Ex-PM’s comments show Turnbull is no match for Trump
Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull may think himself urbane and well-read, but when it comes to his comments praising Chinese leader Xi Jinping and knocking US President Donald Trump he is way off beam, writes James Morrow.
Opinion
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Here’s the thing about Malcolm Turnbull.
He is clever, well read, charming when he wants to be, and able to reel off passages from Herodotus as a party trick. And yet, despite this, he can be spectacularly, utterly wrong, just when he is trying to sound smart.
Take what he said to Bloomberg Television about the US and China that raised the ire of US president Donald Trump.
“Where Trump is chaotic, (Chinese leader Xi Jinping) will be consistent. Where Trump is rude and abusive, he’ll be respectful. Where Trump is erratic, he will be consistent.”
Look, Trump may be chaotic and abusive and much more besides, but has the former prime minister read the papers recently?
The Chinese Navy is on an intelligence gathering trip around Australia after leaving a Virgin flight crew to discover their live fire exercises in the Tasman.
When it comes to consistency, Xi has played with our exporters like they were cats chasing a laser pointer. Lobster and wine is on the menu today, but what about tomorrow?
And as far as respectful behaviour from Beijing, well, do the words “wolf warrior diplomacy” mean anything to Turnbull?
It’s all made doubly strange by the fact that in 2017, when he was still PM, Turnbull more than held his own in a delicate conversation with Trump to get the US to honour a deal to take in asylum seekers housed on Nauru and Manus Island.
No wonder Trump blew up over Turnbull’s comments.
Trump would have remembered the conversation, in which he repeatedly told Turnbull he was doing him a huge favour honouring a “stupid deal” made by the Obama administration, and even said he “respect(ed)” the then-PM.
Australians may be worried about what Trump portends for Taiwan, and deplore the situation in Ukraine, but as they read his comments about Turnbull, many will reckon the president had his measure.
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