It’s time to agree to
Wnote A lightly humorous in of ‘vive la difference’ the strained relationship stop the wouldn’t always at least arguments, but have both nations would understanding a clearer forever of why we might disagree.
HEN Wong met Wang, it was hardly the traditional Yin and Yang.
In ancient Chinese philosophy opposites can attract and interconnect. Contrary forces can actually become harmoniously linked.
In the Australia-China relationship, any such harmony between governments seems unlikely, in the short term at least, in the wake of our Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s meeting with their Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
Wong ascending the blank face of the Chinese Communist Party’s diplomatic mountain to hear Wang’s commandments reminded me of a wonderful joke about Moses when he was in a similar situation.
The old Jewish prophet was on Mt Sinai getting the drum on the Commandments from God. It took the usual forty days and forty nights and was such a slow arbitration, the children of Israel were becoming restive.
When Moses eventually descends with a heavy armful of stone tablets, he delivers the outcome of his negotiations.
“Well, I have some good news and some bad news,” he tells the crowd.
“The good news is that I got him down from twenty to ten.”
The mob cheers, but Moses soon silences them.
“But the bad news is, adultery is still in.”
Wong met Wang in Bali last Friday, for a similar outcome.
Australia’s relationship with the US is seen by the CCP as adulterous and is foremost in the Chinese government’s list of Thou Shalt Nots.
God was much clearer on Mt Sinai than was Mr Wang in Bali. The Chinese Foreign Minister made four somewhat abstruse demands of Australia.
First that we break off our relationship with you know who, which was obliquely expressed as “not targeting any third party or being controlled by any third party”.
We should also be “regarding China as a partner rather than a rival”, and concentrate on “building positive and pragmatic social foundations”.
Wang also called for Australia to “seek common ground while reserving differences”, which our government has interpreted as never mentioning Taiwan, the South China Sea, Hong Kong, the Uighurs and just about everything else you can think of that is worrying the world about China.
In their dying days of government, the Libs warned that Albo would be “a soft touch for the CCP”, but this week that threat turned out to be wrong.
When Penny Wong descended from the diplomatic mists the PM took one look at the four commandments and promptly rejected them.
“Australia doesn’t respond to demands,” he announced.
“We will co-operate with China where we can … I want to build good relationships with all countries, but we will stand up for Australia’s interests when we must.”
He was clear but hardly jingoistic.
How could he be?
We are a resources giant but also a military midget.
So, there’s no point in sabre-rattling when China last month launched its third aircraft carrier, no doubt built from Australian raw materials.
We might take some ease from the fact that Mr Wang made only four demands, wide-ranging though they might seem.
In November last year a Canberra Chinese embassy official oddly chose to issue a Channel 9 news reporter with an official list of no less than fourteen “grievances” with Australia.
It was quite a Chinese banquet and unfortunately the dishes were all inedible.
Those “grievances” haven’t yet been publicly rescinded and range from concerns about prohibiting CCPcontrolled communications technology such as Huawei, foreign investment legislation in general, as well as foreign interference legislation.
The CCP demanded an end to “wanton (not a misspelling of the dumpling) interference in China’s Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Taiwan affairs” and a cessation of “unfriendly reports on China by the media”.
In short, the demands were quite unrealistic and showed an alarming lack of knowledge about how a democratic country actually functions and sometimes malfunctions.
I’m sure there are times when our elected governments would love to have control of the media, but clearly they don’t.
Here’s the thing. Our billionaire mining tycoons and white-goods sellers seem to have an amiable and extremely profitable relationship with the CCP, so why not the rest of us?
I grew up thinking capitalists and communists were natural enemies, but clearly not so. Our richest capitalists last year sold the Chinese communists approximately $170 billion worth of exports. Others in the rich list imported about $108 billion of Chinese goods, which they on-sold to Australians at huge profit.