Dr Chau’s donations and political connections in Australia, and the claim that they were part of the “virtuous circle of guanxi”, created further “smoke” and the clear impression of the existence of the underlying “fire”, to borrow the analogy used
by Lord Devlin in Lewis v Daily Telegraph. That is particularly so given that it was unequivocally asserted in the article that the pattern of payments and resulting access
and power was said to have “extended right up to the president of the UN General Assembly, John Ashe”. That effectively amounted to an unequivocal assertion that Dr Chau had purchased his access to Mr Ashe.
Seventh, the article did not include many material facts which would have put the bribery
allegations and the suggestion that Dr Chauwas implicated in their proper
context. For example, while the article asserted that the payment of $200,000 “bought Ashe’s
appearance, in his official capacity, at Chau’s resort”, it neglected to mention that the “appearance” of Mr Ashe was as a speaker at a conference organised by a group of apparently
reputable non-government organisations, and that a number of other notable persons were paid for speaking at the conference. The article chose to focus on a series of sensational titbits – the purchase of the Packer mansion, Dr Chau’s personal “imperial palace” – instead of providing ameasured analysis of the particulars of the bribery allegations.
In all the circumstances, Mr Garnaut’s apparent claim that he took reasonable steps to ensure that anything beyond suspicion was conveyed was and is wholly without substance and is rejected.
http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FCA/2019/185.html?context=1;query=Chau%20Chak%20Wing;mask_path=#_Ref1656204
Chapter and verse of our imbedded-ness with the worst of US politically strategic and trade interests. Garnaut and Brady…hmmm! Names to keep in mind…
In regard to Brady-
“These unsubstantiated assertions and outright falsehoods constitute a serious breach in accepted standards of scholarship. We find it most unprofessional to name individual VA researchers without providing those individuals with an opportunity to respond or clarify the information
in the report itself.”
Te Herenga Waka-Victoria University of Wellington
Only time will prevail the real truth, although; I cannot Understand, Why our smart Cocky always supporting dTrump ???
They are galahs not cockys.
Steppingstones, the steps leading up to parliament house are steppingstones…towards even more lucrative appointments.
Or
Corruption is how the bond market works. Heirarchy means many steps for advancement, so many favours to be delivered.
The corrupters tend to concentrate on the top filks, more bang for the $.
Our society is like a murky pond where the scum floats to the top.
Th statement, like most in this post, puts a sinister spin on otherwise laudable government actions. The government’s move to block the IPO came from public pressure to put an end to Ant’s ‘bloodsucking usury’ as popular Weibo posts put it.
As to private companies having to ‘play by the political rules of the game, which include showing due deference for the state’s authority,’ we are currently seeing in the USA what happens when they don’t: there are now more hungry children, drug addicts, suicides and executions, more homeless, poor, and imprisoned people in America than in China.
That’s why the Chinese government is the most trusted on earth.
The libertarian ideology of the US and Australian oligarchies has been shown to not only be a double standard but historically obsolete. We live in the age of public health imperatives, global warming imperatives, and the critical need to plan and implement strategies to eliminate poverty. These imperatives for the survival of the species require strong central State control of society. The obsolete “individual rights” paradigm has been shown to not only fail but to be a dangerous failure. The USA under Trumpism is Exhibit A.