I’m loving it. Any harm that our mentally ill PM can do to the China relationship on the way out is in the national interest.
Not that he has that in mind. Like most of Morrison’s China successes, they are purely an expression of the PM’s “psycho” character. This is about him, not Australia. We’re just lucky it’s in our favour:
On Sunday, Mr Morrison said China remained “chillingly silent on Russian troops amassing on the Ukrainian border”, suggesting that Beijing had given Moscow tacit approval for an invasion.
…Mr Morrison has also been ratcheting-up his attacks on Labor, repeatedly calling the opposition “soft” on Beijing and national security, despite a broad bipartisanship on most key China policies.
…”I can tell you what … the countries coercing us, I know they don’t want to see the Liberal government re-elected. I know they’re not having a one-way bet [on us], they’re having a one way bet on others,” he told radio station 2GB.
“We are in a very uncertain and challenging world and there is no time for weakness.”
Various folks leaped to Albo’s defence, including Kevin07:
Former prime minister Kevin Rudd also lashed the Coalition at a press conference this morning, pointing out that the Liberal Party had leased Darwin Port to a Chinese company, attempted to ratify an extradition treaty with China and signed the 2014 Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with Beijing.
“I don’t use the term ‘appeasement’ lightly. But when you look at the Liberal Party record over more than a decade, there’s no other way to describe it but appeasement,” Mr Rudd said.
“The government has an excellent record on national security,” said Mr Richardson, a former Australian ambassador to the US.
“Traditionally, Australian governments have seen it to be in the national interest to have a bipartisan approach to critical national security issues. It is a long time since an Australian government has actively sought to create a partisan divide on national security.
“I don’t believe it can be objectively stated that the opposition has sought to appease China. It has been consistently critical of human rights abuses in China.”
Let’s not forget the charming Gladys Liu. But, we must ask Kevin07, do two wrongs make a national interest right?
Former ASIO director-general Dennis Richardson warned it was not in Australia’s interest to ¬politicise national security and rejected suggestions Labor had appeased China.
The former Defence and DFAT secretary added that Labor had been constantly critical of Chinese government action in Hong Kong and in the South China Seas. “And it has stood with the government in defending our national interests when it has come to economic coercion by China,” he said.
No, it hasn’t. And neither has Dennis Richardson:
In June, former spy boss and defence secretary Dennis Richardson advised business leaders that, when they are slurred as unpatriotic for emphasising the value of the China trade relationship, “they should punch their accuser right on the nose … figuratively that is”.
Richardson’s point was that, by building these ties, these entrepreneurs were creating the prosperity that funds better schools and hospitals – not to mention 12 French-designed submarines worth US$56 billion and 72 US-made F-35s that add another US$12 billion to the defence credit card.
In fact, the entire Labor left and others missed the significance of the 14 conditions to end democracy. It blamed failures of Morrison diplomacy not Chinese Communist Party aggression. Including Albo. This was only 15 months ago.
Can we see Labor has turned as China hawkish as the Coalition? Just last weekend, NSW Labor parachuted China appeaser Jason Yat-sen Li into the Strathfield electorate and lost ground amid an immense swing towards it.
Readers will recall that I had to pound away at Labor’s CCP useful idiots day after day for years to get them to see sense. The party has been much better across 2021 but it most assuredly made this political bed for itself by failing to recognise a historical turning point soon enough.
Of course, the Coalition might be too hawkish:
ANU National Security College head Rory Medcalf warned there was “a risk of political overreach by the government which could weaken its own great achievements on national security”. “The government can’t have it both ways – assuring our allies that we are in it for the long haul, through the many changes of government it will take for our odyssey of building nuclear submarines, while insisting that only one side of politics can be trusted on security,” Professor Medcalf said.
Having it both ways is the Morrison specialty. That’s gaslighting 101!
Finally, as we already know, owing to Beijing’s extraordinary glass jaw, the Morrison playbook works brilliantly for the LNP in China itself:
#Opinion: Albanese will not be a charismatic leader but he positively shines compared to Morrison. Such is abysmal state of Oz politics. One would like to see a reset in ties with China, but Oz leadership is weak & US pressure is sustained. @bruce_haigh https://t.co/oDtwErucOn
— Global Times (@globaltimesnews) February 14, 2022
I don’t think a manufactured China panic will be enough to save “Psycho ” Morrison.
But we’re going to find out.
