World
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Paul Keating, Confucius and the CCP – understanding China
Misunderstanding China has a long and distinguished history. Much of that misunderstanding has been generated by western media going right back to the Qing dynasty. Continue reading »
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Our greatest blunders
Ten years ago Anthony King and Ivor Crewe published their book – The Blunders of Our Governments. Continue reading »
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Requiem for our species
The effects of the climate crisis intrude with increasing regularity into our lives and yet we do not act. We are as paralysed as past civilisations were when facing catastrophic destruction. Continue reading »
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The mass media used to publish perspectives on Ukraine they would never publish today
The other day I stumbled across a 2014 opinion piece in The Guardian titled “It’s not Russia that’s pushed Ukraine to the brink of war” by Seumas Milne, who the following year would go on to become the Labour Party’s Executive Director of Strategy and Communications under Jeremy Corbyn. Continue reading »
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War crimes? Don’t forget Jeju
Admitting guilt for war crimes doesn’t come easily to many nations, as Australia knows from our extended investigations of the activities of some ADF soldiers in Afghanistan more than a decade ago. Continue reading »
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Does the shift in influence in Southeast Asia betoken something more global?
A Lowy Institute survey issued in April this year showed that the balance of Chinese-American influence in Southeast Asia had shifted in China’s favour over the last few years. Specifically, in overall diplomatic, defence, economic and cultural influence, the balance was 52 to 48 in China’s favour in 2018 but its lead increased to 54 Continue reading »
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Harvard China academic takes on the Economist
Even without Chat-bot assistance, it is fun to look up quotations and their origins online and then discover, for example, this quote reportedly from Winston Churchill: “The only statistics you can trust are the ones you have falsified yourself.” Continue reading »
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China – US: Buy America and subsidies mix with national security to see off the rules based order
Today the global trade system faces three systemic challenges. None are new, but strategic competition between China and the United States has brought a dangerous edge to each of them. Continue reading »
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Coming to terms with the ‘China Threat’
Is it not a great irony that the Chinese are now more supportive of the post-war Bretton Woods system than the Americans? Continue reading »
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China and US power in Southeast Asia
China’s power has replaced the United States’ in the eyes of most of our Asian neighbours, according to the latest Lowy Institute Asia Power Snapshot. What are the implications for Australia? Continue reading »
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China has no need for the United States, for now
In ordinary anticipatory history the game is waiting for Trump. Continue reading »
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Aukus leaders prefer posturing and provocation over dialogue
Shangri-La Dialogue was a missed opportunity for talks as defence chiefs Austin and Marles insisted on belligerence and doublespeak. Continue reading »
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AUKUS and the security pathology of colonial racism
Today, there are strong arguments that Australian security and defence thinking, which was historically race based, is now culturally embedded; that the current situation is close to what race theory describes as ‘racism without racists.’ How, then, might Australian colonial racism have conditioned our security culture to put the ‘A’ in the AUKUS nuclear powered Continue reading »
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A climate of betrayal
“All grimly true, but they can be sure that they won’t be recorded for their crimes in history – because there won’t be any history” (Noam Chomsky) Continue reading »
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Australia catching up with the Asian century at last?
Every word of Anthony Albanese’s address to the Shangri-La dialogue on 2 June was chosen with care. It was a balancing act, with the Prime Minister poised between peace and war, defence and diplomacy, the US and China, in a high-wire performance his Coalition predecessors wouldn’t have attempted. Continue reading »
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The real world shatters the myth of personal choice
When a government proposes a policy to improve our diet, it can trigger a gag reflex. Some people feel that deciding what to eat is purely a personal choice, and the ‘nanny state’ should stay out of the way. No-one wants to be lectured, shamed, or forced to eat their greens. Perhaps it goes all Continue reading »
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How psy-ops warriors fooled me about Tiananmen Square: a warning
The myth of the “Tiananmen Square massacre” is arguably the most successful disinformation campaign of modern times, according to western and eastern sources—so much so that proud psychological warfare specialists recently used it to ADVERTISE their news manipulation skills. We’ll get to that below. Continue reading »
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Shirtfronting Australia
Australians are more used to pointing the accusing finger at other countries than having it pointed at us. Continue reading »
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Be a man, consume till it kills. It will
The World Health Organisation’s No Tobacco Day last month had Australia announcing tough new ways to get smokers to quit. Next door the fag makers were doing the opposite. Continue reading »
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15 reasons why mass media employees act like propagandists
If you watch western news media with a critical eye you eventually notice how their reporting consistently aligns with the interests of the US-centralised empire, in almost the same way you’d expect them to if they were government-run propaganda outlets. Continue reading »
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The earth has Bipolar Disorder: and so do we
World Environment Day – June 5 – demands some sober reflection about the mess we humans have got ourselves into. And how the hell we get out. Continue reading »
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How to translate Western diplomatic jargon
Such terms and phrases as a rules-based system, de-risking, democracy vs autocracy, and coercive behaviour are not exhaustive but still expose obfuscation and double standards. Continue reading »
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Knowing who we are: coping with Artificial ‘Intelligence’
We are at an existential turning point in the human story and, with it, the habitability of our planetary home. Continue reading »
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Layers of deceit: exposing the hidden histories of our wars
There are distinct parallels between I F Stones’ exposé of the ongoing Korean War and both the Ukraine War and preparations for a second war with China. Izzy Stone did not travel to war zones like the intrepid Wilfred Burchett, nor had he the whistleblowing ‘sources’ that Sy Hersh uses. His approach is different and Continue reading »
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Is a Gulf of Tonkin-type incident brewing in the South China Sea?
The situation in the South China Sea is on the verge of becoming a game of chicken between the U.S. and China with the Philippines in the middle. This would be very dangerous and could cause China to miscalculate. Either one blinks or they clash. Continue reading »
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Mainstream media need to focus on peace
The fact that Australia is sleepwalking towards a catastrophic war against China has received very welcome and responsible coverage in Pearls and Irritations and other non-mainstream media. The head-in-the-sand stance adopted by much of the mainstream media stands in stark contrast. The most recent example of the latter was a 15-page supplement in The Canberra Continue reading »
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Most propaganda looks nothing like this
When most people in the English-speaking world hear the word “propaganda”, they tend to think of something that’s done by foreign nations who have governments that are so totalitarian they won’t even let people know what’s true or think for themselves. Continue reading »
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China and the axis of the sanctioned: how America’s divide-and-rule strategy in the Middle East backfired
A photo Beijing released on March 6th of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s foreign minister Wang Yi delivered a seismic shock in Washington. There he was, standing between Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Iran’s National Security Council, and Saudi National Security Adviser Musaad bin Mohammed al-Aiban. They were awkwardly shaking hands on an agreement to reestablish Continue reading »
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In the eye of the hurricane, can we find truth?
To survive this critical century, we need to know the truth about it. Continue reading »
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China panic: a wake-up call for Canadians
As Canada grapples with allegations of foreign interference by China, John Price writes that politicians would be wise to read Australian academic David Brophy’s new book: ‘China Panic: Australia’s Alternative to Paranoia and Pandering’. Continue reading »