China on our doorstep

[JohnDe]

The only thing scarier is Paul Keating's unhinged ramblings at the Press Club today.

Former Labor frontbencher Stephen Conroy has slammed Paul Keating for his Press Club comments yesterday.​

​

Mr Conroy gave a long list of various Chinese affronts.​

​

“Have some courage and come out and address all of the following issues, Paul Keating: the militarisation of the South China Sea … they broke their word on the Hong Kong treaty … they’re sending its navy regularly to intimidate Vietnam, Philippines, Japan, they broke all the rules of the WTO … they’ve been persecuting their own citizens – the Uighurs, the gay and lesbian community, they’ve attacked countries that support Tibet, they’ve bribed other Pacific island nations to support building infrastructure there.”​

​

“They’re supporting Russia in Ukraine … they kidnap people off the streets of other countries, Chinese are on the run to get away from them, they’ve attacked India on its own border.​

​

“The most laughable and embarrassing thing that Paul said at the club yesterday was Australia – we’re an island, we don’t have to worry, we don’t have a border with them, Paul – they’ve invented the internet since you were in government.”​

​

Mr Conroy highlighted the frequency of cyber attacks on Australia.​

​

“Richard Marles, Penny Wong, and Anthony Albanese have shown the courage to say that enough is enough.”​

 

[rederob]

Then you should have no problem or fear in telling us your real name.

I adopted a set of rules for using social media from the outset that I do not break. Social media is potentially available to anyone, forever, and can therefore be a dangerous and unsafe place for the unwary.

How would you feel if all our media organisations and government agencies gave us reports under false names, and then insist that we believe every word because they have spoken to experts.

I suggest you review the Robodebt transcripts to see who has lied, deceived and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated information, and has had to fess up under oath. Then again, it does appear that many still highly paid people in government, on contract to government, and in the media suffer dementia from very important matters - such as the lawfulness of a policy - that they now say they "cannot recall".

You may be a professor in the field that we discuss, but unless you are willing to put your name to your views and thoughts it is all just heresy and fun.

It's irrelevant who people are rather than what they bring to the table. I don't abide by logical fallacies such as appeals to authority.

The private citizen Paul Keating has the courage to put his name to his personal views.

Paul Keating remains public property as a former PM, having the continued benefit of perks such as
fully paid for advisers, fully-stocked office accommodation, generous superannuation benefits and a lot of free travel.

On topic, what are you offering?

 

[JohnDe]

I adopted a set of rules for using social media from the outset that I do not break. Social media is potentially available to anyone, forever, and can therefore be a dangerous and unsafe place for the unwary.

I suggest you review the Robodebt transcripts to see who has lied, deceived and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated information, and has had to fess up under oath. Then again, it does appear that many still highly paid people in government, on contract to government, and in the media suffer dementia from very important matters - such as the lawfulness of a policy - that they now say they "cannot recall".

It's irrelevant who people are rather than what they bring to the table. I don't abide by logical fallacies such as appeals to authority.

Paul Keating remains public property as a former PM, having the continued benefit of perks such as
fully paid for advisers, fully-stocked office accommodation, generous superannuation benefits and a lot of free travel.

On topic, what are you offering?

That is all fine, as long as you understand that an unnamed opinion by a faceless person should not be taken seriously. These forums are for a bit of fun and we can learn something but must not be taken as knowledgeable. Some of the current problems we see in the US and Australia, people marching for conspiracies, is due to the huge number of faceless people giving opinions. Regulators are currently discussing options to make it law that people must show ID.

As for the robodebt drama, it is coming out in the wash because names of those involved were recorded.

You are within your rights to not give out your name or detailed professional experience, but to allow rumour of your knowledge to go unchecked is false and misleading.

Craton: Just to chime in on @rederob's response.​

If one reads the DSC thread, one will note that rederob has written reports for our military so his words have some weight.​

You may be an expert in all the discussion on this thread, but unless you are willing to share those qualifications you are just another one of us, a faceless forum member with opinions.

rederob: I have corresponded with a many long-time posters...a member at ASF has a copy of a letter of personal thanks I received from a military command for conducting and writing reviews with Commanding Officers on force matters. I don't post in ignorance.​

I mean no offence, however, just like you have a set of social rules, so do I. I read unnamed comments and take them with a pinch of salt, whereas I will take relevance from commentators that put their name and experience up to see.

Your comments in this thread have been only your opinions but you want to come across as someone with experience in the matter. I have also commented but my only knowledge is what I read and what I have learnt from those readings over the years, so I add relevant information from qualified sources for people to make up their own mind.

Yesterday Pual Keating tried the same thing as you, give reasons why China is right and Australian governments are wrong but ignore some of the relevant issues.

Stephen Conroy has asked Paul Keating to address those issues, that Mr. Keating did not mention.

Former Labor frontbencher Stephen Conroy has slammed Paul Keating for his Press Club comments yesterday.​

​

Mr Conroy gave a long list of various Chinese affronts.​

​

“Have some courage and come out and address all of the following issues, Paul Keating: the militarisation of the South China Sea … they broke their word on the Hong Kong treaty … they’re sending its navy regularly to intimidate Vietnam, Philippines, Japan, they broke all the rules of the WTO … they’ve been persecuting their own citizens – the Uighurs, the gay and lesbian community, they’ve attacked countries that support Tibet, they’ve bribed other Pacific island nations to support building infrastructure there.”​

​

“They’re supporting Russia in Ukraine … they kidnap people off the streets of other countries, Chinese are on the run to get away from them, they’ve attacked India on its own border.​

​

“The most laughable and embarrassing thing that Paul said at the club yesterday was Australia – we’re an island, we don’t have to worry, we don’t have a border with them, Paul – they’ve invented the internet since you were in government.”​

​

Mr Conroy highlighted the frequency of cyber attacks on Australia.​

​

“Richard Marles, Penny Wong, and Anthony Albanese have shown the courage to say that enough is enough.”​

 

[farmerge]

I'll pose the question:

Supposing that a real war, a proper one, starts on 1 January 2024. A date I've picked just for simplicity.

This war cuts off Australian access to anything from China and its allies and due to conflict cuts our liquid fuel supply by 50% or a bit over 500,000 barrels per day.

How quickly could we replace that using some other resource as the feedstock?

It took Shell 500 million work hours over 5 years to build a plant producing 140,000 barrels per day of petroleum liquids from natural gas in Qatar. That doesn't include time spent on design, that's just for construction.

They had about 52,000 workers on site building it. Noting they already had the gas sorted so it was just the GTL plant itself they had to build.

Anyone willing to speculate how quickly we could get four of those built with a war going on?

In Australia at present, we unbolt industrial machinery and send it overseas to be repaired. They send it back then the Aussies just reinstall it. Not all of it obviously but it happens - wouldn't be the first time it was airfreighted too when it's urgent.

Our capabilities aren't zero, there are workplaces still doing this stuff locally, but overall we're seriously short on the required skills and an adequate base of workshops and so on. It'd be one almighty scale up required.

And getting a workforce. Nobody wants to work now. Those that do are fully employed. The rest of the bludgrs are on the dole or equivalent.
If this scenario did come to fruition we would be stuffed. No need to worry about rising interest rates, affordable housing, and food.
China would own us in a flick of th eye.

 

[Craton]

That is all fine, as long as you understand that an unnamed opinion by a faceless person should not be taken seriously. These forums are for a bit of fun and we can learn something but must not be taken as knowledgeable. Some of the current problems we see in the US and Australia, people marching for conspiracies, is due to the huge number of faceless people giving opinions. Regulators are currently discussing options to make it law that people must show ID.

<snipped>

Oh well, until we need to prove, show our ID, guess I/we can dismiss all postings in here as irrelevant, nothing serious and just a bit of fun eh?

Now don't get me wrong and yes, I totally get where you're coming from.
My POV is that I don't dimiss a post without applying or trying to apply some critical thinking. It's easy to wave off a statement we may not agree with, to dismiss and critise as having no basis or kudos just because it is anonymous.

I'd think we here at ASF are a tad more evolved that the other congregation of "social" platforms out there and on that basis, are not too swift at disregarding other ASF members POV's and/or postings.

Yes it IS easy to hide behind an anonymous nick and be a k/board warrior but for me at least, ASF is far more advanced and members are quick to spot and call out a fake when we see one.
We excel at robut, honest and constructive debate, a big reason why I'm still here so, let's not devolve and denegrate just because some of us wish to remain "faceless".

I'd also like to make another point.
It is most likely possible that some posters have security clearance status or NDA's that cannot be transgressed. I know I do so I've always that in mind when I post or read posts.

Lastly and irrespective of who we are, I'm all for attacking the ball aka the written word, not the poster.

On topic.
Geez, just my observation but this sure is a hot one and rightly so.
We've all seen how sovereign states can say one thing and do the exact opposite and that is disconcerning for our apparent status quo. No matter what, we don't want to have our comfort zones shattered.

 

[JohnDe]

I'd also like to make another point.
It is most likely possible that some posters have security clearance status or NDA's that cannot be transgressed. I know I do so I've always that in mind when I post or read posts.

Lastly and irrespective of who we are, I'm all for attacking the ball aka the written word, not the poster.

Your mention of security clearance is incorrect. Posting on a forum and hiding your identity would nut cut it.

I have a family member working for the federal government and must follow an assigned security protocol.

Lastly, I only played the ball you passed me:

Craton: Just to chime in on @rederob's response.​

If one reads the DSC thread, one will note that rederob has written reports for our military so his words have some weight.​

Regardless of how good we think the forum and its members are, there is nothing wrong with some constructive discussion and fact proofing.

We can all make comments about what we think, but when we start trying to substantiate ourselves as an expert in a specialist field, then we must prove that. Otherwise, don't mention it and just post like everyone else.

 

[JohnDe]

And getting a workforce. Nobody wants to work now. Those that do are fully employed. The rest of the bludgrs are on the dole or equivalent.
If this scenario did come to fruition we would be stuffed. No need to worry about rising interest rates, affordable housing, and food.
China would own us in a flick of th eye.

There was a massive work force shortage during WWII, but they found a way.

 

[mullokintyre]

There was a massive work force shortage during WWII, but they found a way.

Australia is a very different place to the one during WW2.
Not sure if the current OZ population would just drop everything and run to whatever is needed.
The rules and regulations that have sprung up since them would cripple most independent thought.
Mick

 

[farmerge]

There was a massive work force shortage during WWII, but they found a way.

Most cerrtainly did and thr Land Army was a good example of it. It brought women into the workforce later on.

 

[Smurf1976]

None of what you ask is new, though what you state is overly pessimistic but probably necessary in a time of war.

I'll avoid hijacking the thread too much but suffice to say I probably could write a book on the history of this stuff.....

War ended 1945.

Petrol rationing ended 1950.

Electricity rationing in Tasmania ended 1953, NSW 1954, Victoria 1960.

Big factories the timeline is similar. A lot of things proposed circa 1939 and seen as desperately urgent didn't go into production until the mid-1950's.

Tioxide (Tas) 1948 after attempting to build it since 1937.

EZ Ammonium sulphate plant (Tas) ready to operate in 1950 but sat idle until 1953 due to lack of power.

Geelong oil refinery 1954
Altona (Vic) oil refinery 1954
Kwinana (WA) oil refinery 1955
Kurnell (NSW) oil refinery 1956

Bell Bay (Tas) aluminium smelter 1955 bearing in mind this was a defence project as such, built and run by the Australian Government.

Plus plenty more - paper, cement, steel, gas, power, water and so on. All ended up taking in the order of a decade after the war ended to actually get built and into production, hence there's a pretty long list of things (many now closed) where operation commenced in the mid-1950's.

The big problem, the cause of it taking so long, was simply the lack of availability of machinery and materials. Lots of examples where we had workers but nothing to work with. No cement, no steel and couldn't get the machinery anyway. Steel was still a critical problem at least as late as 1957 that I do know.

So without going into massive detail, my basic concern is that if Australia's involved in a war, and that war puts us on the other side to China, then realistically we're not going to be building much in terms of industrial capacity during the conflict. We can flatten out some land, pour a concrete slab and put a shed on it but then we'll be waiting for China to send us the equipment to go inside. Detail aside that scenario's what happened in WW2.

 

[Smurf1976]

There was a massive work force shortage during WWII, but they found a way.

On one side of the family my grandmother went from being an office worker to farm labourer whilst my grandfather went from being a civil engineer to joining the military.

That was in England.

End of the war, they were done with bombs, plane crashes and manual labour and came to Australia.

In Australia at present though, well we have a sufficient shortage of skilled workers that we're now at the point of paying ridiculous money for those who can and will.

 

[Craton]

Your mention of security clearance is incorrect. Posting on a forum and hiding your identity would nut cut it.

I have a family member working for the federal government and must follow an assigned security protocol.

<snipped>

Without delving too much into the AGSVA (note the digitial footprint check) and using VPN's, if the AFP or somesuch wanted to find and seek, well that's a given.
Anyways, whatever imposed restrictions one has, one must tread cautiously between the contrainsts and even toe the party line.

One that note, link to the official ADF Twiiter and FB pages.

Segue back.
Interesting to note that the road to acquiring nuke subs is called the "Optimal Pathway for Australia".
Link to the ADF AUKUS sub pathway.

 

[farmerge]

Australia is a very different place to the one during WW2.
Not sure if the current OZ population would just drop everything and run to whatever is needed.
The rules and regulations that have sprung up since them would cripple most independent thought.
Mick

Good evening Mr Mullo. I'm not so sure. I think tht people as a whole would put a shoulder to the wheel, so to speak, if and when needed if a confict was foisted on us. For sure there would be those that would need a decent shove, but by and large Australia is for Australians.
Possibly I'm wrong but being brought up in the 50's and 60's certain things were ingrained into us in those days and they do tend to stick.

 

[rederob]

That is all fine, as long as you understand that an unnamed opinion by a faceless person should not be taken seriously.

Opinions having a foundation are valid irrespective of the person.

These forums are for a bit of fun and we can learn something but must not be taken as knowledgeable. Some of the current problems we see in the US and Australia, people marching for conspiracies, is due to the huge number of faceless people giving opinions.

More likely it's sheer dishonesty. Some at ASF continue to post favourably on Trump despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Regulators are currently discussing options to make it law that people must show ID.

That seems unnecessary as alleged unlawful or actionable conduct requires site owners to provide poster's details to relevant authorities. Are we going the way of China?

You are within your rights to not give out your name or detailed professional experience, but to allow rumour of your knowledge to go unchecked is false and misleading.

You actually need evidence in order to say you have been misled or lied to given that I have offered evidence to prove my bona fides on defence matters. It's your choice not to accept that such evidence exists but spurious to claim it is a rumour.
My posts regularly contain links to the information I have relied on as the basis for presenting content that anyone can confirm. In such cases it is again irrelevant who I am as it is for the reader to determine that comments based on that information are reasoned

I mean no offence, however, just like you have a set of social rules, so do I. I read unnamed comments and take them with a pinch of salt, whereas I will take relevance from commentators that put their name and experience up to see.

Smart people can say dumb stuff. Where I see things that don't stack up it makes no difference who said it. If something does not make sense or has a valid refutation, the idea that a named person, or even an expert, has said it, does not somehow change its status. You are extending the fallacious argument from authority to an argument with identity.

Your comments in this thread have been only your opinions but you want to come across as someone with experience in the matter.

Untrue.
Where has China indicated a military intent against Australia?
Which nations accept Taiwan as a region of China?
Excessive expenditure on subs necessarily affects our army and airforce capabilities.
How will a small number of nuclear subs with conventional armaments have greater geographic coverage and firepower than five times as many non-nuclear subs that are also less detectable in continental waters?
America is on the record as stating China's exertion relates only to its periphery and not beyond, so what makes the Pacific region unstable?

Yesterday Pual Keating tried the same thing as you, give reasons why China is right and Australian governments are wrong but ignore some of the relevant issues.

Stephen Conroy, like you, has failed to show how China is a threat in the Pacific region... So here is is your chance.

 

[JohnDe]

Without delving too much into the AGSVA (note the digitial footprint check) and using VPN's, if the AFP or somesuch wanted to find and seek, well that's a given.
Anyways, whatever imposed restrictions one has, one must tread cautiously between the contrainsts and even toe the party line.

One that note, link to the official ADF Twiiter and FB pages.

Segue back.
Interesting to note that the road to acquiring nuke subs is called the "Optimal Pathway for Australia".
Link to the ADF AUKUS sub pathway.

I’m not sure what you’re trying to say, other than implying that you think that the documents provided proof that employees of the ADF can post their thoughts under a pseudonym and it’s unlikely that they will be found out.

 

[JohnDe]

Opinions having a foundation are valid irrespective of the person.

Stephen Conroy, like you, has failed to show how China is a threat in the Pacific region... So here is is your chance.

Better people than I have reported on China's hidden threat. Fair analysis requires an open mind to read from both sides, and then to weigh up the evidence.

Paul Keating has helped create this recent publication to help answer some of your questions -

Keating ignores genocide to defend his ‘China fantasy’

Every genocide in the 20th century had Western intellectuals willing to downplay it. Heidegger rallied in defence of Nazism and minimised the Holocaust. Jean-Paul Sartre dismissed reports of gulags when they emerged from Stalinist Russia. Michel Foucault was a committed Maoist and, when refugees described cities being emptied in Pol Pot’s Cambodia, Noam Chomsky cautioned Westerners against listening.

Sometimes called “tyrannophiles”, due to their sympathy for tyrants, the reasons Western intellectuals have defended totalitarian regimes differ according to time and place.

Some intellectuals sympathised with Stalin because they believed in the promise of Marxist-Leninism. Others were naive, and could legitimately appeal to ignorance. Others simply possessed a contempt for the West.



On Wednesday afternoon in an interview at the National Press Club, former prime minister Paul Keating, was asked about the internment of the Uighurs in the Chinese region of Xinjiang. Journalist Matthew Knott asked Keating if he could turn his characteristic invective against the CCP for its treatment of the Uighurs, to which Keating replied “there are disputes about what the nature of the Chinese affront to the Uighurs are” and “what if the Chinese said … what about deaths in custody of Aboriginal people in your prison system. Wouldn’t that be a valid point for them?”.

A charitable interpretation of these remarks would be there is not enough evidence to gain a clear picture regarding the detainment of Uighurs, and it would be prudent to withhold judgment until more becomes available. It might also be prudent for Australians to consider their own treatment of ethnic minorities, acknowledging deaths of Aboriginal people are disproportionately high compared to their population size.

In reality, there’s a large body of evidence available detailing the Chinese “affront” to the Uighurs in Xinjiang, from aerial photos of detention centres, to witness testimonies of systematic torture and rape, to demographic data showing a sharp population decline in Uighur regions.

In September 2020, Geoffrey Nice QC, lead prosecutor of the trial against Slobodan Milosevic, chaired the Uighur Tribunal, set up to investigate claims of crimes against humanity. Testimony from former detainees in internment camps described mass torture, rape and gang rape, forced sterilisation and abortion, arbitrary arrest and detention, and child separation. On December 9 the Tribunal concluded China had committed genocide against the Uighur population according to Article 2 of the 1948 Genocide Convention: criterion (d), imposing conditions intended to prevent birth. The tribunal concluded the Communist Party had “reduc(ed) the birthrates and population growth of Uighurs … (through) sterilisation by removal of wombs, widespread enforced insertion of … IUDs … and forced abortions”. Such policies are considered genocidal because they “will result in a partial destruction of the Uighurs”.

In response to the Tribunal, China sanctioned those who participated in it, while dismissing its findings as “sheer fiction.”

While it is reasonable of Keating to point out witness testimony can be unreliable and there may be some dispute over key facts, to liken the situation in Xinjiang to Aboriginal deaths in custody is mendacious in the extreme. Last year Aboriginal deaths in custody claimed the lives of 24. The Australian government is open and transparent about these deaths. The number of Uighurs detained in re-education camps in Xinjiang is estimated to exceed 1.5 million. The Chinese government seeks to cover this up.

And while the Australian government works to prevent Aboriginal deaths in custody, the detainment of Uighurs in Xinjiang is approved at the highest levels of government. In recordings of speeches given to party officials later leaked to Western journalists in 2014, Xi Jinping called on his apparatchiks to erect “walls made of copper and steel” and “nets spread from the earth to the sky,” while calling for the “optimisation” of population demographics. The Xinjiang Statistical Yearbooks shows what this optimisation looks like: a decline in population growth in the Uighur regions of 84 per cent.

Writing in Foreign Affairs last October, another former Labor prime minister, Kevin Rudd, explained that “at the very least, Xi’s embrace of Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy should put to rest any wishful thinking that Xi’s China might peacefully liberalise its politics and economy”. After studying his speeches and writing, Rudd concludes Xi is much closer to Mao in his worldview than his three predecessors. Awarded a doctorate of philosophy from Oxford University in September 2022 for his study of Xi’s ideology, Rudd now argues Xi’s synthesis of Marxist nationalism is an “ideological blueprint for the future” and “the truth about China that is hiding in plain sight”.

A key feature of rationality is the ability to update one’s beliefs in light of new evidence. Rudd’s attitude to China reflects this ability, whereas Keating’s does not. The belief China would open up and liberalise in response to globalisation has been described by scholars as “the China fantasy”. Like the Western intellectuals who could not give up their dream of a Marxist-Leninist utopia, adherents of the China fantasy now appear willing to dismiss genocide in order to defend it.

Claire Lehmann is founding editor of online magazine Quillette.

 

[rederob]

Better people than I have reported on China's hidden threat.

You claimed I only had opinions.
Where is the evidence of an actual threat?

Fair analysis requires an open mind to read from both sides, and then to weigh up the evidence.

Where is your evidence?

Paul Keating has helped create this recent publication to help answer some of your questions -

That has zip to do with this topic.

 

[JohnDe]

You claimed I only had opinions.
Where is the evidence of an actual threat?

Where is your evidence?

That has zip to do with this topic.

That is correct, as a faceless forum user your comments are just opinions.

I don't think that I have used your words 'actual threat', please re-read my answers to the questions that you have directed towards me.

Starting here - https://www.aussiestockforums.com/threads/china-on-our-doorstep.36999/page-10#post-1218090

 

[Sean K]

I’m not sure what you’re trying to say, other than implying that you think that the documents provided proof that employees of the ADF can post their thoughts under a pseudonym and it’s unlikely that they will be found out.

Thoughts, yes, but anything secret, no. You'd probably be found out and sacked, at least. I couldn't even tell anyone exactly where I was deployed in the Middle East (twice). Soldiers were charged for just posting photos on social media. And after you leave high security positions with any sort of briefings you are debriefed and they shine one of those lasers into your eyes like in Men In Black that makes you forget everything you've seen and heard.

 

[rederob]

That is correct, as a faceless forum user your comments are just opinions.

Despite your false claim you offer nothing to counter my factual remarks.

I don't think that I have used your words 'actual threat', please re-read my answers to the questions that you have directed towards me.

There is either a threat or there is not. I stated China has not threatened any nation, so if you consider this a mere opinion, then you need to offer evidence that supports your view.

On the theme of you saying I only have opinions, consider this:

The international sentiment is of a new cold war, with China replacing Russia in the fray. The west is in an active phase of "containment" and putting together various strategies such as AUKUS under the aegis of like minded groups of nations.

I clearly stated "international sentiment" wrt a new cold war, as found here, here, and here, and here. When publications focussing on foreign policy analysis have been saying this for some years, It's clearly not my opinion.

The west is in an active phase of "containment" and putting together various strategies such as AUKUS under the aegis of like minded groups of nations.

Similarly, the above point is not an opinion, as per this, this, this, this and this.

When people use information to make points that are somewhat obvious given the weight of readily available coverage, they cease to be an individuals "opinions." But that's not really the point here, as you seem to want a robust debate while refusing to offer any counter.