Keating appears oblivious to China’s authoritarian turn under Xi Jinping

Paul Keating asserts that China has given Taiwan virtually all the status it needs and that provided it does not try to declare itself a separate national entity, Beijing will leave it alone (“Taiwan not our fight”, 10/11). We’re dealing with a very different military strategist in Xi Jinping, who is a clone of Mao Zedong, one of the most ruthless dictators the world has seen. We also know that the present Chinese leader assured Barack Obama he would not fortify the South China Sea and then went ahead and did exactly that.

He also promised a one country, two systems policy for Hong Kong and then crushed its citizens for trying to keep what semblance of freedom they had. The only reason he hesitates to attack Taiwan is because there is a US military presence there and Joe Biden has committed to defend the island. But should America be diverted from the Pacific into another international conflict, who knows how Xi will choose to act?

Frank Carroll, Moorooka, Qld

I have just been listening to Paul Keating talking to the National Press Club; well, to be honest I couldn’t listen to it all. It turned out to be an incoherent ramble on politics and Australia in the Indo-Pacific. Of course, it appears everything Australia has done since he left politics has been wrong, culminating supposedly in our proposed purchase of nuclear-powered submarines to attack China, whereas our French subs were for defence only.

Rod Steed, Booragoon, WA

Paul Keating’s isolationist stance for Australia, should China invade Taiwan, indicates a world view without moral foundation. Had Hitler’s march into the Sudetenland been answered in 1938, rather than the West washing its hands of Czechoslovakia, Germany’s territorial ambitions might well have been cauterised. Australia and other Anglosphere nations generally seek to adhere to democratic principles, something Mr Keating sadly seems to have forgotten.

Bruce Watson, Mosman, NSW

Reading the excellent analyses of Greg Sheridan (“He’s not all wrong, but some of it’s madness”, 11/11) and John Lee (“Memo Mr Keating: we’re not crazy brave on China”, 11/11) on Paul Keating’s address, I was reminded of the old Mark Twain quotation that “history doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes”.

Surely Keating, as an admirer of Winston Churchill, would recognise the similarities between Australia’s strategic circumstances in the 2020s and Britain’s in the late 1930s, where an out-of-touch elite was determined to appease Hitler’s Germany at any cost?

Back then it was the “great unwashed”, the miners and the mill workers, who were the backbone of Churchill’s and Clement Att­lee’s opposition to Nazism. Similarly, recent opinion polls show that the opposition to the excesses of the Chinese Communist Party in Australia has sprung primarily and spontaneously from the man and woman on the street. It is extraordinarily sad that our contemporary elites are incapable or unwilling to see the strategic wood for the trees.

Mitch McDonald, Abbotsford, NSW

Not nutters after all

When Daniel Andrews introduced his new pandemic bill in the Victorian parliament, the first protest marchers up Collins St were dismissed as a minority rabble of vexatious anti-vaxxers endangering public health.

Then the marchers grew in number and continued their protests over successive weekends. Growing numbers of young parents with babies in prams, and older pensioners, have marched peacefully and respectfully to express their concerns about the draconian new law.

Still they were dismissed as disruptive nutters by the government and sections of the media, especially the ABC.

Now we find that 60 highly respected senior members of the Victorian Bar Association, including Jack Rush QC and Gavin Silbert SC, oppose the legislation (10/11).

I look forward to the sight of those 60 QCs marching up Collins St next weekend, arm-in-arm with their fellow media-designated nutters.

John Bell, Heidelberg Heights, Vic

Heartbreaking

Within the Covid vaccination debate, whether we are for or against, surely we must be very careful not to create a modern-day leper class of unvaccinated people (“Miners sent home without pay”, 11/11).

We have stepped up, educating our citizens within our liberal democratic system and encouraging them to interrogate sources before making decisions. I don’t think every anti-vaxxer is necessarily uneducated or delusional.

We are now seeing charity workers being stood down, careers and professions lost, and upset employers, employees and families. What of the mental health fallout?

This is leading to ostracism of a group of people, something we Australians say we don’t do, and it breaks my heart.

Wendy Jeffrey, Kings Park, SA