China's Emergence as a Superpower (2015 onwards)

[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

[Bill Moore]

From the link you posted.

The world would be a safer place if Kerry had learned as fast as Clinton did. Or if Obama had been as tough, consistent and focused with his follow through.

China would not be building "a great wall of sand" in the South China Sea, as the US Pacific Commander colourfully put it last week, if John Kerry had continued Clinton's powerful regional diplomacy and Obama had not lost interest.

In my opinion John Kerry is an idiot and traitor starting with his unfounded comments on the Vietnam War that he could not back up with any facts. Recently this clown went to the Middle East in an unofficial capacity and told the Palestinians to oppose any peace deal that the Trump administration was working on. That seems to be working out great for everyone now. He has a long history of child like behavior not aligned with U.S. values that defy commonsense. Notably absent from this article which is three years old is Bush Junior's decision to invade Iraq, which in the informed opinion of many was the greatest strategic mis-step in U.S. history, and the subsequent commitment allowed both Russia and China to increase their hegemonic behavior largely unopposed.

Obama's was elected because he opposed Bush's failed foreign policy. Unfortunately, he did little better. Obama was so naïve he confused "don't to stupid sh**" as a foreign policy, and he didn't have the wisdom or courage to confront challenges when he should have. What we have now is too early to tell, partly due to the deep political divide in our system that impedes implementation of strategy.

Backwards Observer comments:

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.

According to one of the articles I linked stated minority dissident groups in Australia opposed to China's policies are being targeting, to include acts of violence. Is it correct? I don't know, maybe an Aussie monitoring this site can weigh in and confirm or refute it. However, they are being pressured by pro China groups in other countries. In regards to the book "Silent Invasion," you stated it is exaggerated. I suspect most books along these lines contain a fair amount of hyperbole, but that doesn't mean the overall argument is invalid. If you think the author is incorrect, the you attack his specific arguments. As one of the articles states, China complained about the book, but they didn't offer any counter arguments, only attempted to delegitimize the author by calling him a zenophobe and racist. Sounds like our far left, a bunch of meaningless labels void of logic.

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.

There is nothing I stated that is an exaggeration, if anything I moderated my comments. If the book contains hyperbole, then expose it with logic. If I recall our the guidance in our former and current National Security Strategy correctly, there isn't anything in it stated we oppose China's rise. In fact, it states we welcome it "if" China participates in a rules based international order. They clearly have a lot to offer to the world. However, a country that pulls a some maps out of a footlocker and then claims that the South China Sea is sovereign territory is clearly not the behavior of a nation that intends to follow the long accepted rules of international behavior.

I have been frustrated with the lack of an effective U.S. strategy that advances our prosperity and security interests for years. China is only one threat, but arguably the most capable. A war strategy won't counter intellectual property thief, unfair trading practices, our China's support for authoritarian leaders in third world nations including Russia. Yes, we need a stronger military, principally to avoid war, but deterrence alone is not a strategy that advances our interests.

[davidbfpo]

Surely not as a Chinese company has purchased Greece's major commercial port, Piraeus and the Italians think there is a fraud:

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/

[AdamG]

Didn't find this previously posted -

The best political commentary out of East Asia last week is the one published on December 15 by South Korea’s second largest newspaper, Dong-A Ilbo. The paper’s editors asked a question on the mind of the entire Korean nation after their president had been outrageously snubbed by the Chinese leadership during his four-day state visit to the communist country, and Korean reporters accompanying their president’s visit were savagely beaten by thuggish Chinese security guards: “China should reflect on this question: why is it that for such a big country, there is hardly any neighbor that can be described as China’s friend?”
The question is poignant. It reveals a spectacular vulnerability of China’s national security: China has no real friends along its long, vast land and maritime borders, and any Chinese aggression against any one of its many aggrieved neighbors will likely trigger a massive defense and military coalescence as well as a much stronger coalition of the willing against China.

This is indeed China’s Achilles heel.

https://www.hoover.org/research/chinas-achilles-heel

[AdamG]

Some of China’s biggest strides are coming in air-to-air missiles, the weapons that for one or two million dollars can destroy a $150 million aircraft. That’s a cost efficient way of trying to level the playing field with the U.S.. China’s defense budget is well over three times as big as Russia’s or India’s, but still much lower than the $610 billion the U.S. spends, according to SIPRI.

In March, the U.S. Air Force awarded a half-billion-dollar contract to supply close allies with Raytheon Inc.’s latest long range air-to-air missile, capable of hitting enemy planes from 100 miles (160 kilometers) away. The Meteor, a new European equivalent, may be even more deadly. But China’s latest offering, the PL-15, has a greater range than either.

Airborne Warning
The PL-15 also supports an active electronically-scanned array radar that makes evasion difficult for the most agile of fighter jets. Russia has yet to succeed in equipping its own missiles with the technology. When the PL-15 was first tested in public, then-U.S. Air Force Air Combat Command chief Herbert “Hawk” Carlisle was concerned enough to call on Congress to fund a response.

Another Chinese air-to-air weapon in development, provisionally known as PL-XX, would strike slow-moving airborne warning and control systems, the flying neural centers of U.S. air warfare, from as far away as 300 miles. At closer quarters, China’s new PL-10 missile is comparable to the best “fire-and-forget” equivalents, meaning any dogfight would likely end with a so-called mutual kill, a significant deterrent.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...r-in-the-skies