Alan Jones: As we distract ourselves with internal squabbles, China gets stronger

China is slowly encroaching ever closer to us, by doing things like building fishing facilities in Papua New Guinea, and we are doing nothing about it, writes Alan Jones.

Canberra is preoccupied with issues of social and cultural significance.

But if, as a nation, we take our eye off the international ball, our social and cultural decisions won’t save us.

At times, you can’t escape the conclusion that Australia is most probably its own worst enemy.

Australians can’t believe we have leased the Port of Darwin to Chinese interests, a port which is right next to the Larrakeyah Barracks. It is the main base for the Australian Defence Force in the Northern Territory, built in the early years of World War II.

As one of my viewers has said: “The Chinese come down here and wave wads of cash under our nose and we bend over backwards to give them whatever they want.”

The Port of Darwin has been leased to Chinese interests.

We have now granted a Chinese-linked company a mining lease of an abandoned iron ore operation on Cockatoo Island in WA’s Kimberley Region, next to the Yampi Sound Defence Training Area.

Cockatoo Island is about 2000km from Perth.

It boasts an airstrip which was used to service past mining projects as well as a resort, built by Alan Bond during the 1980s.

This new lease was approved last year and will expire in 2032.

Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, who got herself into trouble during Turnbull’s Prime Ministership for criticising Chinese expansionism, has said she’s alarmed at the deal.

She makes the valid point that it’s another example of why the acquisition of strategic assets from governments in Australia by private companies with links to Beijing should come within the scope of Foreign Relations legislation.

Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells has expressed her concern at the deal. Picture: Kym Smith

Senator Fierravanti-Wells rightly says that China’s company and National security laws require that the Chinese Communist Party “control” not only China’s State-owned entities, but also Chinese private companies.

Admittedly, the Morrison government passed new Foreign Relations laws last year which allowed the Commonwealth the power to veto agreements with foreign countries, but not to veto deals done with private companies.

Who could possibly believe that the takeover of a mining lease by Chinese interests is innocent and above board.

Under President Xi’s military/civil fusion plan, the PLA automatically gets a slice of the mining lease to carry out whatever they want to do.

Who, in government, approved this?

And on top of all of this, we now have China building an industrial city at Daru in one of PNG’s most impoverished provinces.

Chinese President Xi Jinping makes sure that the country’s government gets a slice of any mining leases. Picture: Xie Huanchi/Getty Images

They are calling it a “multifunctional fishing industrial park” but there are no commercial fishing grounds anywhere near Daru.

Every man and his dog knows that in December 2013, the Chinese launched an all-out island building campaign in the South China Sea.

The islands became military bases, such that a very large portion of the Pacific Ocean has been annexed by the Chinese Communist Party.

I note comments by a former CIA Operations Officer Charles Faddis, with 30 years’ experience in the conduct of Intelligence Operations in the Middle East and South East Asia and Europe.

He writes of Chinese expansionism: “We may be about to see another such series of events unfold” and dwells on the Island of Daru, which he describes rightly as, “the closest Papua New Guinean community to Australia. It is only slightly over 100 miles from the coast of Australia and it sits right on the Torres Strait that separates New Guinea from Australia.”

Kids on Daru Island in Papua New Guinea, where China is building a so-called “fishing industrial park.”

I recently spoke to a distinguished Australian soldier.

In 2013, he and a group of eight were told to put together a team of eight little black rubber Zodiacs, inflatable boats, to go from Daru to Weipa to test if the Border Force, allegedly safeguarding our National security, could pick them up.

They had the whole job done, Daru to Australia, in three days, in inflatable boats, undetected: and China are going to build a $40 billion city with hardly a whimper from Canberra.

Can someone give the government in Canberra a geography lesson?

Charles Faddis argues: “There is no rational reason for the investment of this much money by the Chinese in this location from a business perspective… They are going to build wharves and warehouses and support facilities. In short, what they are going to build is a naval base.”

He continues: “It would be accurate to look at China’s vast fleet of fishing vessels as a militia, rather than a commercial enterprise. Their mission is to expand China’s sphere of influence. Chinese fishing vessels are armed and their crews trained by the People’s Liberation Army Navy.”

Australia is its own worst enemy internationally in the granting of port and mine leases to China, essentially selling out our national infrastructure to the highest bidder. Picture: Terry Pontikos

“Ominously”, writes Faddis, “eventually the inevitable will occur. Chinese naval vessels ostensibly deployed to protect their fishermen in the end will begin to call. Facilities will be expanded, heavy weapons will appear. The facade that Daru is a pure commercial facility will be abandoned.”

But, as Faddis reports, the Chinese have signed a second deal with Papua New Guinea, which allows them to dredge sand along the Fly River near Daru.

They dredge sand from the bottom of the sea, pump it up into giant piles forming dry land where none previously existed, to create, as yet unidentified, additional islands in the immediate area.

What does this mean to Australia?

If the Chinese build a base on Daru, that base will be able to control all maritime traffic through the Torres Strait and we import 80 per cent of our oil.

Most of that comes from refineries in Singapore.

So again, as Faddis warns us: “Any of that oil moving to ports on the east coast of Australia, like Brisbane and Sydney, has to transit the Torres Strait.

US President Joe Biden has always done nothing on China. Picture: Andrew Cabellero-Reynolds/AFP

“Just as the Chinese can threaten the movement of ships to Taiwan, Korea and Japan via their bases in the South China Sea, they will now be able to hold a dagger to Australia’s throat ... what the Chinese are doing in Daru is what they have already done in the South China Sea, in Tibet and in numerous other places.

“They are annexing territory. They are expanding”.

As with the military coup in Myanmar, so too with Chinese expansion right on our doorstep, they have calculated that Joe Biden will do what he’s always done before in relation to China — nothing.

How long will our oil reserves last if the flow of oil into Australia is cut off?

Once upon a time, Australia would expect support in these circumstances from our old friends, the Americans.

But, as Faddis writes, with 30 years of experience in the conduct of Intelligence Operations in the Middle East, South Asia and Europe: “If the Australians are waiting for Joe, they will be waiting a long time.”