China on our doorstep

[Knobby22]

China have miscalculated with their aggressive approach in SE Asia. The Belt and Road debt trap is not working as well as they might have been expecting and may be pushing smaller nations away. Vietnam has been very important and now Philippines is turning back to the US it's going to be very hard to make a solid play for ASEAN support. Indonesia now comes into play as the largest economy in ASEAN and if they change their neutrality policy to one of even the slightest support of US/Australia through joint military exercises (which we already do on a very minor basis) China is definitely surrounded. In the end, geography is actually China's biggest threat. They're trapped.

China has made some poor decisions under Xi.

Buying territory off Pakistan and then having border disputes with India, stealing fishing areas from the Philippines who were previously prepared to be friends, making Vietnam an enemy, destroying their previously good relationship with the USA and us.

They would have been better off increasing their soft power.

 

[Sean K]

China has made some poor decisions under Xi.

Buying territory off Pakistan and then having border disputes with India, stealing fishing areas from the Philippines who were previously prepared to be friends, making Vietnam an enemy, destroying their previously good relationship with the USA and us.

They would have been better off increasing their soft power.

They were playing the long game very well, but then rushed a bit, getting impatient perhaps. Could have waited another couple of decades and just slowly crept up. They have done OK coning Sri Lanka, Zambia, Djibouti, Maldives, Cambodia and Solomons I guess. They've done exceptionally well getting away with militarising the atolls in the SCS. We really cocked up allowing that to happen.

 

[farmerge]

They were playing the long game very well, but then rushed a bit, getting impatient perhaps. Could have waited another couple of decades and just slowly crept up. They have done OK coning Sri Lanka, Zambia, Djibouti, Maldives, Cambodia and Solomons I guess. They've done exceptionally well getting away with militarising the atolls in the SCS. We really cocked up allowing that to happen.

Big time stuff up Were the pollies ofthe day to scared to have go at China in cse they got upset. Doesn't matter a rats now as they made life hard for half of the worls with thir bans etc.

 

[rederob]

They were playing the long game very well, but then rushed a bit, getting impatient perhaps.

Zero basis for that comment.
China has 5 year plans for its progress, and these are set within longer term goals.
The common western notion is that these plans are dictated from the top, but nothing could be further from the truth. The process for China's 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) was relatively democratic and remains iterative. For example the Party sought suggestions online in August 2020 and received over one million comments to better reflect its direction. Name a democracy that uses such a process!

Could have waited another couple of decades and just slowly crept up.

This makes no sense in the context of how china works.

They have done OK coning Sri Lanka, Zambia, Djibouti, Maldives, Cambodia and Solomons I guess.

These comments reflect a sheer ignorance of how China's BRI assists the developing world.
This link explains the BRI and puts to bed western media lies and misinformation that you have hooked yourself on.
We should be asking why the developing world continues to seek assistance from China for infrastructure projects or, perhaps, become be proactive ourselves.

They've done exceptionally well getting away with militarising the atolls in the SCS. We really cocked up allowing that to happen.

Adding to the above, you appear to know very little about what goes on in the South China Sea. Taiwan, for example, has a military presence on the Spratly's largest island.
I don't see Australia calling out the UK or USA on Diego Garcia where the inhabitants were forcibly removed to develop a military base. We seem to play the rule of law card only when it suits us.

 

[mullokintyre]

Zero basis for that comment.
China has 5 year plans for its progress, and these are set within longer term goals.
The common western notion is that these plans are dictated from the top, but nothing could be further from the truth. The process for China's 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) was relatively democratic and remains iterative. For example the Party sought suggestions online in August 2020 and received over one million comments to better reflect its direction. Name a democracy that uses such a process!

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

 

[qldfrog]

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

This shows you how far our leftist green people have gone into lunacy;and these are the onesin power, here, in Oz driving Victoria a totalitarian abyss and the ABC into a woke propaganda tool
Anyone following a few of my posts knows I have an actual admiration for China;
worked 3y+ there, mentoring my teams there, sharing week ends (aka sundays ;-0) there in places where my presence as a westerner froze a whole dining hall (hundreds...), and feasting with local billionaires and having selfies with people who had never seen a westerner in flesh etc..what they did in a generation is mindblowing and they are #1 imho already surpassing the US of A
But I am fully aware how they screw the west completely: democratic my xss, seriously!
I think we deserve it and are pushing what should be allies (Russia, central americas and BRICS) into their arms but we are in a world domination fight and while the so called west does not represent my vision of demoracy anymore and has turn into a hell, I would not see the CCP as a role model..
But this should be a reminder of who the actual democratic forces in the west are facing in 2023, and failing.....

 

[JohnDe]

China's long game started a thousand years ago, they continue experience troughs and hills with their plan.

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.

Tough language from Xi Jinping belies his anxiety
China’s reopening to the world could be a bumpy one

China’s all-out struggle to crush covid-19 is now over, but its leaders still see a world fraught with peril. During the annual session of the country’s parliament, which began on March 5th, Chinese officials have been airing their worries. President Xi Jinping pointed his finger at America, accusing it of leading Western countries in a campaign of “all-out containment, encirclement and suppression” against China. The outgoing prime minister, Li Keqiang, said such threats were escalating. He set an unexpectedly cautious target for China’s economic growth this year. Their message is clear: China’s post-covid reopening to the world could be a bumpy one.

Mr Xi is China’s worrier-in-chief. A handy 251-page book, published by the Communist Party in 2020, contains nothing but anxiety-related snippets from his speeches. They cover every topic from terrorism and “colour revolutions” to the “middle-income trap”—that is, stalling growth. The extracts are peppered with metaphors: lurking tigers, boulders on the road, terrifying waves and stormy seas. One bit comes from remarks to domestic security chiefs in 2014, just over a year after Mr Xi became China’s leader. It shows how long-standing his current worries are: “Western countries such as America increasingly feel fishbones in their throats and blade-tips in their backs, so are stepping up their strategy of Westernising and splitting our country.”

Usually Mr Xi avoids explicit criticism of America at public-facing occasions such as meetings of the National People’s Congress (npc), as the legislature is known. His break from custom this time, at a meeting on March 6th with advisers to the npc, suggests anxiety levels are growing. He said American-led efforts at containing China had presented “unprecedented severe challenges” to the country’s development. At an npc-organised news conference, his new foreign minister, Qin Gang (known for his feisty language, no matter the context), was even more forthright: “If the United States does not hit the brake but continues to speed down the wrong path, no amount of guardrails can prevent derailing, and there will surely be conflict and confrontation.”

For all such rhetoric, however, Chinese officials have avoided using the npc, and the parallel meeting of its advisory body, to make any explicit threats against America. On Taiwan, the most contentious issue in the bilateral relationship, they have stuck to ambiguous language. In his farewell speech to the npc, Mr Li said the armed forces should “intensify military training and preparedness across the board”. China’s defence spending is higher than it admits. But a draft budget said it should grow by 7.2% this year. That would leave its share of gdp largely unchanged, once inflation is taken into account. And Mr Li said China should “promote the peaceful development of cross-strait relations”.

It may be that, for all their disquiet, Chinese leaders do not want to escalate tensions with the West, nor narrow their room for manoeuvre. Mr Xi said officials should “dare to struggle”, but he also called for calm (using the word three times) in the face of “profound and complex changes in the international and domestic environments”. By emphasising threats from the West, such as America’s efforts to limit Chinese access to cutting-edge technologies, it is possible that China hopes to focus attention at home on the need for greater industrial self-reliance. On March 10th the nearly 3,000 delegates are due to vote on (ie, rubber-stamp) a plan for restructuring some government ministries. This is expected to give the party more control over vital areas of work, including technological development. A senior official said one reason for the shake-up was “the severe situation of…external containment and suppression”.

Such a response is typical of Mr Xi. His book of worries, titled “Excerpts from Xi Jinping’s Talks on Guarding Against Risks and Challenges and Responding to Emergencies” (a snip at $7.50), is replete with recommendations that the party tighten its grip. But at the same time, Mr Xi and his officials have been using the npc, which ends on March 13th, to send reassuring signals to entrepreneurs who have been spooked by the party’s growing muscularity in the economic domain. To revive growth, which was 3% last year, the second-lowest rate since the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, private firms will be crucial. They contribute three-fifths of gdp.

“In the coming period,” said Mr Xi, echoing the prime minister, “the risks and challenges we face will only increase and become more severe.” He then heaped praise on the private economy, calling it an “important force for long-term rule by our party” and describing entrepreneurs as “our own people”. Businesspeople will be cautious, however. These are phrases he has used before. There may have been a sigh of relief among some company bosses that Mr Li did not mention the term “common prosperity” in his speech to the npc. The slogan, favoured by Mr Xi, is associated in some people’s minds with heavy-handed treatment by the party of billionaires and their firms. But in his meeting with the npc’s advisers, Mr Xi used the phrase four times.

The new guys
Many businesspeople will wonder whether to take solace from several high-level appointments that will be unveiled at the npc (aside from the inevitable reconfirmation of Mr Xi as president, which will be announced on March 10th). The most important will be the naming of a new prime minister on March 11th. It is almost certain to be Li Qiang, a former party chief of Shanghai and protégé of Mr Xi.

Mr Li is an intriguing figure. He is disliked by many in Shanghai for overseeing a draconian two-month lockdown of the city last year to stop the spread of covid. Businesspeople tend to have a higher opinion of him. High-level politics in China is a black box. But Reuters, a news agency, said that Mr Li was behind the sudden ending of the “zero-covid” policy in December. As the newly appointed head of a covid task-force, Mr Li “resisted pressure from the president to slow the pace of reopening”, Reuters reported.

Also closely watched will be people chosen to work under Mr Li on economic matters. Many of those slated for top posts have far less experience of the West than their predecessors. But Mr Xi may reckon that matters less now, with the West ganging up against him.

 

[finicky]

Red Robe drops another 'whataboutism' file into the internet.
It's out of a streaming program continuously updated by the CCP PLA bureau of propaganda and it's free! And comes with social credits!
Take it you imperialist capitalist running dogs.

"We" .. "Us" ?

We seem to play the rule of law card only when it suits us.

 

[finicky]

We might be old and creaky to you Red Robe but don't underestimate the vitality and will to resist of the West!

 

[rederob]

Only a complete and utter moron would use democratic and China in the one sentence.

A democratic process involves people, and that was what I referenced.
Do you share @Sean K's poor understanding of how China plans for what it intends to do?

 

[IFocus]

If you remove ideology and flag waving Robs actually correct not that its of any advantage to Australia or that China may extend its military power to cover its economic reach and power just the same as any other empire has.

How it works out for Australia is the question given our current life style is bank rolled by China.

I don't know the answer or how to maneuver though all the risks but it will take more and certainly better thinking than trotting out the usual expected lines.

 

[JohnDe]

Some light reading

Democracy in China

The debate over democracy in China has been a major ideological battleground in Chinese politics since the 19th century. China is not a Western-style liberal democracy. The Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) state that China is democratic nonetheless. Many foreign and some domestic observers categorize China as an authoritarian one-party state, with some saying it adheres to neoauthoritarianism.[1] Some characterize it as a dictatorship.[2]

The Constitution of the People's Republic of China (PRC) states that its form of government is "people's democratic dictatorship".[3] The Constitution also holds that China is a one-party state that is governed by the CCP. This gives the CCP a total monopoly of political power which it frequently exercises. All political opposition is illegal. Currently there are eight political parties in China other than the CCP that are legal, but all have to accept CCP primacy to exist.[4] The CCP says that China is a "socialist democracy", in which the CCP is the central authority and acts in the interest of the people.[5]

China is considered internationally to be amongst the least democratic countries in the world.[6][7][8][9] Freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and freedom of religion are all severely restricted by the government.[10][11] The general Chinese public has virtually no say on how the top leaders of the country are elected.[6][10] Censorship is widespread and dissent is harshly punished in the country.[7]

During a visit to Europe in 2014, CCP general secretary Xi Jinping said that a multi-party system would not work for China. He said China had experimented in the past with various political systems, including multi-party democracy, warning that copying foreign political or development models could be catastrophic because of its unique historical and social conditions.[12] Currently, Xi has strengthened the CCP's control over the government[13] and in 2018 amended the party and state constitutions to include Xi Jinping Thought, described as the next stage of socialism with Chinese characteristics. In that same year, the Chinese government has also abolished term limits for the presidency, allowing Xi to rule for life.

Democracy in China - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[rederob]

Red Robe drops another 'whataboutism' file into the internet.
It's out of a streaming program continuously updated by the CCP PLA bureau of propaganda and it's free! And comes with social credits!
Take it you imperialist capitalist running dogs.

"We" .. "Us" ?

Why not dispute the claim rather than play the man with a perfect example of whataboutism? FYI my response actually addressed the posters continued ignorance and baseless commentary on China.

Start with a map, perhaps, and see where Australia lies compared to China.
Indonesia is on our doorstep and so is PNG to our north. The +4000 kilometres (straight line) distance to China is not especially nearby.
It also begs the question of what makes anyone think China has some special interest in Australia beyond commerce.

 

[moXJO]

China's tax problem is interesting.
Along with their 70 year lease for urban property.

I think about 2% of people there pay tax.

I heard the account software keeps up to 3-5 sets of books. One for the taxman, one for the partners and one for the owners.

 

[mullokintyre]

A democratic process involves people, and that was what I referenced.
Do you share @Sean K's poor understanding of how China plans for what it intends to do?

Crap. A Democratic process allows multiple people to stand, multiple views to be put , and should be no coercion or repercusions against those who do not vote for the party line.
Go tell the natives of Tibet, Macau, Hong Kong or Taiwan about Chinese Democracy.
Mick

 

[qldfrog]

China's tax problem is interesting.
Along with their 70 year lease for urban property.

I think about 2% of people there pay tax.

I heard the account software keeps up to 3-5 sets of books. One for the taxman, one for the partners and one for the owners.

Employees pay taxes, similar to Aussie rate except that once again, you get the max rate from around 50k USD a year from memory which is a bloody lot of money in China when you pay $2 for your lunch...
But yes myriads of while collars in IT and manufacturing industry pay tax...I doubt it is 2%?
Figures from memory and pre covid

 

[rederob]

Crap. A Democratic process allows multiple people to stand, multiple views to be put , and should be no coercion or repercusions against those who do not vote for the party line.
Go tell the natives of Tibet, Macau, Hong Kong or Taiwan about Chinese Democracy.
Mick

Try reading for sense instead of creating a straw man.
Show how China's 5-year Plans do not involve Chinese citizens in the process if you believe you are credible.

On your final point, perhaps you can tell us why Australia recognises Tibet, Macau, Hong Kong and Taiwan as regions of the sovereign nation of China.

edit: FYI every point you raised in relation to a democratic process occurs in Chinese politics. In fact four of the nine Parties include "democratic" in their names:

You might need to rethink how you define "democracy".

 

[mullokintyre]

Try reading for sense instead of creating a straw man.
Show how China's 5-year Plans do not involve Chinese citizens in the process if you believe you are credible.

Involving Chinese Citizens does not make it democracy.
Only you and the CCP could possible believe that.

On your final point, perhaps you can tell us why Australia recognises Tibet, Macau, Hong Kong and Taiwan as regions of the sovereign nation of China.

Because like most governments, Oz has bowed to pressure from a larger more powerful trading partner, and will take the path that suits its own (or DFAT's) foreign interests. Nothing to do with whether OZ thinks that any part of China is democratic.
Just like it did when the Americans invaded Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Haiti plus a few others.
Oz went along with it because it suited (some) politician and security interests.
For a whole lot of pragmatic reasons we recognize a number of dictatorships, repressive regimes, and downright crooks.
China just happens to be one of the biggest and most threatening.
Mick

 

[Knobby22]

Involving Chinese Citizens does not make it democracy.
Only you and the CCP could possible believe that.

Because like most governments, Oz has bowed to pressure from a larger more powerful trading partner, and will take the path that suits its own (or DFAT's) foreign interests. Nothing to do with whether OZ thinks that any part of China is democratic.
Just like it did when the Americans invaded Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Haiti plus a few others.
Oz went along with it because it suited (some) politician and security interests.
For a whole lot of pragmatic reasons we recognize a number of dictatorships, repressive regimes, and downright crooks.
China just happens to be one of the biggest and most threatening.
Mick

Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (North Korea) comes to mind.

 

[finicky]

.. In fact four of the nine Parties include "democratic" in their names ..

Ha f'g ha. A name is not the thing named.
Liars are expert in applying false and misleading names to things. You really slipped up with that one.
Like the U.S 'Democrats' calling Jan 6 "a deadly insurrection" while holding back most of the tapes and elaborately honouring the Capitol guard who died of a stroke afterwards as being killed in the line of duty.