China
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Why the Western narrative of China’s ‘debt trap diplomacy’ is another big lie
To work well, the lie must be introduced early, repeated often and insulated from contradiction by a narrative of “fake news” and accusations of “witch hunts”. Continue reading »
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Hong Kong is not dying after all.
On 25 May, the China Centre at Jesus College, Cambridge University, hosted a significant online, two-hour seminar on The Future of Hong Kong. Continue reading »
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Do free markets still beat central planning?
Institutional arrangements are complex systems, shaped by history, geography, and culture. The objective should not be to identify a one-size-fits-all approach, but rather to devise the combination of characteristics that would deliver the greatest good for the greatest number of people, with the right checks and balances. Continue reading »
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Three things I learned as a white Australian academic in China
The term ‘nuance’ is often used to capture the multiple grey areas in our quest to understand China. The experience of teaching in a Chinese university led me to find a way to pinpoint and locate some of these nuanced spaces through an honest recognition of my own cultural and historical baggage. Continue reading »
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Was there a Wuhan lab leak? Why an inquiry won’t dig out the truth
A year ago, the idea that Covid-19 leaked from a lab in Wuhan – a short distance from the wet market that is usually claimed to be the source of the virus – was dismissed as a crackpot theory, supported only by Donald Trump, QAnon and hawks on the right looking to escalate tensions dangerously Continue reading »
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President Xi asks Chinese media, diplomats to tone down aggressive approach
Asked whether China will take a different approach in its diplomatic efforts in the light of Xi’s remarks, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told a media briefing here on Wednesday that the comments were in line with China’s “peaceful development”. Continue reading »
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We have to handle our relationship with China, not leave it to others
How should we manage relations with China – New Zealand’s most complex foreign policy issue in the 21st century? Continue reading »
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US or China style governance: which is best for its people?
The US sees China as an enemy, and members of the US Congress compete to see who can appear the most belligerent against China. However, the Chinese have no missionary impulse to take over the world and have no expectations that other societies should become like them. Continue reading »
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Arbitrary detention in China: The case of Yang Hengjun
Australian Ambassador Graham Fletcher, denied observer entry to the closed court hearing of the case against Australian citizen Yang Hengjun, told the press on 27 May that the case was one of arbitrary detention. This was not an off-the-cuff remark or an attempt to further damage relations with China. Continue reading »
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The rejected murder suspect and the Taiwan Government’s lack of interest in the Rule of Law.
A Hong Kong resident, Chan, Tong-kai murdered his pregnant Hong Kong girlfriend, whilst they were holidaying together in Taiwan in mid-February, 2018. After killing her and disposing of her body, he fled back to Hong Kong, admitting to his crimes. Significant CCTV circumstantial evidence helped confirm what had happened, but the murderer has yet to Continue reading »
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Combatting Australia’s anti-China rhetoric
Tokyo’s security apparatus must have followed with amazement that excellent series by Max Suich in the AFR of 16, 17 and 18 May, revealing the anti-China antics of their Australian opposite numbers. Suich mentions how an elected member of Australia’s parliament was driven out in disgrace for maintaining a relationship with a suspected Chinese government Continue reading »
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Max Suich, China and the greatest example of our diplomatic self harm
How did it come to this? How did Australia’s foreign policymakers and their advisors manage to devise policies that have simultaneously enraged our most important trade partner, and made us even more dependent on an increasingly unpredictable notional guarantor of our national security? If our political and strategic elites had intentionally set out to undermine Continue reading »
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Australian engagement with the PRC: universities need more, not less
The current global political environment in the Anglophone world is becoming increasingly suspicious of involvement of any kind with the People’s Republic of China (PRC). For students and staff in Australian universities the likely resultant disengagement is not simply wrong in principle, it is dangerously misleading. Continue reading »
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How to understand China: which books to read?
New books on China are flooding the market but their scope and quality are variable. Publishers have recognised that the public is keen to understand more about our major trading partner and the strategic challenges of the new world order. Readers would be well advised however to read the reviews before placing their orders. One book Continue reading »
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Darkness in a propagandised state risks war with China.
Our distorted perspectives, our ignorance, is now more dangerous than the situation leading to the Vietnam War in the 1960s. We have experienced a sudden end to immediate knowledge of Asia including China We are vulnerable thus to pandemics of media misinformation. Continue reading »
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The End of Modi’s Global Dreams…and the Quad!
India’s prime minister advanced a muscular foreign policy, but his mishandling of the pandemic is an embarrassing step back. If India stumbles, the American dream of the Quad can never become a reality. Continue reading »
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War with China is not inevitable: A revolution in Australian foreign policy should be.
The Government’s warnings that war with China is inevitable are propaganda. There is no such inevitability. A decision to go to war is taken by humans. It is not determined by an iron law of history. Key questions are: why are we being softened up for this war now; has the Morrison Government already decided Continue reading »
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Mike Pompeo and “The Xinjiang Genocide Determination”
On 19 January 2021, his last day in office, Trump’s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, issued a “determination” that “the PRC, under the direction and control of the CCP, has committed genocide against the predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minority groups in Xinjiang”. On taking office, Pompeo’s successor Antony Blinken immediately agreed Continue reading »
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Nothing could be Finer than to have a War with China in the Morning!
In the early sixties, in the midst of growing paranoia of the Red and Yellow Perils, portrayed by the Menzies Government as dagger-like arrows pointed at Australia’s heart, a TV variety show, perhaps Revue ’61 or In Melbourne Tonight, gave us comic relief with a parody on the Al Jolson song, ‘Carolina in the Morning’, Continue reading »
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Is News Corp back onto weapons of mass destruction?
Australians born in the last century remember how the ‘war on terror’ began in 2001. The same con trick is being tried on us again, for war with China. Continue reading »
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Understanding Beijing’s motives regarding Taiwan, and America’s role
John Culver retired in 2020 after a distinguished 35-year career at the Central Intelligence Agency. During that time, he analyzed East Asian affairs, including security, economic, and foreign policy dimensions. As national intelligence officer for East Asia from 2015 to 2018, he drove the intelligence community’s support to top policymakers on East Asian issues. He Continue reading »
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Biden’s Taiwan Policy Is Truly, Deeply Reckless.Would the US allow Mexico to join a military alliance with Beijing?
In fact, polling suggests that while foreign policy elites in Washington overwhelmingly endorse going to war for Taiwan, ordinary Americans are deeply skeptical. A recent report by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs found that while 85 percent of Republican leaders support sending U.S. troops to defend Taiwan from Chinese attack, only 43 percent of Republicans among Continue reading »
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The unfinished Chinese civil war
Many frame China’s options against Taiwan as peace or invasion. This is a dangerous oversimplification. Continue reading »
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China’s sanctions on Western think tanks
China’s sanctions on the prominent Washington-based think-tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) has prompted a great wailing and wringing of hands. While I empathize with those affected, I do take issue with some of their specific concerns. Continue reading »
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More transparency needed around Uni’s audit into ‘foreign interference’
The University’s approach to ‘foreign interference’ puts its Chinese staff at risk. There’s a tension in the idea of the modern university, between the essentially borderless nature of knowledge production, and the rival claim that universities should serve the “national interest”. Continue reading »
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Time to silence the drums of war
For many familiar with the excesses of Cold War rhetoric and the hyped-up fears used to justify our ill-fated interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, the current China bashing is a case of déjà-vu. But the latest bout of politically contrived anti-China hysteria is especially troubling. Continue reading »
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Hong Kong: British common law labelled as Chinese oppression
On 16 April 2021, a Hong Kong District Court sentenced 8 prominent “activists” to imprisonment. They had been convicted of organizing an unlawful assembly, and taking part in such assembly, under the Public Order Ordinance. This was a statute of the longstanding, dating way back to colonial times in Hong Kong. Continue reading »
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Taiwan: the trigger point for America’s next war
It is becoming a case of when, not if, there will be a war between the US and China. Nobody wants war and yet the public is being persuaded that it might happen, and if it does, it will be a necessary evil to counter a threat. Continue reading »
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The Biden-Suga agreement shows the importance of the Western Pacific
The primary importance of the Biden-Suga summit is that Mr Suga was the first foreign leader to be received by President Biden in Washington. The second such visitor will be President Moon of South Korea – not Britain’s Boris Johnson or Germany’s Angela Merkel. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is nowhere in sight. Continue reading »
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Another own goal in Australia’s relations with China
The Federal Government is not providing a strategic narrative about its position towards China. Is it too cynical to suggest that is because a very large number of Australians now view China in such negative terms that “pushing back”, irrespective of the cost, is seen positively? Continue reading »