Rita Panahi: China will learn to respect Australia’s strength

China seizes on the weakness of foreign countries and their internal political divisions to further drive its agenda.

In the end the federal government had no choice.

The Andrews government had failed to tear up the state’s Belt and Road deal with the Chinese Communist Party even after a year where China illustrated the real and present danger it poses to the world.

No other state or territory government had been foolish enough to sign up to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) which is designed to expand Beijing’s political and economic influence around the globe.

It beggars belief that the Victorian government didn’t reconsider its deal even after China’s initial cover-up of the coronavirus outbreak, including arresting whistleblower doctors and destroying lab samples, and its ongoing efforts to frustrate investigators looking into the origins of the virus.

China’s gross human rights violations are a matter of record, from their crackdown in Hong Kong to the ethnic genocide of the Uighurs — including forced sterilisations and abortions and herding more than a million Muslims into “re-education camps” — to forced organ harvesting of prisoners, including Falun Gong practitioners.

Then there is China’s aggression against Australia, culminating in banning or placing enormous tariffs on a range of Australian products.

Daniel Andrews in Tiananmen Square. Picture: Twitter

China has long used its economic might to coerce smaller nations into supporting its interests and we’ve already seen signatories to the BRI compromise their national sovereignty.

So, it’s little wonder that the federal government used its new veto powers to cancel Victoria’s deal with China, along with three other arrangements with foreign states.

Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne announced on Wednesday evening that she had cancelled four agreements out of more than 1000 she had been notified of between states and foreign governments.

Every single deal cancelled involved the Victorian government, two signed with China under Dan Andrews, one with Iran signed under Steve Bracks and one with Syria signed under Jeff Kennett.

“I consider these four arrangements to be inconsistent with Australia’s foreign policy or adverse to our foreign relations in line with the relevant test in Australia’s Foreign Relations (State and Territory Arrangements) Act 2020,” Senator Payne wrote.

It’s difficult to overstate the recklessness and recalcitrance of the Victorian government in signing multiple deals with China that are contrary to the national interest.

We saw the Victorian government kowtowing to China even last year as they placed tariffs on Australian farmers and banned imports from a number of our manufacturers.

Victorian treasurer Tim Pallas was at pains to claim it was China that was the victim of vilification, which he warned was “dangerous, damaging and probably irresponsible”.

Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne had no choice but to act. Picture: Martin Ollman

He blamed the federal government for China’s aggression and acts of economic coercion.

“I mean, perhaps inelegant interventions have essentially seen farmers lose trade around barley, and meatworks losing work around meat,” Pallas said.

“We need to basically be balanced and measured in terms of our engagement with a valuable and long-term trading partner, and certainly this government has no intention of seeking to vilify a government because of its system of government.”

Vilify? How exactly does one vilify a superpower that locks up and executes political dissidents, commits ethnic genocide and seeks to use its economic power to bully smaller nations into subservience?

A regime that engages in systematic political and commercial espionage and poses a significant danger to Australia’s allies including Taiwan.

Members of the Victorian government must decide whether they are serving Beijing’s long term interests or Victoria’s.

The BRI is already advancing China’s interests and global influence.

Last year we saw 53 countries back China’s crackdown on Hong Kong at the UN Human Rights Council; 48 of the nations standing with the CCP are signed up to the BRI.

The Andrews government must explain why they chose to get into bed with a rogue regime whose objectives are contrary to not only Australia’s interests but that of the free world.

China seizes on the weakness of foreign countries and their internal political divisions to further drive its agenda. Though Beijing will have a very public, unedifying tantrum about the Morrison government terminating its BRI deals with Victoria, in the long-term it will come to respect Australia’s strength.

Foreign policy expert, director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s Michael Shoebridge believes Australia must show a united front to China. “In Beijing’s eyes how dumb did we look having a gap between a federal and state government on policy as important as the Belt and Road initiative?” he said. “So this enhances our self-respect and starts to build what we need in a future relationship with the government of China – mutual respect. They know they can’t play us for suckers and that’s a good thing”.

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Shame, LeBron, shame.