Paul Keating AUKUS rhetoric a relic of past bitterness
On AUKUS, and on China, Paul Keating attacks Anthony Albanese not from the left, nor from the right, but from the past. It’s not even the past of the Hawke/Keating governments of the 1980s and ’90s, which were responsible and proactive on national security.
Keating’s rambling critiques today hark back instead to the Labor culture of the 1970s, when ideological anti-Americanism, and chip-on-the-shoulder hostility to Britain, dominated Labor culture.
This rhetoric is fossilised, an antique, a survivor on the Noah’s ark of Labor resentments and bitterness long since laid to rest by modern leaders.
Keating made personal criticisms of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Defence Minister Richard Marles and Foreign Minister Penny Wong. He accused them of being incompetent, deeply unwise, politically cowardly, and subordinating Australia’s interests to those of a foreign nation, our ally the US.
In fact, Albanese, Marles, Wong and their government stand in the absolute social democratic mainstream, with Centre Left leaders like America’s Joe Biden, or Germany’s Social Democrat Chancellor, Olaf Scholz. These leaders are enhancing their respective nations’ defence capabilities. Many national leaders express concern about Beijing’s massive arms build-up and aggressive behaviour.
Keating characteristically mixed very poor foreign policy judgment with many factual mistakes.
He said that Americans would have preferred the Chinese to remain in poverty forever. This is the opposite of the truth.
Modern China was brought in to the international economy as a deliberate act of US policy.
Washington midwifed Beijing’s entry into the World Trade Organisation. Bill Clinton awarded Beijing Most Favoured Nation trading status despite its human rights record. China grew rich from the American market. The US transferred massive wealth to China with bilateral trade deficits of more than US$300bn.
Many things Keating said were simply not true. He claimed the only military threat Beijing could exert against Australia would be full scale invasion and it would be easy for Australia to destroy Chinese ships with planes and missiles.
This is astonishingly unsophisticated. I’ve never heard anyone suggest Beijing would invade Australia. But, for the sake of argument, Beijing could mount devastating missile attacks. It could cut off our trade routes by closing the South China Sea to us, it could mine our harbours, or launch devastating denial of service cyber attacks.
And, of course, if it destroyed our air force through relentless missile attacks it could indeed send an invasion force, if none of our allies, namely the US, offered us help.
I don’t remotely think this is going to happen, but Keating’s schoolboy analysis isn’t even logical in its own terms.
Keating claimed he effectively intimidated Foreign Minister Penny Wong into not launching journalist Peter Hartcher’s book on China, or providing a cover endorsement for it. In fact, she did both.
This Keating fiction shows he wildly over estimates his influence in the Labor Party.
It also shows he can’t even get his facts right about an incident that happened five minutes ago.
In a blaze of abuse, rudeness, bad temper and bitterness, Keating declared war on the Albanese government. That should have the happy outcome of removing even the residue of his fading but doleful influence.