Andrew Bolt: When will Australia’s China apologists see the light?

China’s near-blockade in Taiwan suggests a rehearsal of the war to come — so why didn’t Australia realise we had to arm ourselves in a hurry?

Just two weeks ago, former Prime Minister Paul Keating said claims that China could start a war in the Pacific were “nothing short of demented”.

Who’s demented now? Look at China openly rehearsing a war on Taiwan, plus firing missiles into the territorial seas of Japan, which also owns territory China claims.

Of our many apologists for the communist dictatorship, Keating – a long-time member of the international advisory board of the regime’s China Development Bank – is one of the most influential. And blind.

Or has he – and all those corporate leaders who shilled for China, urging us to mind their business – finally seen the light?

No peaceful country could act as China acts now, furious that its impertinent threats didn’t stop US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi from last week visiting the independent and democratic island nation of Taiwan, which China dementedly claims to own.

No peace-loving country would now ring Taiwan with naval ships conducting live-fire exercises in a near-blockade that’s stopped some international flights.

Former PM Paul Keating is one of our many apologists for communist dictatorship, China. Picture: Liam Kidston

Nor would a country that’s no danger be playing chicken with Taiwan, sending swarms of jet fighters and bombers every day over the median line in the 140km of sea between China and Taiwan’s main island.

On Friday, China sent over 49 planes. On Saturday, another 20. Each time Taiwan must scramble its own air force: there’s no way it can tell if the next wave will not turn back, but fly on for another few minutes to start the bombing.

Nor does a peaceful nation fire four ballistic missiles over Taiwan’s capital city, Taipei, or send five into the waters of Japan’s exclusive economic zone.

All this – the near-blockade, the jets, the missiles – suggests more than a tantrum by a dictatorship as dangerously childish as it is lethally powerful.

It also suggests China is rehearsing the war to come, and checking what the US and the rest of the free world could do to stop a blockade and attack that next time is for real.

How stupid were our leaders not to realise for decades that we had to arm ourselves in a hurry?

Keating is full of abuse for people who anger communist China. The Liberals are “poisonous”, Labor foreign Minister Penny Wong a sellout, Pelosi “foolish” and British foreign Minister Liz Truss “irrational” and “demented”.

But where is his criticism of China and its dictator, acting as another Hitler with his own mad threats and reckless shows of force?