China's Emergence as a Superpower (2015 onwards)

[Backwards Observer]

The Vanuatu Daily Post's article's full title is: Want To Lead In The Pacific? Try Listening First

The Chinese Bases folderol is just the latest chorus in a litany of Australian indifference to Pacific voices. Every time some tendentious prat opens their mouth and starts telling the Pacific that what’s good for Australia is obviously good for us, the entire region sighs.

That jolt you just felt was a collective eye roll that nearly tipped the island.

Can we get something clear? If you want us to listen to you, you’ve got to listen to us.

http://dailypost.vu/opinion/want-to-...35cb27275.html

[Backwards Observer]

From the ASPI Strategist

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/

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/

[Backwards Observer]

Australia ideal testing ground for China's influence - Global Times

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."

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."

[Bill Moore]

I haven't read this yet, not sure when I'll get to it, but it comes highly recommended.

https://www.amazon.com/Silent-Invasi...=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Silent Invasion: China's Influence in Australia

Respected academic Clive Hamilton realised something big was happening when, in 2016, it was revealed that wealthy Chinese businessmen linked to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had become the largest donors to both major Australian political parties. Hamilton began to investigate the Chinese government's influence in Australia. What he found shocked him.

From politics to culture, real estate to agriculture, universities to unions, and even in primary schools, he uncovered compelling evidence of the CCP's infiltration of Australia. It is no exaggeration to say the CCP and Australian democracy are on a collision course, with the CCP determined to win, while Australia looks the other way.

Thoroughly researched and powerfully argued, SILENT INVASION is a sobering examination of the mounting threats to democratic freedoms Australians have for too long taken for granted. Yes, China is important to Australia's economic prosperity; but, Hamilton asks, how much is sovereignty as a nation worth?

'Anyone keen to understand how China draws other countries into its sphere of influence should start with Silent Invasion. This is an important book for the future of Australia. But tug on the threads of China's influence networks in Australia and its global network of influence operations starts to unravel.' –Professor John Fitzgerald, author of Big White Lie: Chinese Australians in White Australia

China pressured the Australian government and the publishing company not publish this book, but they lost that battle. At least the free world won one gray zone battle. No surprise for those who follow China's foreign policy that their claim about non-interference in internal affairs is a bunch of nonsense. Of course this is a form of statecraft that many nations practice to include the U.S., but what makes China different is that they are a totalitarian state with the economic capacity (new) and political willingness (not new) to use economic leverage to coerce countries to conform to their policies. This more often than not creates a zero sum gain for China relative to those coerced, despite China's claim of their desire for a win-win outcome. The truly sad part of this story is China is capable in so many ways of contributing the world in a positive manner to create those win-win agreements that increase global stability and prosperity for all concerned, yet they choose not to. One can't help but think they will eventually stumble over their own contradictions.

[Backwards Observer]

China pressured the Australian government and the publishing company not publish this book, but they lost that battle.

You have a source for this assertion?

One of the concerns raised last week inside the committee about publishing the book was the appropriateness of granting it the parliamentary power of qualified privileged – which prevents the authors of submissions from being sued, and protects others such as journalists who re-publish the contents of the book.

Three committee members were understood to have been concerned that tabling the manuscript would enable a commercial publisher who otherwise wouldn’t print the book to do so.

https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/201...lent-invasion/

Hamilton did not agree to heavy edits to the book to mitigate the potential for legal repercussion, which ultimately lead to the breakdown of the publishing deal. But he emphasised Allen & Unwin were not to blame and he held no ill-will towards the publishing giant.

An email from the publisher to Hamilton read that the most serious of the legal threats “was the very high chance of a vexatious defamation action against Allen & Unwin, and possibly against you personally as well”.

https://www.theguardian.com/australi...sher-pulls-out

Is acting on legal advice about potential lawsuits the same thing as direct pressure from China? Maybe you have access to sources that detail direct pressure from the PRC. If they can't stop the publication of a book, not sure how this speaks to their massive influence.

If the Australian government is serious about standing tall for their stake in the rules-based order in Asia, they should cease all trade with the PRC, reintroduce conscription, drastically increase the size of their military and develop or acquire a nuclear deterrent. Until then all their rhetorical posturing is being underwritten by American blood and subsidised by PRC treasure.

I don't think the PRC is ready for her close-up. As far as the US, it's like what the hell happened to you people.

[Bill Moore]

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-43193146

'China influence' book proves divisive in Australia debate

"China plans to dominate the world, and has been using Australia and New Zealand as a testing ground for its tactics to assert its ascendancy in the West," writes Prof Hamilton, a lecturer in public ethics at Charles Sturt University.

He says such a suggestion would have been "fantastic" in the past, but now "so much evidence has accumulated that the conclusion seems irresistible".

China and Russia, like other powers have practiced this type of statecraft for decades, but with social media and now economic power they can take it to a new level.

Last year, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation warned in a report that ethnic communities in Australia were "the subject of covert influence operations" aimed at shutting down criticism. It did not name China specifically.

Borrowing the Russia thug methodology?

The book has "international resonance", according to Prof Rory Medcalf, Head of the National Security College at the Australian National University.

"It is a book about how a multicultural democracy struggles when a foreign power exploits the open nature of its system," said Prof Medcalf, whose work is also quoted in the book.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-2...tralia/9464692

He refers to classified Chinese Government reports which instruct Chinese officials to infiltrate overseas churches that have Chinese congregations. "They instruct cadres to monitor, infiltrate and 'sinify' overseas Chinese churches by actively promoting the CCP's concepts of Chineseness and 'spiritual love'."

In 2014, he notes, the website of the Canberra Chinese Methodist Church included a statement which linked the rise of the CCP to God's will: "The awe-inspiring righteousness of Xi Jinping, the President of the People's Republic of China, and the rise of a great nation that is modern China are part of God's plan, predestination and blessing."

Again, the Soviets did this throughout the developing world during the Cold War. They even modified some Bibles in Latin America. Churches influence people's opinions, if you can influence the church you may have an exponential impact on opinion making.

China propaganda if you will, has an effective counter argument. This is all racial, Australia is trying to blame it problems on the Chinese, etc. They know that makes Westerners back up and think of a way to side step that accusation. Most interesting, the Chinese offered no counter arguments are the actual asserts in the book. I would rate their gray zone / Sun Tzu strategy of winning without fighting as significantly more sophisticated than Russia's. Although when I listened the BBC video "Does China have Influence in Australia," the Chinese kids they interviewed sounded quite naïve, and focused their comments on the world map being wrong. Of course the South China Sea and Taiwan are sovereign China territory. Amazing, and well if Australia's college kids are anything like ours they'll swallow it hook, line, and sinker.

[Backwards Observer]

Australian strategic orientation is firmly in the US orbit. Trust for the PRC outside of the Australian business community is in the negative. Every weekend a group of elderly Falun Gong supporters sits quietly on the corner in the local chinatown passing out anti-communist pamphlets. Across the street from them is The Epoch Times office. Mainland tourists walk by without seeming to bat an eyelid.

Do you feel that alarmism, exaggeration and distortion make the narrative appear stronger or weaker to exisiting and potential security partners in the Asian rules-based order? Or is it an inadvertent indication that a counter to the PRC's rise lacks a coherent strategy short of war.

[Backwards Observer]

Here's where Australia was in 2015:

In the global game of power in Asia, America is winning hands down - despite China's attempts to exploit US failings.

https://www.smh.com.au/opinion/asia-...09-1mh6tv.html

Now you're telling me they're afraid of their own people

and well if Australia's college kids are anything like ours they'll swallow it hook, line, and sinker.

knock yerselves out