Clive Hamilton is treating us as mugs

Professor Clive Hamilton. Picture: Gary Ramage

Anyone who accuses the likes of Bob Carr and Paul Keating as being akin to Chinese agents of influence knows he is in for a fight. When he has form as an outrageous, outlandish and, worst of all, foolish attention seeker, he really should think better of it and keep his mouth shut and his pen in his desk drawer.

Keating’s sin is the fact that he chairs an Australian Chinese Business forum. Trying to facilitate more trade with our biggest trading partner seems to me to be in Australia’s best interest.

Carr’s attempts to urge Australia to have an independent foreign policy is also sensible. We do not have to slavishly follow the US on absolutely every aspect of foreign policy. When it comes to China any sensible Australian with an IQ above 50 knows that economically now and into the foreseeable future, Australia needs Chinese co-operation.

The Chinese have a command economy which means their leadership can turn the taps on or off at any time.

On page 22 of Silent Invasion: How China Is Turning Australia into a Puppet State, Clive Hamilton writes that “China is using fake history to position itself to make a future claim over Australia”. The first time I heard that the yellow peril was sweeping down from China was when I was five. St Raphael’s primary school at South Hurstville in Sydney was run by the Sisters of Charity and Sister Annette warned the 2nd class that the Chinese were coming. I did not sleep for a week from fear at the forthcoming invasion. What the nuns could have me think when I was five does not stand up to a further 63 years’ experience. Australians can detect hysterical nonsense better than most. Hamilton treats us as mugs and children.

Eschewing all claims to empirical research, Hamilton’s Chinese/Australian “friends” have given him enough to assert that there are “more than 100,000 to 200,000 Chinese in Australia who are loyal to the PRC”.

Here’s a flash, Clive: I know Poms in Australia who always cheer on the Old Country when they play Australia. I know Croats and Serbs, Italians and Greeks who do the same but it doesn’t make them spies or disloyal citizens.

When it comes to hypocrisy, Hamilton could give even our Prime Minister a run for his money. Let’s examine his views on democracy. He writes on page 213: “As I studied the views of the various ‘friends of China’ driving the debate in this country, one thing came as a shock to me — how little some value democracy”. This patriotic stance stirs the soul and frightens the appropriate forces. Its value, however is somewhat diminished by the fact that on his blog in 2007 he suggested that democracy might have to be suspended over climate change.

For the record I have not spoken to any Chinese government representative or diplomat in over a decade except for a lunch with the bloke running the Beijing Olympics. I am also aware that the Chinese government is not always on the side of all that is good and holy. There is not much doubt that China has not been anywhere near tough enough on enforcing sanctions against North Korea. The building of military and naval bases on the islands it has constructed is adventurism at its most dangerous.

The idea that we should run around like chooks with our heads cut off, branding the PRC as our “enemy” is just plain crazy. The good ship Australia should shove Hamilton out the back with the other irritating flotsam and jetsam which pollutes our thinking.