Here is what China is really about:
The UK’s approach to a “whole of state” assault by the Chinese government on its economy, politics, civil infrastructure and academia is completely inadequate, an influential parliamentary committee has found.
China’s state institutions were aggressively targeting the UK, the all-party intelligence and security committee (ISC) said, and “without swift and decisive action” a nightmare scenario could emerge where China represented not just a commercial challenge but an existential threat to liberal democratic systems.
The committee, which completed its inquiry into the Chinese threat in May, was scathing about the failure of the UK to wake up to the scale of the challenge.
Australia has also been very much on the receiving end of this ‘whole of state’ war from shortly after the accession of Xi Jinping with dramatic increases in political and academic bribery, espionage, cyber-attack, trade sanctions, coercive control of the Chinese diaspora, propaganda, militarisation of trade routes and the Pacific, not to mention biological mishaps.
It is a total war with the goal of supplanting the US liberal empire with an illiberal pirated version that dictates terms throughout the Asia Pacific, if not the world.
What is the ALP’s response to this? Total grovel.
Beg for restoration of trade ties:
China-Australia trade grew significantly during the first half, indicating a steady improvement in economic relations, while efforts to address trade matters, including tariffs on barley, remain in progress.
Sell out Aussie citizens:
Foreign Minister Penny Wong has told her Chinese counterpart Australia expects more movement from Beijing on its crippling trade restrictions, as questions mount on whether China is setting the right conditions for a visit by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese this year.
…Ms Wong said she also raised the plight of Australians jailed in China.
“It is our practice to ensure that we raised the circumstances of Ms Cheng Lei and Dr Yang Hengjun, as well as other Australians who are facing the death penalty,” she said.
Ceaseless grovelling missions:
This latest meeting has been seen as crucial for keeping on track a planned visit by Mr Albanese to the Chinese capital, which would be the first by an Australian leader since 2016.
As well as spout CCP propaganda from the likes of Paul Xiting and Beijing Bob:
I have yet to meet an Australian voter willing to go to war over Taiwan. Further, I haven’t heard of any Australian military leader with a clear idea of Australia’s role in a showdown between China and the US. On the contrary, I’m told their consensus is that our naval assets would be unprotected against ocean-hugging hypersonic missiles.
Any hard-nosed assessment of our national interest would have us redouble – then redouble again – our commitment to guardrails and off-ramps to stop the descent into conflict. There are subtle suggestions that both the US and China have pulled back to earlier red lines, and with the support of the Taiwanese leadership. In that spirit, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in April met the President of Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wen, on American soil and not in Taipei. The Chinese response was comparatively subdued.
How about we threaten to pull iron ore until our people are released?
I am yet to meet an Australian, outside of the ALP and a few miners, willing to live under CCP hegemony.
Any hard-nosed assessment of our national interest would have us redouble – then redouble again – efforts to ensure that Chinese Communist expansionism is contained.
We do not need to go to war to achieve it. We simply have to make the consequences of any invasion impossibly high for Beijing.
This can be done through a clear commitment to the economic isolation of China by the liberal powers in the event of invasion – including total capital, commodity and services trade blockades.
All of this creepy ALP grovelling is the opposite and encourages war via poltroonery.
