China on our doorstep

[Sean K]

Perhaps not a direct threat but having a Chinese navy ship make a surprise visit to Sydney was a turning point.

I dare say if the Australian military turned up in China unannounced then they'd see it as a hostile act. Unproven but I expect they would.

That was really weird. Morrison tried to claim we knew about it to smooth things over, but I'm not sure. Maybe we did know, but didn't want to tell Sydney so they didn't come out waving flags.

What was really strange though, was the Chinese sailors standing on the deck - armed. Maybe that was to make sure their own sailors didn't try to jump ship.

 

[JohnDe]

Is China at our doorstop or not?
As for international rules, you will find America is signatory to far fewer. In fact, it does not even recognise UNCLOS yet uses it to apparently ensure freedom of navigation off another nation's coast.

The shoe is on the other foot. Ever since the hullabaloo over Huawei China has been the target of continued media attack on anything the west thinks it can get leverage from.

Australia has no fleet to defend and most of its seaborne trade is with China. The idea that China might attack vessels key its ongoing industrialisation does not fly.

China has made no threats to our safety. I have asked for evidence from you so many times it's getting boring!

America has the world's most powerful military and spends more on defence than any country, has just 2 nations - with combined populations of 170M - bordering it, and is surrounded by thousands of kilometres of oceans. China has land borders with 14 nations and a combined population of over 2B, while to its east immediate it is surrounded by a multitude of American bases. The comparative situations suggest it's America who needs to stop its build up, or doesn't the data mean anything to you?

I suggest that you start reading some of the recommendations of your fellow forum members. mullokintyre recently posted an article that answers most, if not all, of your questions - https://www.aussiestockforums.com/threads/china-on-our-doorstep.36999/page-16#post-1218791

Follow the above links, or if you're feeling lazier than usual see below -

On AUKUS, is Paul Keating OK with security on China’s terms?

On Wednesday, in the online edition of this newspaper, former prime minister and treasurer Paul Keating had a polemical essay running to more than 3000 words.

He denounced the AUKUS agreement and the decision by the Australian government, with bipartisan support, to purchase nuclear-powered submarines from the US and Britain. He was at his vituperative peak. The case he made must be answered. If he is correct, a vast number of us have fallen victim to a serious case of groupthink.

By his own account he is at odds with both sides of the federal parliament, the present Labor prime minister, foreign minister, defence minister and their cabinet colleagues, the intelligence agencies, the Department of Defence, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian (which nonetheless gave him ample space to expound his strong opinions) and most acknowledged strategic thinkers here, in Washington and in London. That’s to say nothing of those in India, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Singapore and elsewhere who have made plain they understand our decision and alignment. Even the French have done so.

None of that gave Keating pause. He blithely asserts that there is no threat from China and that the US is insisting on military primacy in East Asia in defiance of reality and in an affront to China, “with the complicity of a reliable bunch of deputy sheriffs: Japan, Korea, Australia and India”. That’s some group of deputy sheriffs. This would be some case of groupthink.

China, Keating asserted, is not seeking to export a different model of governance or to overturn the international order but it does seek to assert sovereignty over the island of Taiwan, which he brazenly described as a “so-called democracy”.

So-called? I suppose, then, that we, too, have a so-called democracy. China does not. No one can call Xi Jinping’s regime democratic in any meaningful sense. During the past few decades, that very undemocratic China has undertaken the largest and most rapid peacetime military build-up in human history. It has been exporting surveillance and censorship technology around the world. It has aligned itself with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s relentless attempts to annex first parts and then the whole of Ukraine. It has militarised the South China Sea, in flat contradiction of undertakings not to do so.

During the past few decades, that very undemocratic China has undertaken the largest and most rapid peacetime military build-up in human history. Picture: AFP

It has turned from collegial to dictatorial leadership. It has engaged in ruthless repression of the Uighurs in Xinjiang and of the democracy movement in Hong Kong. It has increased its internal security budget to levels even greater than its ballooning military budget. It has embarked on systematic attempts to achieve nuclear parity with the US and naval supremacy. It is seeking to take the lead in key hi-tech sectors with strategic implications.

And its leader, Xi, repeatedly has stated that his military forces must be prepared to fight and win a war.

None of this gives Keating pause. Our sharp-tongued former prime minister, in short, appears to believe it is perfectly reasonable for China to do all of the above but irrational and provocative for the US, Japan, India, South Korea, Britain and Australia – to which one might add Vietnam and The Philippines – to take any serious steps in response.

How, exactly, does that compute? Let’s play devil’s advocate for a moment and imagine that Keating is seeing something that almost everyone else is somehow missing. What might that be?

It might be what Hugh White, Bob Carr, Geoff Raby, John Menadue and others have been touting for many years as the inevitable and natural ascendancy of China to dominance in the 21st century. White used to anchor his argument in terms of Treasury projections that saw China’s economy becoming far larger than that of the US and its consequent throw weight in the international arena irresistible.

Based on such projections, White and others have long called for what they see as strategic prudence: urging the US not to gamble on a confrontation it could not win and instead to cede hegemony in Asia to China on the basis that China would take it anyway and that it was, after all, not so different from US presumptions of hegemony in the Western hemisphere (North and South America and the Caribbean), since the 19th century.

That argument often has been coupled with a vague idea that Australia needed to chart an independent course in its foreign and security policy, meaning one detached from the ANZUS alliance and Five Eyes. Its proponents never spelled out how this was expected to work. But Keating likes to talk it up as “security in Asia, rather than security from Asia”. In present circumstances, he appears to believe India, Japan, South Korea, The Philippines, Vietnam and that “so-called democracy”, Taiwan, ought also seek security “in Asia, rather than from Asia”.

Yet if you subtract those countries from Asia, you don’t have a lot of Asia left. How can this be? The logical deduction, which Keating and his ilk appear to be comfortable with, is that “security in Asia” means security on China’s terms. But in that case, security from or against what? This they have never explained. That’s understandable. For the scenario envisaged would be inexplicable.

There are, as it happens, three kinds of danger posed to the Asian and global order by Xi’s China.

First, it openly seeks a hegemony in Asia, backed by force and coercion, rather than natural or earned leadership. Second, it faces a looming demographic, environmental and economic crisis by no later than 2030 that appears likely to derail its ascent, with the consequence that the next 10 years are a closing window of opportunity for it to change the facts on the ground (and the water) if it is ever going to do so.

Third, it could, in the longer term, descend into disorder as a consequence of the failure of the Communist Party state apparatus to address the country’s rapidly growing problems. That would be almost as tragic a scenario as a war over Taiwan or the East China Sea.

Our big bet, from the 1980s, doubled down on after the Tiananmen Square massacre of June 1989, was on a China that opened, prospered and liberalised. We want an open, prosperous China. There is a distinct possibility that we will see something quite other than that in decades ahead. We already have one that is shutting out the outside world.

The answer to Keating, therefore, is as Rory Medcalf, one of the most thoughtful and rational of our strategic analysts and head of the Australian National University’s National Security College, expressed it this past week: “At last, Australia is matching its defence capability to the challenges of its Indo-Pacific geography. With their incomparable range, stealth, intelligence-gathering edge and conventional firepower, nuclear-powered submarines operating from Australia – and within a decade by Australians – will suit the scale and gravity of the strategic risk the nation faces.”

Keating has dismissed the nuclear submarines as being like “toothpicks thrown against a mountain”. Were that so, Beijing presumably would not be protesting so vehemently against its acquisition or against the AUKUS and Quadrilateral Security Dialogue alignments.

Crucial to these alignments are concerns shared very widely about China’s hubris, military build-up and uncertain future behaviour.

Central to them are plans to deter China from launching a war no one wants. They are not intended to choke or stifle China. We didn’t draw it into the World Trade Organisation and other leading international bodies to contain it but to help the Chinese Communist Party find a way to emulate the rest of East Asia in moving from poverty to prosperity and from dictatorship to democracy. The party is clinging to dictatorship and endangering prosperity. We and our neighbours and allies are responding with co-ordinated strategic caution. Hopefully, strategic caution will prevail in Asia.

Paul Monk was head of the China desk in the Defence Intelligence Organisation when Paul Keating was prime minister. His book Thunder from the Silent Zone: Rethinking China will appear in a second, updated edition in July through all major online retailers.

 

[JohnDe]

Australia has no fleet to defend and most of its seaborne trade is with China. The idea that China might attack vessels key its ongoing industrialisation does not fly.

Your above comment shows how ill-informed you are.

Yes, China is a major customer for our goods, but they are not the only one. And if China wished to continue with their ban of Australian goods into the futre, Australia would have to continue looking for new markets to export. Our sea lanes are the ony way to move the bulk of our goods. See the examples below -

Share of wheat exported from Australia in 2020, by country of destination​

Australian export markets​

 

[Knobby22]

That was really weird. Morrison tried to claim we knew about it to smooth things over, but I'm not sure. Maybe we did know, but didn't want to tell Sydney so they didn't come out waving flags.

What was really strange though, was the Chinese sailors standing on the deck - armed. Maybe that was to make sure their own sailors didn't try to jump ship.

View attachment 154573

If you look at the timeline, it was soon after this incident that Morrison started talking with the USA about nuclear subs. I think that says a lot.
Those sailors were ready to shoot.

 

[Knobby22]

Perhaps not a direct threat but having a Chinese navy ship make a surprise visit to Sydney was a turning point.

I dare say if the Australian military turned up in China unannounced then they'd see it as a hostile act. Unproven but I expect they would.

100%.

 

[rederob]

I suggest that you start reading some of the recommendations of your fellow forum members.

What exactly is being offered that puts China at our doorstep?

Your above comment shows how ill-informed you are.

Where exactly is Australia's maritime fleet that we need to protect it? Did you know they mostly operate in Australia's waters.
It's also such a shambles that a " Taskforce will report on high-level strategic objectives by the end of the year, followed by identification of ships options and other needs for a strategic fleet of 12 vessels, expected to be complete by June 2023."
By the way, Australia's iron ore exports are about 400 times the tonnage of wheat to China, and then there's our massive coal and other mineral exports that are also shipped. Perhaps use a better metric next time you make a point.

Our sea lanes are the ony way to move the bulk of our goods.

That's exactly my point.
So where at posts #323 above is America that it needs to be constantly involved in freedom of navigation exercises in the South China Sea?

 

[JohnDe]

What exactly is being offered that puts China at our doorstep?

Where exactly is Australia's maritime fleet that we need to protect it? Did you know they mostly operate in Australia's waters.
It's also such a shambles that a " Taskforce will report on high-level strategic objectives by the end of the year, followed by identification of ships options and other needs for a strategic fleet of 12 vessels, expected to be complete by June 2023."
By the way, Australia's iron ore exports are about 400 times the tonnage of wheat to China, and then there's our massive coal and other mineral exports that are also shipped. Perhaps use a better metric next time you make a point.

That's exactly my point.
So where at posts #323 above is America that it needs to be constantly involved in freedom of navigation exercises in the South China Sea?

It was you that keeps saying, "maritime fleet".

I believe that you have confused yourself with my mention that "Australia must be able to defend itself and its trade routes."

rederob: Australia .. most of its seaborne trade is with China. Did you see the images that showed Australia's grain exports, please quote me those figures (actually, I'll repost them for you).

Here is an oldy but a goody for you -

China labelled Australia's biggest national security threat as tough talk on Taiwan draws passionate response

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been labelled the biggest threat to Australia's national security on Q+A, with panellists from both the government and opposition sharing their concerns about China's actions in the Taiwan Strait and subsequent comments by the Chinese ambassador to Australia.

In the past week, China has conducted military drills in the Taiwan Strait, repeatedly crossing its median line by air and sea and launching missiles that went over Taiwan and landed in Japan's exclusive economic zone (EEZ).

Those actions came after the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, visited Taiwan, which China claims to be a state within its territory.

On Thursday night, Q+A audience member Li Shee Shu suggested to the panel that China should not be seen as Australia's greatest threat.

Liberal senator James Paterson pounced.

"The reason why the Chinese Communist Party is labelled as the biggest national security threat to Australia is because they are," Senator Paterson said.
"Right now, today, we are under near-constant attack in the cyber realm from the Chinese Communist Party, whether it is the government or our critical infrastructure.

"Over the past five years, we have suffered record levels of foreign interference and espionage and the Chinese government is the primary culprit of that.

"Right now, the Chinese government is acquiring military capability at the fastest pace of any nation in the world since World War II and, I think, the evidence shows they're not just doing that for the fun of it.

"They have reclaimed islands in the South China Sea, illegally, although Xi Jinping promised that he wouldn't.

"They have just fired ballistic missiles over Taiwan into Japan's EEZ. If we are not going to take this threat very seriously, we are going to regret it."

His comments were echoed by Minister for International Development and the Pacific Pat Conroy, who took a softer stance but said China's actions in recent times were a cause for concern.

"The Australian government's position is that we support no unilateral change to the status quo," Mr Conroy said.

"As a middle power, it's in Australia's interest to pursue a rules-based order where every nation observes and follows international laws and normals," he said.

"And to James's point, illegal island-building in the East and South China Seas challenges that rules-based order."

CCP has repeatedly shown us who they are, Paterson says​

Mr Conroy, who earlier called for a de-escalation of tensions in the Asia-Pacific region, said he was concerned by the Chinese ambassador's comments about Taiwan on Wednesday.

The ambassador, Xiao Qian, stressed at the National Press Club that there was "no room for compromise" on Taiwan and China would use "all necessary means" for reunification with the island.

"In the interests of everyone in the region, de-escalation needs to occur now," Mr Conroy said.

"We need restraint and we need to focus on a peaceful and prosperous region.

"I was concerned, like many people, by some of the language used by the ambassador [on Wednesday], but we just have to move past it."

However, for Senator Paterson, those comments seemed to be folly.

He indicated he did not believe China's actions in the past week were simply muscle flexing ahead of the CCP's 20th annual party congress, but rather part of a long-established pattern.

"The late American poet Maya Angelou had a wonderful phrase that when people show you who they are, believe them the first time," he said.

"The Chinese Communist Party has not just shown us once who they are, they've shown us who they are in Tibet, they've shown us who they are in Xinjiang, they've shown us who they are with Hong Kong and they are showing us again who they are with Taiwan.
"And the ambassador at the Press Club yesterday showed us who they are and we should believe him.

"They are very serious when they say all options are on the table and that we should use our imagination to think about what they might do.

"And we should believe them when they say that re-education of the 23 million free people of Taiwan is something that they have planned for, after taking Taiwan, and we should treat that very seriously."

Chinese Australian population stigmatised​

A Q+A audience member, teenager Jun Gao, raised concerns about how Beijing's actions were affecting the treatment of Chinese Australians.

He said he and others had faced discrimination during the pandemic and it was happening again now due to rising tensions with China.

"I've felt the effects of the tumultuous COVID-19 pandemic and now rising tensions within the South China Sea," he said.

"What can be done to destigmatise the Chinese Australian population?"

"In general, I feel there is about negative perception, both in the schoolyard and [the] media, and I fear that Chinese recent political actions will only compound this," Gao added.
Panel member and Lowy Institute research fellow Jennifer Hsu said studies had seen a rise in that sentiment.

"We found in this year's survey that generally Chinese Australians feel a sense of belonging, although that has decreased since 2020," Ms Hsu said.

"[There is] a general sense of belonging, pride in Australian life and culture — and I think these are all positive indicators of, you know, Chinese Australians' contribution and integration into Australian society … but, yes, I would agree with you that, over the last two years … the sense of fragmentation has happened, in part due to discrimination and racism.

"But I would say there [are] potential positive points to look forward to, with a new government in power. There [are] signs of thawing [relations] between Australia and China."

Senator Paterson condemned the discrimination Gao had faced and called for Australians to understand the difference between a political stoush with the CCP and anything to do with Australians of Chinese heritage.

"Thank you for raising this issue, you are absolutely right to," he told Gao.

"It is both morally wrong and counterproductive for Chinese Australians to be held culpable for the actions of the Chinese government.

"It is also wrong to hold the Chinese people culpable for the actions of the Chinese government because they had no say in picking that government, there was no vote that brought the Chinese Communist Party to power.

"It is morally wrong because it is not your fault and it is counterproductive because we want Chinese Australians to feel just as much a part of the Australian community as everyone else and to be able to fully participate in that community."

Watch the full episode of Q+A on ABC iview

Share of wheat exported from Australia in 2020, by country of destination

Australian export markets


And here is a nice photo of the armed crew on the unexpected visit by the Chinese warship. I don't recall any other countries navy visiting a friendly country and having armed troops on deck, though I may be mistaken.

 

[rederob]

It was you that keeps saying, "maritime fleet".

I believe that you have confused yourself with my mention that "Australia must be able to defend itself and its trade routes."

Seriously!
You have to create straw man arguments to make points on every occasion.
Where again, as I ask often, has China threatened another sovereign state?
How do you consider China to be at our doorstep?
Tell us why Australia rather than China should be defending trade routes that deliver their imports. Remember Australia has no maritime fleet of significance and no capacity to defend more than a few ships close to home.

Then you think that posting the same graphics, which prove nothing as the metrics don't even show 1% of our seaborne tonnage, offers us enlightenment.

And to cap it all off you show a picture of armed personnel on a naval vessel to prove what exactly?

If this is what you put up as robust debate then it's rather disappointing.

 

[JohnDe]

Seriously!
You have to create straw man arguments to make points on every occasion.
Where again, as I ask often, has China threatened another sovereign state?
How do you consider China to be at our doorstep?
Tell us why Australia rather than China should be defending trade routes that deliver their imports. Remember Australia has no maritime fleet of significance and no capacity to defend more than a few ships close to home.

Then you think that posting the same graphics, which prove nothing as the metrics don't even show 1% of our seaborne tonnage, offers us enlightenment.

And to cap it all off you show a picture of armed personnel on a naval vessel to prove what exactly?

If this is what you put up as robust debate then it's rather disappointing.

Hahaha I was wondering how long it would take you to start deflecting and being abusive. Not the first time you've used the "straw man" is it?

What gives you the authority to demand answers to your questions, when you will not answer mine?

Only one straw man here, you better look in the mirror. And while you're their you can reflect on the reasons that all of Australia's leading strategists, military advisors and senior politicians are concerned over China and its military expansion, cyber attacks, use of trade sanctions to damage economies, and so on.

If you can't use a forum without getting frustrated and abusive, then you should find other outlets.

 

[JohnDe]

Do you work for the CCP?
Only a complete and utter m.... would use democratic and China in the one sentence.
Mick

I first thought that you were being a bit dramatic, now I wonder if you are correct.

"The Communist Party is grabbing powers from government offices and experts. In China’s opaque political system, one way to understand a new policy is to study old ideas that it repudiates. Mr Xi’s power grab challenges lessons that his predecessors drew from Chairman Mao Zedong’s chaotic rule...Soon after becoming leader in 2012, he declared the Communist Party dangerously corrupted by money and distant from the everyday lives of the masses. He has spent the past decade reasserting the party’s authority over every aspect of public life....Most senior officials, whether in a ministry, mayor’s office, state-owned enterprise or university, are party members."​

What party control means in China

The workings of Chinese power are not easy for outsiders to follow. Visitors to some official buildings, for example, are greeted by two vertical signboards, one bearing black characters, the other red. The black-lettered sign denotes a government department. Red characters signal an organ of the Communist Party. In bureaucratic slang this is known as “party and government on one shoulder-pole”. Sometimes the two offices oversee the same policy area, and employ some of the same officials. They are not equally transparent. Especially when meeting foreigners, officials may present name cards bearing government titles but stay quiet about party positions which may or may not outrank their state jobs. Many party branches are not publicly marked at all.

It is a good moment to remember this quirk of Chinese governance. The annual session of the National People’s Congress (npc), the country’s largely ceremonial legislature, is under way from March 5th to 13th. This year’s npc meeting comes after a big party congress last October. At that gathering China’s supreme leader, President Xi Jinping, secured a norm-trampling third term and filled his party’s highest ranks with loyal aides. Now Mr Xi’s new team has made headlines with a bureaucratic shake-up that takes powers from several government ministries and agencies, including bodies charged with making China self-reliant in high-technology and with regulating data and financial markets. Many of those powers will now be wielded by party-led commissions.

NPC delegates applauded the changes in their marble-pillared, crystal-chandeliered simulacrum of a parliament, for they know the drill. Soon they will rubber-stamp Mr Xi’s latest move to impose the party’s will, meaning his own, on China’s vast bureaucracy. When they do, outsiders are entitled to recall those black and red signboards and ask an innocent question: in a country where government and party office-holders may share the same building—and may even be the same people—what does it actually mean for the state to cede power to the party?

In China’s opaque political system, one way to understand a new policy is to study old ideas that it repudiates. Mr Xi’s power grab challenges lessons that his predecessors drew from Chairman Mao Zedong’s chaotic rule, when loyalty to the leader and ideological fervour took precedence over good government. In the years after Mao’s death in 1976, economic reformers moved to separate party and state. They sought to free enterprises from the stifling hand of central planners, and to liberate farmers and factory managers from micromanagement by party committees. They took political cover from the paramount leader, Deng Xiaoping, who—though no liberal politically—gave public warning that “over-concentration of power is liable to give rise to arbitrary rule by individuals.” By the late 1980s, reformers were promoting the notion of a “vanguard party”, a smaller, nimbler party whose role was to set an overall ideological line, not “try to control everything”, recalls Professor Anthony Saich of Harvard University, who interviewed reformist officials in China in those years.

Over time more power was decentralised to local governments, whose officials were rewarded for presiding over rapid growth. In the late 1990s, when entrepreneurs could no longer be ignored, the party moved to co-opt them, admitting businesspeople as members. Then came Mr Xi. Soon after becoming leader in 2012, he declared the Communist Party dangerously corrupted by money and distant from the everyday lives of the masses. He has spent the past decade reasserting the party’s authority over every aspect of public life. This week Mr Xi declared that entrepreneurs need more “theoretical and political guidance” to understand their obligations to the party and country.

Mr Xi talks of the party’s almost 97m members as if they are missionaries in an atheist church, stressing their self-sacrificing “red spirit” and paying homage to “martyrs” who died for the revolution or in the people’s service. That faith-tinged language is usefully clarifying. Most senior officials, whether in a ministry, mayor’s office, state-owned enterprise or university, are party members. One way to think of them is as lay believers, with varying degrees of faith. Then there are party cadres whose careers take them from the party committee of a town, say, to a post as party secretary of a county or other public institution. They are more like priests, with lives dominated by doctrine, discipline and secrecy.

When ideology trumps expertise​

Jing Qian of the Asia Society Policy Institute, a think-tank based in New York, describes some important differences between state and party offices. China’s government bodies are subject to (some) institutional and legal constraints. Party bodies are self-policing and their powers are limited only by the party constitution. He contrasts the professionalism of technocrats with the political incentives that guide party cadres. By way of example, he imagines an official with 20 years’ experience at the People’s Bank of China debating policy with a party cadre on a short posting to the central bank. Perhaps the banker urges caution in the name of financial stability. But the party cadre wants to please political superiors and earn a promotion. So the technocrat is overruled.

China’s “zero-covid” campaign offers real-world evidence of professional judgments trumped by politics. Once the Omicron variant arrived in 2022, some prominent scientists called for greatly increased efforts to vaccinate old and vulnerable citizens and stockpile antiviral drugs. But Mr Xi had declared that lockdowns and quarantines could defeat the virus, so suggesting ways to co-exist with covid-19 was heresy. Experts fell silent or were sidelined. As a result, when zero-covid collapsed last December, the country was unprepared. After concealing many covid deaths, China’s rulers now call their pandemic controls “a miracle in human history”. All governments make mistakes. What matters is whether they learn from them. Mr Xi’s record is not reassuring. ■

 

[rederob]

Hahaha I was wondering how long it would take you to start deflecting and being abusive. Not the first time you've used the "straw man" is it?

You create your points and respond to them, rather than those I raise, so that's why I call you out.

What gives you the authority to demand answers to your questions, when you will not answer mine?

Exactly what questions are you asking? I went through the last few pages and there are none from you.

If you can't use a forum without getting frustrated and abusive, then you should find other outlets.

Where have you been abused by me?
The problem seems more one of you wanting a robust debate and bringing nothing to the table. In this case your post was pure deflection from the topic at hand.

 

[JohnDe]

You create your points and respond to them, rather than those I raise, so that's why I call you out.

Exactly what questions are you asking? I went through the last few pages and there are none from you.

Where have you been abused by me?
The problem seems more one of you wanting a robust debate and bringing nothing to the table. In this case your post was pure deflection from the topic at hand.

Correct, I have given you my points (with references) and they are my opinions. Why you 'call me out' is because you cannot handle that I do not accept you as an 'expert that writes advice for military command', and that my opinions are similar to proffesional advisors, military analysts, politicians and others.

I only asked you two simple questions, which you have ignored.

• 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 don't know, please tell us.

The time has passed for an answer to those old questions, but I do have another question for you after you watch an interesting video, which shows the trading routes that concern Australia and explains our need for submarines due to China's influence.

Deflection you say. Again, that is your opinion. I have answered the questions that relate with my posts. I have given you opinion pieces that I agree with.

No time for that video, which has all the answers -

 

[Garpal Gumnut]

China is China.

They dislike the Russians as much if not more than the West.

Don't get too involved with the enigma.

Let it play out for the present until their intentions are more obvious.

gg

 

[JohnDe]

China is China.

They dislike the Russians as much if not more than the West.

Don't get too involved with the enigma.

Let it play out for the present until their intentions are more obvious.

gg

Yes, this is a very complex issue for both sides. And then add the Ukraine.

The more I think about it the less I believe that China will put any meaningful pressure on Russia to come up with a peace deal, and even if they could I doubt that Russia and the Ukraine are able to come up with a compromise that each agree to.

More likely China & Russia are working on a way for weapons to be supplied, and this could come with a sham deal for peace that the Ukraine cannot accept.

 

[UMike]

After the shock of Russia being unsuccessful in Ukraine, China is quite enjoying this festering sore for the West.

Cheap energy and a World Power totally relying on China to be onside.

 

[JohnDe]

... The more I think about it the less I believe that China will put any meaningful pressure on Russia to come up with a peace deal, and even if they could I doubt that Russia and the Ukraine are able to come up with a compromise that each agree to.

More likely China & Russia are working on a way for weapons to be supplied, and this could come with a sham deal for peace that the Ukraine cannot accept.

Looks like Xi's peqace plans are designed to assist Russia.

"On Ukraine China has played an awkward hand ruthlessly and well. Its goals are subtle: to ensure Russia is subordinate but not so weak that Mr Putin’s regime implodes; to burnish its own credentials as a peacemaker in the eyes of the emerging world; and, with an eye on Taiwan, to undermine the perceived legitimacy of Western sanctions and military support as a tool of foreign policy. Mr Xi has cynically proposed a “peace plan” for Ukraine that would reward Russian aggression and which he knows Ukraine will not accept. It calls for “respecting the sovereignty of all countries”, but neglects to mention that Russia occupies more than a sixth of its neighbour."​

The world according to Xi​

Even if China’s transactional diplomacy brings some gains, it contains real perils​

A lesser man than Xi Jinping might have found it uncomfortable. Meeting Vladimir Putin in Moscow this week, China’s leader spoke of “peaceful co-existence and win-win co-operation”, while supping with somebody facing an international arrest warrant for war crimes. But Mr Xi is untroubled by trivial inconsistencies. He believes in the inexorable decline of the American-led world order, with its professed concern for rules and human rights. He aims to twist it into a more transactional system of deals between great powers. Do not underestimate the perils of this vision—or its appeal around the world.

On Ukraine China has played an awkward hand ruthlessly and well. Its goals are subtle: to ensure Russia is subordinate but not so weak that Mr Putin’s regime implodes; to burnish its own credentials as a peacemaker in the eyes of the emerging world; and, with an eye on Taiwan, to undermine the perceived legitimacy of Western sanctions and military support as a tool of foreign policy. Mr Xi has cynically proposed a “peace plan” for Ukraine that would reward Russian aggression and which he knows Ukraine will not accept. It calls for “respecting the sovereignty of all countries”, but neglects to mention that Russia occupies more than a sixth of its neighbour.

This is just one example of China’s new approach to foreign policy, as the country emerges from zero-covid isolation to face a more unified West. On March 10th China brokered a detente between two bitter rivals, Iran and Saudi Arabia—a first intervention in the Middle East, which highlighted the West’s reduced clout there 20 years after the American-led invasion of Iraq. On March 15th Mr Xi unveiled the “Global Civilisation Initiative”, which argues that countries should “refrain from imposing their own values or models on others and from stoking ideological confrontation.”

China’s approach is not improvised, but systematic and ideological. Deng Xiaoping urged China to “hide your capacities, bide your time”. But Mr Xi wants to reshape the post-1945 world order. China’s new slogans seek to borrow and subvert the normative language of the 20th century so that “multilateralism” becomes code for a world that ditches universal values and is run by balancing great-power interests. The “Global Security Initiative” is about opposing efforts to contain China’s military threat; the “Global Development Initiative” promotes China’s economic-growth model, which deals with autocratic states without imposing conditions. “Global Civilisation” argues that Western advocacy of universal human rights, in Xinjiang and elsewhere, is a new kind of colonialism.

This transactional worldview has more support outside the West than you may think. Later this month in Beijing Mr Xi will meet Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, an advocate of a multipolar world, who wants China to help negotiate peace in Ukraine. To many, the invasion of Iraq in 2003 exposed the West’s double standards on international law and human rights, a point China’s state media are busy hammering home. After the Trump years, President Joe Biden has re-engaged with the world but the pivot to Asia involves downsizing elsewhere, including in the Middle East and Afghanistan.

The West has shown resolve over Ukraine, but many countries are ambivalent about the war and wonder how it will end. At least 100 countries, accounting for 40% of global gdp, are not fully enforcing sanctions. American staying power is doubted. Neither Donald Trump nor Ron DeSantis, his Republican rival, sees Ukraine as a core American interest. All this creates space for new actors, from Turkey to the uae, and above all, China. Its message—that real democracy entails economic development, but does not depend on political liberty—greatly appeals to the elites of non-democratic countries.

It is important to assess what this mercenary multipolarity can achieve. Iran and Saudi Arabia have been fierce enemies ever since the Iranian revolution in 1979. China is the biggest export market for both, so it has clout and an incentive to forestall war in the Gulf, which is also its largest source of oil. The agreement it has helped broker may de-escalate a proxy war in Yemen that has killed perhaps 300,000 people. Or take climate change. Chinese mercantilist support for its battery industry is a catalyst for a wave of cross-border investment that will help lower carbon emissions.

Yet the real point of Mr Xi’s foreign policy is to make the world safer for the Chinese Communist Party. Over time, its flaws will be hard to hide. A mesh of expedient bilateral relationships creates contradictions. China has backed Iran but chosen to ignore its ongoing nuclear escalation, which threatens China’s other clients in the region. In Ukraine any durable peace requires the consent of Ukrainians. It should also involve accountability for war crimes and guarantees against another attack. China objects to all three: it does not believe in democracy, human rights or constraining great powers—whether in Ukraine or Taiwan. Countries that face a direct security threat from China, such as India and Japan, will grow even warier (see Asia section). Indeed, wherever a country faces a powerful, aggressive neighbour, the principle that might is right means that it will have more to fear.

Because China almost always backs ruling elites, however inept or cruel, its approach may eventually outrage ordinary people around the world. Until that moment, open societies will face a struggle over competing visions. One task is to stop Ukraine being pushed into a bogus peace deal, and for Western countries to deepen their defensive alliances, including nato. The long-run goal is to rebut the charge that global rules serve only Western interests and to expose the poverty of the worldview that China—and Russia—are promoting.

America’s great insight in 1945 was that it could make itself more secure by binding itself to lasting alliances and common rules. That idealistic vision has been tarnished by decades of contact with reality, including in Iraq. But the Moscow summit reveals a worse alternative: a superpower that seeks influence without winning affection, power without trust and a global vision without universal human rights. Those who believe this will make the world a better place should think again.

 

[JohnDe]

Valid points. China vs the IMF, the IMF are answerable to leaders of countries who are then answerable to voters, financial reports must be published. China's BRI offers no reports.

More countries are struggling to pay back Chinese debt​

​

China has financed major infrastructure projects around the world for more than a decade as part of its Belt and Road Initiative. But the costs are growing: A new study shows many of the loans have gone badly, putting borrowers and Chinese banks in danger.​

 

[farmerge]

Valid points. China vs the IMF, the IMF are answerable to leaders of countries who are then answerable to voters, financial reports must be published. China's BRI offers no reports.

More countries are struggling to pay back Chinese debt​

​

China has financed major infrastructure projects around the world for more than a decade as part of its Belt and Road Initiative. But the costs are growing: A new study shows many of the loans have gone badly, putting borrowers and Chinese banks in danger.​

China's debt (death) trap perhaps

 

[divs4ever]

Do you work for the CCP?
Only a complete and utter moron would use democratic and China in the one sentence.
Mick

compared to the US Democratic Party , China is looking a little better ( even at election time )

 

[divs4ever]

China's debt (death) trap perhaps

compared to IMF and World Bank loans ??

the problem is a world addicted to debt