Piers Akerman: Why Australia must take a stand against China
The global impact of the Wuhan virus and China’s thuggish, bullying response to those who want to see a thorough investigation, may now help the West turn the tide against the Chinese Fifth Column working against the interests of those still living in liberal democracies worldwide, Piers Akerman writes.
- Abbott tried to warn us of Chinese pandemic threat
- Australia’s COVID response is now envy of the world
Who would have thought that Opposition leader Anthony Albanese, former foreign minister Bob Carr, and so many “woke” Leftist Australians are happy to have our country derisively described as “pieces of chewing gum on the sole of China’s shoes”?
But that’s how Hu Xijin, the editor of the state-run Global Times, a leading Communist Chinese publication thinks of Australia’s relationship with his nation.
What’s more, Hu has used the CCP’s propaganda sheet to threaten Australia’s $63 billion iron ore exports to Beijing just a week after China trumped up charges against Australian beef and barley producers which threaten the livelihoods of thousands in regional areas.
It is a given that the ABC and the Nine media and others default to a whining posture whenever they dislike a conservative policy.
If we, sensibly, prevent illegal immigrants from free entry and access to all the benefits available to citizens and lawful residents, the Left-wing media goes into a spin claiming that our international reputation has been smashed.
If the majority of Australians indicate they want cheap and reliable power, they get ridiculed as dinosaurs seeking extinction.
Yet, when a virus escapes from China and Prime Minister Scott Morrison says an independent investigation is needed into the source of the virus so as to inform and hopefully prevent the next pandemic wreaking the same sort of physical, but particularly, economic havoc, the Left claims that such an inquiry by its very existence would be discriminatory, if not racist, because the source of the virus is China.
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Those cuddling up to the brutal totalitarian state should be careful however, as editor Hu Xijin calculatingly pointed out that as far as the Big Panda is concerned, love is not forever.
After letting us know that China considers us insignificant pieces of chewing gum on its shoes, he posted on Weibo (the Chinese version of Twitter) “sometimes you have to find a stone and rub it off”.
Then, just three days ago, he used his newspaper to utter another warning to our economy, this time a threat to cut off Australia’s $63 billion iron ore export pipeline to Beijing.
This followed China’s freezing of imports from four Australian meat exporters and the threat to impose tariffs of 80 per cent on barley produces.
Where is Western Australia’s China apologist Andrew Forrest’s response to these latest intimidatory challenge from the Chinese megaphone?
Mr Forrest, a world champion virtue signaller, is significantly silent. He has yet to explain how his Minderoo Foundation, which challenges the ongoing international slave trade, can square its ideals with China’s imprisonment and forced re-education of around a million Uighur people, some of whom have been put into forced labour squads and sent to replace workers in factories crippled by the Wuhan virus.
Appeasing China is the default position of those who have permitted their businesses to become subsidiaries of the CCP. Our universities rely on the income brought by Chinese students and some have effectively turned over their policies to the Chinese.
Across Australia, the Chinese government’s Confucius Institute, another organisation supported by the propaganda wing of the CCP, has been warmly welcomed by universities which have rejected studies of Western civilisation and culture supported by the Ramsay Foundation.
The global impact of the Wuhan virus and China’s thuggish, bullying response to those who want to see a thorough investigation, may now help the West turn the tide against the Chinese Fifth Column working against the interests of those still living in liberal democracies worldwide.
Initially, it looked as if Australia and the US were the only nations prepared to take a stand but now, with some reluctance, the European Union has indicated it supports a “thorough, independent scientific inquiry into the origins of the crisis” to strengthen defences against future pandemics.
The United Nations and the World Health Organisation have been shown to be thoroughly compromised by their slavish obedience to China.
If the pandemic helps hasten the demise of these bodies, or even a root-and-branch restructuring to return the global body to its formative ideals, that goal would make the pain suffered a little more endurable.
The call for an exhaustive and comprehensive investigation into the Wuhan virus should be bipartisan, for the good of the nation.