Why Clive Palmer apologised twice to the Chinese

PRO-CHINA activists helped persuade Clive Palmer to send a second letter of apology to Chinese ambassador Ma Zhaoxu.

PUP leader Clive Palmer in Canberra.

PRO-CHINA activists used their connections with Palmer United Party West Australian senator Zhenya Wang to help persuade Clive Palmer to send a second letter of apology to Chinese ambassador Ma Zhaoxu.

Businessman Qian Qiguo, a veteran leader of pro-China groups in Australia, told The Australian yesterday that he learned at the start of the week of the content of an initial letter sent by Mr Palmer. That letter, dated August 25, became public on Tuesday. But it has now emerged that Mr Palmer sent a second letter, dated August 26, amending the ­apology.

The first letter was intended to defuse the growing hostility that Mr Palmer’s ABC TV Q&A insults about China a week earlier had aroused. Mr Qian said that the letter would not have been well received by Chinese people.

Mr Palmer said in it: “We must always have an open mind; an open mind allows us to put ourselves in the other person’s ­position and brings greater under­standing and less conflict to the world.”

GRAPHIC: Palmer’s apologies

He said this “helps me understand why people think the way they do”.

Mr Qian, who is based in Sydney and exports goods to China, said: “An apology is an apology. Adding these thoughts about having an open mind is not helpful from a Chinese perspective.”

Mr Qian, who came to Australia from Beijing in 1988, earlier organised a protest against Mr Palmer by about 200 Chinese Australians outside parliament in Canberra. Mr Palmer’s awareness of the protest, he said, helped push him into apologising a week after calling the Chinese “bastards” and “mongrels”.

Mr Qian said: “We had already sent a very, very strong message to Senator Wang, that this was not good for Chinese people, and not good for Australia, that we were very angry.”

After arriving in Canberra, Mr Qian discussed Mr Palmer’s letter — of which he had been sent a copy — with Senator Wang in the latter’s office. Unlike some others in PUP, he said, Senator Wang was “a professional”. Following this, he said, the senator passed the message to Mr Palmer, who in turn sent a second letter to Mr Ma, which discarded the “open mind” references. This amounted to a modest victory, he said.

Mr Palmer had flown to Perth for talks with Senator Wang last week, amid a furious reaction to his Q&A remarks. He claimed that his comments went unmentioned: “We just discussed what was important for WA.”

The former parliamentary leader of the PUP in Queensland, Alex Douglas, said yesterday Mr Palmer’s decision to say sorry to China was largely about placating the senator, who was more likely than any of the other three to quit the party.

Dr Douglas, a Queensland MP who resigned as PUP leader this month, predicted yesterday that Senator Wang would walk out on Mr Palmer if he continued to attract derision and ridicule for his bizarre antics. “The apology has nothing much to do with China — it’s about political ground and perception in Australia,’’ Dr Douglas said yesterday.

“Dio would have seen Clive’s outburst as pig-ignorant and reckless — he would have expected Clive to immediately rectify it.

“Dio is a highly principled, measured and intelligent man who wants everyone to set high standards. Of the four senators (PUP-aligned Ricky Muir of the Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party, Glenn Lazarus and Jacqui Lambie), Dio is the one most likely to leave the PUP.

“Clive’s priorities when he made his apology were, first, political ground in Australia, Dio Wang and, finally, China.”

Mr Qian said he did not believe that Senator Wang had considered quitting over Mr Palmer’s remarks, and that the senator instead thought he had a valuable role to play, in part by representing a Chinese perspective.

Dr Douglas, who left the Liberal National Party to join the PUP last year, said Mr Palmer knew he would never mend fences with the Chinese government by issuing an apology, but his statement would help to repair some of the political damage caused by his comments.

Mr Palmer’s relationship with China is dysfunctional and worsening. The Chinese government-owned Citic Pacific has taken legal proceedings accusing Mr Palmer of fraud and dishonesty in a row over $12 million in Chinese funds that he allegedly wrongfully siphoned from a National Australia Bank account to fund his political party in the lead-up to the federal election last September. He has denied any wrongdoing.

The protest in Canberra this week was conducted by the Australian Action Committee for Peace and Justice Incorporated. It is led by Mr Qian, a formidable ­organiser with considerable influence in Australia’s Chinese community. Mr Qian, 56, is also leader of the China and South Korea Community Alliance, which demonstrated “against the Japanese rightists” in Sydney’s Strathfield Plaza in March.

As president of the Australian Confucius Research Society he led a protest in Canberra against visiting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe last month.

He is also chairman of the Sydney Council for the Promotion of Peaceful Reunification of China — focused on the “return” of Taiwan — and he is honorary president of the Australian Chinese Performing Artists Association.