China: ‘Buying, spying, lying, denying’

Red right hand: Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi tells Julie Bishop his mad kung fu skills could split a stack of White Papers. Picture: AFP

“The cleverest of all, in my opinion, is the man who calls himself a fool at least once a month.” Fyodor Dostoyevsky was no idiot, and as debate crackled over the coming China crisis, immigration, Great Barrier Reef science and the asininities of Yassmin, among other things, the foolish faltered while informed Australians got pithy wit’ it right here in the Readers’ Comments column. Welcome ... let’s engage.

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Comment of the week goes to Patricia for her screed suggesting Julie Bishop’s “New Asian Order” White Paper might be better put to use as dim sum wrappings:

“Let’s say that tomorrow Xi decides that it is time for Australia to understand that the US is utterly incapable of protecting Australia’s national interests. So, he switches off all Chinese tourists. Just like that. Those in transit can go and come back. None of them board a plane to Australia. By the day after tomorrow the Australian tourism industry is stuffed.

“The week after that he announces that unless certain Australian military arrangements with the US are fixed, no new Chinese students will enter Australian universities.

Paper cuts: Foreign Affairs minister Julie Bishop asks the PM and trade minister Steve Ciobo what’s black and white and red all over? Picture: AAP

“Have the Chinese shown that they are prepared to employ this gambit? Of course. When the Philippines parliament rebadged a bit of ocean the ‘West Philippines Sea’, their banana exports to China were banned and the industry collapsed overnight.

“No amount of nuclear power, naval equipment, submarines, planes, tanks or infantry can fix this. The central failure of the White Paper is that avoids mentioning Australia’s core foreign policy dilemma:

“No state has ever been able to maintain a foreign policy stance that combines a military alliance with one hegemon and an economic dependence on another hegemon. Ignoring it will not fix it. This foreign policy is nothing much more than an extremely risky (and probably failed) bet that the economic hegemon will continue to tolerate us kowtowing to our military hegemon.”

Patricia also summarised things later in the discussion:

“The Russians, the Yellow Peril, Reds under the Beds, Radical Islamists, The Russians, back to the Yellow Peril.”

Think local, stuff global, pleaded Peter:

“Don’t sell all the family farm to foreign interests, put incentive into domestic ownership, development, growth and employment, for example, corporate and personal tax cuts, drives spending, growth, employment and tax collections, money stays in Australia.”

Axel averred:

“One only has to read Dick Cheney’s book Exceptionalism and it becomes clear what ‘inter­national rules-based order’ in the eyes of the ‘Western Democracies’ really means.”

Release the Abbotts: The sealed section of the White Paper contains plans for an army of life-sized Tony Abbott robots to storm through China, shirtfronting movers and shakers in a bid to curb China’s rising power.

Darren was dubious:

“It really doesn’t matter what the White Paper says, the incoming Shorten Labor government will set it aside and do their own, which of course will strip the guts out of defence and set us back a decade. Meanwhile everybody else in the region is spending up big time.”

Mark played the Dasher card:

“It doesn’t help when certain ALP politicians have their bills paid by Chinese interests.”

Garry said please mind the union gap:

“And the CFMEU demonstrate in Melbourne alongside Overseas Chinese students and local Chinese ‘sympathetic to China’ who are often spurred on by local Chinese agents. For all intents and purposes, it appears that the Australian union movement has been penetrated (perhaps even funded) by Communist China. Not sure if they have advised their members of this or obtained their approval in advance!”

James the Elder was wise, and earns runner-up for comment of the week:

“So, what are China’s interests? Under Xi Jinping and his ‘hard faction’ of the CCP, it is the repression of the Chinese people to a life of Orwellian ‘happiness’ while gradually bringing to fruition Xi’s China Dream in 2049. This is the recreation of China’s mythical Celestial Empire, where the Middle Kingdom, China, thought it ruled the whole world. Xi intends to rule the whole world.

“It will take time but China has made an aggressive start in Asia and is busily employing cash for comment via ex-pollies like Paul Keating Bob Carr and Andrew Robb — (and Sam Dastyari and a few of his Labor mates) in Australia to put its case. Meanwhile it controls local Chinese populations and represses criticism of China through its Confucian Institutes in our universities and threatens legal action against an author and publisher for a book that threatened to reveal what China is doing to Australia.

Shanghai Sam: Senator Sam Dastyari, friend of China. Picture: AFP

“Make no mistake Australia is going to become a Chinese tributary state along with the rest of Asia. It will take time but China knows we are a soft target.

“On the bright side, the struggle is always characterised as one between the United States and China, when in fact, it is between liberal democracy and totalitarianism. The US has many allies in this struggle and it is about time that China was made to understand this in no uncertain terms.

‘The combination of the US, the EU, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia and many other nations far outweighs China’s military and economic strength. China has Putin, a temporary ally, with whom it is destined to compete in the Russian Far East and Central Asia and a variety of mendicant states such as Zimbabwe.

“What is needed is for the liberal democratic states (the Quadrilateral Alliance is a good start) to face China as a united front and force it to conform to the international rules-based order. I see signs of this emerging. 2018 is going to be an interesting year.

“There are ways of dealing with China. China does not want a military war which it would lose. It wants to continue with its secret war: wealth and stealth — buying spying lying and denying until it reaches a tipping point and as Sun Tzu said: ‘Men can see the tactics that I use but none can understand how I achieve final victory.’ If the West were to adopt similar tactics: insisting on reciprocity in trade for instance, China would quickly feel the pinch — in China where it hurts.”

Soft power: China’s cadre of goodwill ambassador pandas quietly go about their psy-ops mission to make the Middle Kingdom more cuddly. Picture: AFP

Get behind me Satan, said Dean666:

“What I don’t understand is this apparent belief that we can work with China bilaterally on matters of security. Exactly how would a democracy like us ‘share responsibility for supporting ­regional and global security’ with a socialist state like China?

“They don’t share our values of freedom and liberalism. Exactly what is our security supposed to protect us from, if not expanding non-democratic states like China?”

“If China shared some of our basic values about freedom and justice then I might be persuaded that the future with them could be rosy, but there’s nothing there. They make their values clear every day in the way they behave. They show contempt for international shipping lanes and laws. They continue to crush their own people. China IS 1984 in many ways, changing history to suit the regime political needs.”

Last word to Jeff:

“One Belt One Road, financing Adani, as Mr Alibaba said the world has two options to advance, one being trade or one being war.”

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She’s baa-aack. A move to England isn’t enough to silence the wit and wisdom of Yassmin Abdel-Magied, who bobbed up on The Project to compare Australia to an abusive boyfriend. F1 revved up:

“A cultural warrior decked out in the appropriate uniform spruiking some of the worst theocratic, abusive and despotic regimes in the world. A third world apologist, on a second rate show demonstrating first class hypocrisy.”

Down under: Author and big-mouth Yassmin Abdel-Magied isn’t about to let a little thing like moving to England get in the way of her brilliant career as Australia’s incessantly tweeting canary in the left’s coal mine. Picture: Chris Pavlich

William said it was really nothing:

“Abusive boyfriend, Yasmin? Don’t put up with it, for goodness sake — just leave him.”

Kate was cross:

“ ‘How grateful you were for all of the good stuff.’ I’ve never heard YAM say anything that could be construed as gratitude for ‘all of the good stuff’ she received while living in Australia. All I’ve ever heard is abuse and whinging.”

Mark surmised:

“I think your ‘boyfriend’ actually dumped you, and you’re still pretending your ‘boyfriend’ likes you around your remaining pretend friends. Your ‘boyfriend’ is glad to see you haven’t changed but at least have moved out of the neighbourhood.”

James jested:

“Maybe it’s like the movie of that book: He’s Just Not That Into You.”

Don demurred:

“It’s not me, it’s you.”

Kate kicked off:

“There is a difference between constructive criticism and abuse. Australians will acknowledge that we have our problems and are far from perfect. Just look at our politicians. And we have always been able to laugh at ourselves.”

Abdel shrugged: What can I tell ya, Straya’s just not that into me. Picture: Kym Smith

Tim took Yassmin’s metaphor and flogged it within an inch of its life:

“She is mostly right. Australia is like an abused boyfriend who takes out loans and lines of credit to try to keep the pretty girlfriend who wants to socialise and party. Yas is very pretty. Beautiful skin. She wears wonderful clothes and has great fashion sense. She is really quite alluring. She is well spoken. My god what a catch.

“So the abused boyfriend keeps throwing money at her to buy new clothes. Keeps giving her well paid jobs. Keeps buying. In those situations we all know how it ends. The more the naive boyfriend spoils and worships the clever pretty girl the less she respects him.

“He gets dumped.”

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Outspoken James Cook Univer­sity professor Peter Ridd has taken Federal Court action to defend his scathing criticism of Great Barrier Reef science. A different Peter said well played:

“Ridd’s comments were intelligent, mild and perfectly responsible. The action against him by JCU is a sign of the degree to which universities today loathe freedom of speech and free inquiry. If you don’t toe the line you will be investigated by petty despots.”

Reef madness: James Cook University Professor Peter Ridd is standing up for his Great Barrier Reef junk science claims all the way to the Federal Court. Picture: Cameron Laird

Party on, said PTP:

“An idealist fighting against those with funding. I wish him well. Like Bill Leak — the martyr of free speech.”

Michael mused:

“The argument boils down to this. Professor Ridd thinks that some, if not all, his colleagues are doing bad science and is prepared to say so. The JCU on the other hand thinks that Professor Ridd is not entitled to his views on the ‘science’ produced at that university.

“They are in effect doing two things. The first is to limit Professor Ridd’s entitlement to free speech and that is bad enough but secondly they are distorting the very essence of science. The right of every scientist is to challenge the work of others to prove what they say.

“The lawyers will have a field day but in the end no one in the legal field will be able to say one way or the other whether the science coming out of JCU is good or bad and if this results in Professor Ridd’s sacking the science at JCU will take a hit.”

Atoll toll: Love, not science, will save the reef, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk seems to be saying. Picture: AAP

Egil egged him on:

“The green ‘scientific’ juggernaut is deeply upset by Professor Ridd’s blatant display of honesty.”

Jason S jumped in:

“JCU is a disgrace ... This groupthink in Universities needs to stop!”

Again, Egil:

“Graham Lloyd deserves credit for doing what many Environment Editors avoids like the plague; providing honesty and debate where the green establishment would much prefer obfuscation, censorship, silence and that most tired of cliches: ‘The Science is settled’.”

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Warrior-turned-MP Andrew Hastie was deluged with abuse across social media by SSM Yes supporters for his declared intention to abstain from the vote in parliament. Catherine offered congratulations:

“ ‘You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.’ (Churchill)”

Haters gonna hate, said Opinionator:

“Showing their true colours. So much for the pretty rainbow facade!”

Screenshot showing an abusive comment on MP Andrew Hastie's social media site after the same-sex marriage survey result was declared.

Bernie was in his Sunday best:

“At our Church, after Mass, a Yes supporter came into ... church, had a look inside then turned around and asked if parishioners had been down at a nearby roundabout over previous Sundays, displaying No corflutes and posters.

“When told that was correct, Mr Yes Man then proceeded to wave both middle fingers at those present while subjecting them to a barrage of venom, invective and obscenity for daring to oppose a Yes vote.

“When told to leave the property because he was trespassing, he refused to do so and continued with his abuse and threatening behaviour. Yes, there were small children present. Yes, parishioners felt intimidated and threatened. Yes, the matter has been referred to the police.”

A SSM Yes voter attempts to use her rainbow antennae to take over Andrew Hastie’s brain and turn him from ex-commando to rainbow warrior. Picture: AAP

Monarchist was bemused:

“So let me get this clear: Activists didn’t want a plebiscite; they wanted a conscience vote in Parliament. They forcibly blocked the plebiscite, making the only option available a ‘non-binding’ survey.

“Having forced the non-binding survey, they now want it to be binding. And they are getting an MP exercising his conscience in Parliament — what they wanted in the first place.”

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Chris Mitchell got stuck into the ABC in his weekly media column, suggesting bias and bureaucracy should make way for better, more balanced content. A conundrum, carped christopher:

“Insiders yesterday: numerous discussions regarding Liberal voters who ‘bucked the trend’ and voted Yes in the SSM vote. Talking heads regarding the Liberal voters being more ‘progressive’ than the party and Tony Abbott (they’re obsessed by TA).

“Not a peep about the swarms of Labor voters, including conservative religious migrants, in Western Sydney voting no to SSM: nothing, nada, zilch.”

Insiders job: The PM attempts to balance on a bias. Source: ABC

Peter pooh-poohed:

“The ABC is a left wing collective of politically correct snowflakes in a sheltered workshop funded by taxpayers.”

Another Peter proffered:

“The ABC is perfectly balanced — from the greens on the left to the far right faction of the ALP.”

Alex asked:

“The ABC got me into politics from my early 20s, in combination with my wife’s tree hugger work colleagues. Listening to ABC as I drove around the SA, VIC and NSW countryside I learned that the truth was too much for ABC and if they didn’t like the questions you were going to ask when you called in, you got put on hold until the program ended.

“We see the bias, others don’t, certainly not insiders. The ABC and friends of even call it independent journalism but if they want to be independent, why do we fund them so much?”

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