Andrew Bolt: For China trade we must forget human rights and freedom

China’s dictatorship does not want dialogue on crippling trade bans on Australia, it wants surrender, writes Andrew Bolt.

China’s

dictatorship took off its mask on Tuesday. It stated its price for ending its crippling trade bans on Australia.

We must give up on human rights. Shut up about freedom.

So forget Prime Minister Scott Morrison saying the next day he’s “always available to open dialogue” to stop the dictatorship banning shipments of our timber, lobster, coal, barley, beef and wine.

“Dialogue” is not what China wants. Surrender is.

That is what China’s foreign ministry spokesman demanded in an extraordinary media conference.

Our fear of China, said Zhao Lijian, was “the root cause of China-Australia relations taking a sharp downturn”.

These are the examples he gave.

We’d complained at the Human Rights Council against China’s actions in Xinjiang — where it has sent a million Muslims into “re-education” camps.

We’d “meddled in the national security legislation of Hong Kong” — by protesting at China stripping freedoms from the former British colony and arresting pro-democracy leaders.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian. Picture: AFP

We’d “endorsed Taiwan’s attempt” to join the World Health Assembly — supporting an independent democracy that China says does not exist and could invade to take back.

We “accused China of engaging in so-called ‘intervention and infiltration’ activities in Australia” — activities that our intelligence agencies say include spying, hacking and trying to buy or secretly influence our politicians.

We were “the first in banning” China’s Huawei company from building our new 5G network — to stop China from inserting coding that could be used to spy on or disrupt a critical service.

Finally, we “engaged in political manipulation” by asking for an “independent international inquiry” into how this disastrous coronavirus started — almost certainly in China.

Look at those complaints. Our sin is that we stood up for freedom, for democracies, for human rights and for our own security against an aggressive dictatorship.

What peaceful country could object to what we did?

But even now we hear the apologists cry that we’re fools to resist our biggest trade partner, with one in five of the world’s consumers.

I’m talking about people like Geoff Raby, our former ambassador to China, who now has a corporate advisory business in China and is a director of a Chinese mining company.

Stop lecturing this dictatorship so much, he complained last week.

“Pick the issues, the ones that really matter.”

OK, Geoff. Is freedom an issue that “really matters”?

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