Twiggy Forrest’s China COVID kowtow is no favour to Australia
We have to extricate our economy from its dependency on the Communist Chinese regime, but self-interested billionaires and weak politicians need to get out of the way, writes Miranda Devine.
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How did Twiggy Forrest get to spin his craven kowtow to China into a public relations coup?
With the help of the Morrison government, that’s how.
For starters, Forrest contributed to our dire shortage of surgical masks, and other vital personal protective equipment (PPE).
While China was hiding its COVID-19 crisis from the world, it was secretly hoovering up the world’s supplies of PPE, leaving doctors and nurses dangerously exposed when the virus hit our shores.
We know two 90 tonne shipments of PPE, including millions of masks, were airfreighted to China from Perth and Sydney in February by Chinese state-owned property developers. And Forrest did the same.
Asked at a press conference in Melbourne last week about reports that his charitable organisation Minderoo had sent PPE to China, Forrest declared he was proud that in China’s “darkest hour, without being asked … Minderoo proudly scoured what we could for thousands and hundreds of thousands of PPE.” Yeah, to Australia’s detriment.
The billionaire mining magnate owes his fortune to China, his biggest customer, so trying to dress up this act of self-interest as altruism is nauseating.
Forrest’s Chinese Communist Party partners tell him to jump and he asks how high.
Then he goes on Perth radio and pretends he doesn’t know where the Wuhan virus came from: “I don’t know if this virus started in China or somewhere else and frankly I don’t care … because it just might be Australia, it just might be Britain, it just might be China.”
He can’t be that stupid. This is Chinese Communist Party propaganda.
Next, Forrest poses as a patriotic hero for bringing back medical supplies from China to make up for the ones he spirited out of the country.
Not that he paid for them himself. The Australian taxpayer is footing the entire bill.
10 million COVID-19 test kits from China might have been a fair atonement (if they work), except that the federal government gave Forrest a platform to spout more repellent Chinese propaganda in return.
Days after the Chinese ambassador threatened a trade boycott in retaliation for Australia’s call for an independent inquiry into the origins of the virus, Forrest spun Beijing’s line alongside an obsequious federal health minister Greg Hunt. He even brought along a Chinese communist party official to speak at the press conference.
After the proverbial hit the fan, Hunt briefed out to journalists that he had been “ambushed” by Forrest and had no idea Chinese consul-general Long Zhou was to speak.
But anyone at that press conference saw Hunt singing the praises of the Beijing official. At one point you could hear him whisper to Forrest to remind him to “introduce” the honoured guest.
Then Zhou gave a speech claiming “the Chinese government has released information related to COVID-19 in an open transparent and responsible manner”. Hah! What a lie.
The Chinese government covered up the outbreak, punished whistleblower doctors, destroyed evidence at the Wuhan lab, and on January 14, knowing community transmission was occurring, coerced its puppets at the World Health Organisation to say the opposite.
On January 23 China imposed domestic travel bans in Hubei province but allowed international flights to spread the virus to the rest of the world.
“The virus is a demon and we cannot let that demon hide,” said President Xi Jinping five days later, having ensured the virus would be exposed to the world.
So it is shameful that the representative of a government which has imposed such carnage on the world, was accorded such a respectful hearing to spout the regime’s lies.
Hunt actually thanked Zhou for: “The very welcome and appreciated message … I thank you for the partnership we have struck between our two countries on this health cause today”.
He went on to dodge questions from reporters about the origins of the virus. “That has not been determined”, and about Taiwan’s efforts to join the WHO, against China’s wishes. “Nice try” Hunt told the reporter.
Then Forrest urged Australia to postpone its call for the virus inquiry until after the US presidential election, which China hopes will be won by anyone but Donald Trump.
“If everyone wants an inquiry let’s just push it back till after the US presidential election because if we don’t this will become a whipping post”, he told Sky News.
“I think that there’s a bloke [Trump] camped up in the White House having a great time who’d really like to stay there. And I’d say, well, if you’re so keen to stay there let’s not make this a big issue, let’s not make China a big issue, let’s make how you manage COVID-19 a big issue and lets have a comprehensive inquiry when there’s no political bias being pushed by America.”
Oh yeah? When might that be? When a more China-friendly president is in the White House?
Who does Forrest think he is, using a platform granted him by the Australian government to send Beijing’s message to the White House?
If that’s not bad enough, look at who he pals around with in China. His “very good” friend, who helped provide the test kits for Australia, and the man he described on Sky News as “a complete brother in arms”, is Wang Jian, president of the Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI), whose corporate culture verges on eugenics.
Wang has forbidden BGI staff to have children with birth defects.
“If they were born with defects, it would be a disgrace to all 7,000 staff,” Wang said in a panel discussion in 2018, translated by Shanghai United Media publication Sixth Tone.
None of the 1,400 babies born to BGI employees have defects, he boasted.
This is what to expect from a totalitarian regime.
Is this what Forrest wants us to keep turning a blind eye to?
Australia has to extricate our economy from its China dependency. For starters, we need to bring back manufacturing of vital medical supplies, buy back the port of Darwin, and value add to our mineral resources to find new customers.
It will take national resolve to get there, but billionaires and compromised politicians will do whatever it takes to continue dealing with the devil.