never the twain shall meet
From the ASPI Strategist
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An international system is only effective if it’s seen as fair to the vast majority, including those who disagree with our point of view.
Not BS - https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/ru...alert-alarmed/
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China has become the most formidable challenge to Asia’s regional order, and to Australia’s stake in that order, since the days of Japanese imperialism.
(i.e. since the days of european colonialism)
BS - https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/wi...ed-order-asia/
and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you meh
Australia ideal testing ground for China's influence - Global Times
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China may not like being lectured by Australia about politics, human rights or anything else. But Chinese policymakers need to recognize that there are equally strong opinions about key aspects of "Australian values" that will generate significant blowback if consciously or accidentally threatened.
Is one of these "Australian Values" white supremacy? Just asking 'cos I heard more racist nonsense in two weeks in Australia than in eighteen years in the US. Don't think it was malicious, sure was noticeable. Here's an explanation I got from someone, "when we call a chinky, "a chinky", it's not being racist, it's just what we call 'em."
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China's policymakers need to realize that it's not even necessary for claims about interference to be true, or any different in intent from the sorts of thing that every other country does for that matter, for them to create significant blowback.
http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1098390.shtml
it seems of little use to talk to anyone, not just the countries mentioned in this article, that counts a disregard for the truth as a value
...
[anecdote] When I was working in Australia a guy came in and after the briefest exchange seemed to take an instant dislike to me. If I was the only one in the shop he'd generally leave and come back when there was someone else he could deal with. A while later I was out having a smoke and he drove up in his ute. There was a White Pride Worldwide sticker with the celtic cross on his bumper. I figured okay I'm half-chinese so it's an invasion thing.
A few weeks later White Pride guy is in the shop and this chinese guy walks in. White Pride guy sees him, breaks into a big smile and they hang around laughing and joking for about fifteen minutes then go get a sandwich. I asked the other guy in the shop, "What's up with White Pride guy?" He goes, "I't's your accent (eighteen years in the States). He thinks you're a septic (septic tank - yank). He doesn't like Americans."
The "flip side" of Chinese economic activity
Surely not as a Chinese company has purchased Greece's major commercial port, Piraeus and the Italians think there is a fraud:
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uropean Union and Italian authorities are investigating suspected wide-scale tax fraud by Chinese criminal gangs importing goods via Greece’s largest port of Piraeus, a trade gateway between China and Europe, officials said.
Link:https://www.euractiv.com/section/eu-...way-to-europe/
Australia’s real choice about China
An opinion piece by the Australian commentator, Hugh White, that opens with:
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Australia’s problem with China is bigger and simpler than we think, and thus harder to solve. It isn’t that Beijing doesn’t like Julie Bishop, or that it’s offended by our new political interference legislation, or that it’s building impressive new armed forces, or staking claims in the South China Sea. It’s that
China wants to replace the United States as the primary power in East Asia, and we don’t want that to happen. We want America to remain the primary power because we don’t want to live under China’s shadow.
Other nations in the region and beyond have to make choices; which the author writes as - near the end:
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....what price are we willing to pay to resist it, and how far are we prepared to go? Those choices must be based on a realistic assessment of China’s power and ambitions, and of the cost we will incur by opposing them.
Link:https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/au...e-about-china/
Tracking China’s “Little Blue Men”—A Comprehensive Maritime Militia Compendium
This popped up via Twitter thanks to a "lurker" and has yet to be read fully. I am sure this capability has appeared here before. The author's introduction:
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Rarely is a topic so little recognized and so little understood, yet so important and so amenable to research using Chinese-language open sources… To increase awareness and understanding of this important subject, here is a convenient compendium of major publications and other documents available on the matter thus far.
Link:http://www.andrewerickson.com/2018/06/the-complete-china-maritime-militia-bookshelf-fully-updated-just-now/?
IISS: Guardians of the Belt and Road
An un-read IISS blog article that is sub-titled:
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Chinese private security companies are going global to protect the country's assets and citizens, in the sometimes unstable countries linked to Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative.
Link:https://www.iiss.org/blogs/analysis/2018/08/guardians-belt-and-road?