West stands against Russia while bowing to China

The West has been quick to punish Russia but shows complete cowardice when it comes to China, choosing to grovel and kowtow to the economic superpower.

Watching the West belatedly unite against Russia is encouraging, but one cannot help notice that another rogue nation, China, is not held to the same standard.

Russia has been punished and ostracised by the international community, from the imposition of wide-ranging economic sanctions to the embarrassment of being thrown out of sporting events such as the FIFA World Cup.

In contrast, China was allowed to hold the Winter Olympics last month despite its unlawful action in the South China Sea, the brutal crackdown on Hong Kong and the fact that the Chinese Communist Party lied about the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, actively destroyed evidence and silenced whistleblower doctors who tried to warn the world about what was happening in Wuhan.

Then there is the not inconsequential matter of China’s persecution of religious minorities that sees more than a million Uyghurs in concentration camps, subjected to horrors including forced abortions and sterilisations.

The West must show a strong, united front and not wait until Beijing fulfils its promise of reclaiming Taiwan.

But far from taking a stand against Chinese aggression the world continues to kowtow to the economic superpower.

Countries entangled in China’s Belt and Road initiative are particularly compromised and bodies such as the World Health Organisation are so eager to avoid offending China that they will not admit Taiwan as a member despite the country of about 24 million having one of the best Covid-19 responses in the world.

The cowardice extends to the corporate world where grovelling to China is almost a KPI even among companies that love grandstanding on social and political issues in the free world.

The likes of Nike and Apple love pushing Leftist political tropes in the West but they are strangely silent and subservient when it comes to China and its gross human rights abuses. Fashion labels including Givenchy and Calvin Klein have issued pitiful apologies for merely implying that Taiwan and Hong Kong were nations and not just a part of China.

Disney this week boasted about pausing film releases in Russia but the movie studio happily filmed much of its blockbuster Mulan in the Xinjiang province where Uyghurs are imprisoned and brutalised in forced labour camps.

We must begin to hold China accountable for its actions or look forward to an even more aggressive and destructive superpower.

But perhaps it is already too late and we have missed the opportunity to halt China’s global ambitions.

It’s a frightening prospect but Senator Jim Molan, a former major-general in the Australian Army, has warned the West about for years. Molan believes the West waited too long before acting against Russia and we cannot make the same mistake with China.

“We (the West) didn’t act when they took the South China Sea, we didn’t act when they militarised the islands in the South China Sea, we didn’t act when they took Hong Kong … and over human rights abuses within China,” Molan said on my show on Sky News.

“We missed a lot of action early, and China would be looking at
that and saying, ‘yeah, they didn’t take us on, how far can we push
it again?’

“One of the most important aspects of confronting a dictator and authoritarian government is not to let them get a head of steam up …. once the attack has started, it’s unlikely to be stopped.

“We don’t want to wait until China acts on what it’s been saying for years and years, and that is that it’ll take Taiwan, or it does something else dramatic in our part of the world.”

But despite China’s antics in the region and elsewhere, the international community is reluctant to take strong action; there are no sanctions, boycotts or efforts to isolate the nation.

Indeed, in recent months whenever China has been scrutinised over the origins of the coronavirus, the cries of “racism” have been heard from those who cannot separate criticism of the Chinese Communist Party with criticism of the Chinese people.

The former is an evil and dangerous force that will seize upon the weakness of the West to broaden its influence in the world.

The West must take a stand or watch China do to the Taiwanese people what it has done to its own oppressed population.

LATE? BLAME THE UNION

If you were late for work on Thursday morning or missed an important appointment then you can thank the belligerent boneheads of the CFMEU. The militant construction union that has pumped huge sums of cash to the Labor Party thought a little peak-hour chaos would be an ideal way to flex their industrial muscle. Premier Daniel Andrews has apologised to commuters but don’t expect him to come down hard on his union mates.

Read the full piece here.