Rita Panahi: Stand up to China’s bully-boy tactics once and for all
China has shifted its attention from terrorising its own citizens to punishing any nation that dares stand up to it. And if dare not hold the line, and call out this communist regime’s cover-ups, then we can kiss goodbye the notion of national sovereignty, writes Rita Panahi.
Rita Panahi
Don't miss out on the headlines from Rita Panahi. Followed categories will be added to My News.
The Chinese Communist Party’s bastardry knows no bounds. The regime that terrorises its own citizens is aggressively punishing Australia for demanding transparency on the origins and handling of COVID-19.
Belatedly, a global alliance is forming against China with more than 110 countries co-sponsoring a motion at the World Health Assembly for an independent investigation. But beware the quislings; the pro-Beijing sympathisers willing to sell out Australia’s long-term interests for a quick buck or political expediency.
If we don’t stand up to China now, we never will. There will not be another opportunity for Australia, along with the rest of the free world, to show this dictatorship that it can no longer bully smaller nations into submission.
For years the world has turned a blind eye to China’s aggression, economic coercion and human rights abuses.
If we don’t hold the line, in the midst of a pandemic that started in China and spread due to the communist regime’s cover-ups and ineptitude, then we can kiss goodbye the notion of national sovereignty.
Australia did nothing more than call for an independent inquiry of a pandemic that has killed thousands and devastated the global economy.
China’s response is to openly threaten our country, including imposing an 80 per cent tariff on Australian barley, banning imports from four Australian abattoirs and other forms of economic retribution. That’s not how an ally behaves. That’s how a deeply secretive and corrupt regime that has plenty to hide about the coronavirus catastrophe behaves.
We learnt last week from German and U.S. intelligence reports that while China was hoarding medical supplies from around the world in January, it was pressuring the World Health Organisation not to declare a global health emergency.
The WHO’s capitulation and kowtowing to China throughout this crisis is in itself worthy of an independent investigation.
China’s ambassador to Australia Cheng Jingye has called the Morrison Government’s push for an inquiry “dangerous” and suggested that Chinese citizens would boycott Australian products, travel and educational courses before launching into a bizarre conspiracy theory: “Some politicians here claim the virus originated in Wuhan, China, which is not the case. The fact that the epidemic first broke out in China … does not mean the source of the virus originated in China.”
Yesterday, China’s embassy in Australia denied international support for an inquiry vindicates the Morrison Government’s position.
“The draft resolution on COVID-19 to be adopted by the World Health Assembly is totally different from Australia’s proposal of an independent international review,” a spokesman said. “To claim the WHA’s resolution a vindication of Australia’s call is nothing but a joke.”
Australia should summon the ambassador to explain why he seems to be propagating conspiracy theories about the origins of the virus. France did not tolerate incendiary remarks from China’s embassy in Paris, demanding a “please explain” from ambassador Lu Shaye.
Indeed Chinese ambassadors from France to the US to the African Union have been summoned in recent weeks.
Sweden has closed all Confucius Institutes, which sadly persist in several Australian universities and elite schools, and axed twin-city relationships with China.
Spain and the Netherlands are among countries that have rejected Chinese-made medical masks and testing kits, hundreds of thousands of which have proved to be faulty.
Even New Zealand has grown a backbone and joined the US and Australia in calling for Taiwan to be admitted into the WHO, a move sure to enrage Beijing.
This US-led, global alliance against China comes as countries count their dead and measure the economic fallout of coronavirus, which will lead to many more deaths in the years to come.
For too long the West allowed China to grow in strength in the mistaken belief that the more we trade with them the more they’ll come to embrace our values of democracy, freedom and equality. That has proved to be a fantasy.
China’s litany of international and domestic transgressions are too long to list in a single column, but finally there is pushback thanks largely to the Trump administration consistently challenging President Xi Jinping actions.
On Friday the US Senate voted for a bill to sanction Chinese government officials for “gross human rights violations” over the treatment of the Uyghur minority, about two million of whom are in concentration camps.
But while much of the free world is finally standing up to China there is a subset doing Beijing’s bidding.
Victorian Treasurer Tim Pallas called the “vilification” of China “dangerous, damaging and probably irresponsible” before blaming the federal government’s “inelegant interventions” for China’s decision to punish our farmers instead of blaming the Chinese dictatorship’s habit of intimidation and economic coercion.
Victoria is the only state that has signed up to China’s contentious Belt-and-Road initiative. It’s an issue that may come back to haunt the Andrews Government at the next election.
Rita Panahi is a Herald Sun columnist