China
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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 »
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The Five Eyes does not have our back.
It is risible to see the Australian Foreign Minister setting off to New Zealand to pull the Kiwis into line over their lack of support for attempts by the so-called Five Eyes of Anglo Saxon countries to pressure China…. Continue reading »
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Chinese propaganda has come to Indonesia, big time.
Before you book a flight to Aotearoa in the travel bubble, think again. There are other places with knockout scenery, higher mountains, clear lakes and splendid grasslands. The roads are straight and free of cluttering campervans. Better still, the sunny locals are keen to share their exotic cuisine and rich culture of singing, dancing, equestrian… Continue reading »
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Anti-China threat porn: Antiquity’s antidote to its sophistry
If China is a threat to international peace and security, then the relationships outlined below approach the crime of trading with the enemy. … Continue reading »
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Will the Five Eyes stare down China’s economic coercion? So far their self interest looks to be winning out.
For at least some products , Australia may not so much be “left alone on the playing field” as substituted off and only able to watch from the sidelines…. Continue reading »
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Hong Kong’s housing crisis- an underlying factor in the 2019 riots.
The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has a serious housing problem. There has been much discussion over the last several years about how this has amplified social discontent. This conversation intensified during the major 2019 protests that became a lengthy anti-government and anti-Beijing rebellion…. Continue reading »
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Not sleepwalking but marching with eyes wide open to war with China
A lie told often enough can become accepted, but it can never be the truth. China has been declared a threat to all that we hold dear, but it is just not so. China, for all its faults, is not a threat and nor is it practising genocide!… Continue reading »
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China’s Five Year Plan & Technology Leadership an interview with Prof Jane Golley
In discussion with economics professor Jane Golley, director of ANU’s Australian Centre for China in the World, ANU, about the new china five-year plan 2021-2026 on the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese communist party…. Continue reading »
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British meddling in Hong Kong’s court of appeal
The British Government still maintains significant influence in Hong Kong through the appointing of British subjects within Hong Kong’s highest court, the Court of Final Appeal, and have used this influence for geopolitical advantage…. Continue reading »
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Not much for Australians to feel ‘relaxed and comfortable’ about in US policy towards China.
Many of the problems in our relationship with China are of our own making – the consequences of our own inept diplomacy – and we should seek to resolve them bilaterally. Attempting to resolve them by snuggling up closer to Uncle Sam and miscellaneous US allies with different agendas and history will only make matters… Continue reading »
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21st century democracy: blurring the lines
President Biden, at his first press conference, said this: “Look, I predict to you, your children and grandchildren are going to be doing their doctoral thesis on the issue of who succeeded: autocracy or democracy? Because that is what is at stake, not just with China”…. Continue reading »
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What would US-China war really mean?
Do the commentators who talk of war with China actually think about what this would mean?… Continue reading »
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China is so often framed negatively. It compounds our ignorance.
When we speak of China we rarely, if ever, stop to consider how (or what) meaning is generated in the minds of the audience. Yet how we speak of China is no less important than the words that we use. Facts are not enough…. Continue reading »
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In America, a cancer is eating democracy from the inside, and China has clocked the weakness
China’s top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, got uncomfortably close to the truth when he lectured American officials about creating turmoil by invading other countries, having a “Cold War mentality” and trying to impose its democracy on the world…. Continue reading »
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China Needs to Show More Restraint in the Region
China’s aggressiveness in the region is provoking a US-led backlash that could contain or constrain it. To achieve what it considers its rightful destiny, China needs to exercise more restraint. Slow and steady will win the race…. Continue reading »
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Malign or benign? China–US strategic competition under Biden
In late 2017 China–US relations shifted dramatically when the Trump administration officially labelled China a strategic competitor. For various reasons the Democrats seem to have accepted this label. Many believe strategic competition will continue to define the relationship under the Biden administration, though its understanding of strategic competition may be quite different from the Trump administration’s…. Continue reading »
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Establishing the facts of Australia’s China policy since 2016
With the relationship between Australia and China now in a stalemate with the possibility it could get worse, leading local protagonists have taken to telling a story of how things came to be. But it’s in no small part a self-serving tale, seemingly designed to deflect having to take some responsibility…. Continue reading »
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Biden trumps Trump’s truculent China Seas policy
Many had hoped that under new US President Joe Biden, the U.S. would moderate its goals and behaviour vis a vis China, especially where they militarily confront each other in the China Seas. But U.S. China policy has so far not only continued that of former President Donald Trump but even trumped its hypocrisy, condescension, confrontation… Continue reading »
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Australia must change its mindset, especially on international affairs
Australia’s mindset remained fundamentally unchanged since the days of British imperialism. Western countries, especially the United States and Britain, are still “our” people, while Asian states, above all China, are not. The world has changed and so must we…. Continue reading »
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Protests or riots? First-hand retelling of Hong Kong’s ‘democracy’ struggle
Western media’s perception of the 2019-20 Hong Kong democracy protests, to some the riots, is a carefully cultivated and curated version of events. Testimony of those who witnessed them first hand should not be pushed aside to give space to the dominant narrative of the media…. Continue reading »
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Throwing stones in the Uighur glasshouse
On his last day at work for the Trump Administration, Mike Pompeo accused China of genocide against the Uighurs in Xinjiang province, which the Chinese Foreign Ministry vehemently denied. His successor as Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, supports the accusation and has repeated it…. Continue reading »
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The true intent and spirit of the Sino-British Joint Declaration concerning Hong Kong.
On 12 March this year the G7 group of nations published a statement saying that Beijing’s proposal to change the electoral arrangements for Hong Kong’s legislature ( LegCo ) was, among other things, a breach of the Sino-British Joint Declaration: the agreement signed 36 ½ years ago to “settle” the question of Hong Kong’s future,… Continue reading »
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Why has there been a spike in anti-asian hate? The NY Times answers their own questions
A collage of panic-inducing anti-China headlines from the New York Times and other major publications can be seen as a factor in the rise of anti-Asian hate seen in western countries…. Continue reading »
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