What Australia Did to China

Stabbed Huawei in the back, among other things.

No other country in the world – not Taiwan, Japan or South Korea – is talking about the likelihood of war with China on a day-to-day basis. Only Australia.

–Natasha Kassam, Lowy Institute.

The Australian, above, lists the names and photographs of 32 local academics who had ‘been recruited to the Thousand Talents Plan…or [who] registered their intellectual property in China’. Emphasizing that many had also received Australian taxpayer-funded research grants, and most were ethnic Chinese, the ASPI report was widely cited as authoritative, and well-known China hawks provided quotes. Andrew Hastie, then-chair of parliament’s joint intelligence committee, contended that Australian research and IP was ‘being plundered

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by the CCP [Chinese Communist Party]’. The current chair, James Paterson, said they were ‘profoundly disturbing revelations’.  They also turned out to be untrue.

The outburst was one of hundreds of similar episodes since 2019 where Australia has actively sought to harm its relations with China and China itself.

Our White Man’s Media (WMM), ever so keen to join the anti-China band wagon, is entirely uncurious about how the problem started.

• The anti-China drive was led first by Malcolm Turnbull and his advisor John Garnaut.

• Australia began with anti-dumping tariffs in 2017 on Chinese steel and aluminium products that the WTO later found illegal.

• When Turnbull banned Huawei operating in Australia in August 2018, we were the first government in the world to do so.

• We then banned Chinese foreign investments in 2017/2018, including China Mengniu Dairy Co’s proposed $600 million acquisition of Lion Dairy & Drinks, despite the Foreign Investment Review Board’s agreement to the deal. There was hardly a security risk here with a dairy company!

• We introduced foreign influence laws in 2018 directed against China that proved so wide that Turnbull himself had to declare that he was an agent of foreign influence after participating in a South Korean forum.

• In April 2020, Foreign Minister Marise Payne, trying to ingratiate the Morrison Government with Donald Trump, announced on ABC Insiders Program that she wanted a non-WHO investigation unit (from many countries) to investigate origins of Covid in China. To join the anti-China psychosis Labor Opposition backed her. This was despite President Xi telling the World Health Assembly that China would support a ‘Comprehensive Review’.

This was the final straw and China in 2020 started imposing quotas, quarantine and other restrictions on selective Australian exports (coal, beef, barley, timber logs, wine, lobster, etc). John Menadue.

When Beijing offered to discuss its concerns, Canberra censored them so that the public was unaware of them and lied, “The fourteen items identified by the Chinese embassy document are seen by the Department of Foreign Affairs as key to Australia's national interest and non-negotiable.. the government makes sound decisions in our national interest and in accordance with our values and open democratic processes''.

A History of Violence

No democratic process was involved, of course. China’s points are still unanswered and, apparently, still non-negotiable. Although Canberra politicized Chinese trade and investment and violated market principles for decades, between 2015-2020 China consistently lowered tariffs on Australian products until 95% enjoyed zero duties.

But Canberra has a long history of violence, invasion, and exploitation of Asian neighbors including, recently, robbing the world’s poorest country, Timor Leste. The list below, though incomplete, is representative of Australia’s pettiness, nastiness and stupidity:

1. In contravention of ChAFTA, since 2019 Australia rejected a dozen Chinese investment projects and restricted areas like infrastructure, agriculture and animal husbandry on ambiguous, unfounded (and insulting) "national security concerns".

2. Australia launched 107 anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigations of Chinese products, more than any of China's other trading partners. 

3. Australia politicized and stigmatized normal exchanges and cooperation, created barriers, and imposed restrictions like revoking visas for Chinese scholars, in parallel with America's identical, failed witch hunt.

4. Knowing that Covid-19 was endemic in Europe and the US before it reached China, Beijing requested a meeting with Australian officials prior to PM Scott Morrison’s press conference, to answer any questions and supply any data, but was ignored. The PM then told the media that international inspectors should be allowed access to China, “Weapons inspector-style, with the ability to kick open doors”.

5. Australia was the first non-littoral country to criticize China’s behavior in the South China Sea at the UN.

6. Australia outdid the US in demonizing the PRC’s Xinjiang and Hong Kong policies, while publicly alleging Chinese cyberattacks – none of which was ever proven, or even questioned.

7. Australian politicians and media fell silent when the US refused to sign the UN resolution permitting WHO investigations like China’s.

8. Canberra cancelled several BRI agreements with China with no prior notification,

9. Canberra repeatedly sent Australian vessels to US “freedom of navigation exercises" near the Chinese coast.

10. Australia spearheaded a crusade against China in multilateral forums, like the United Nations, where it voted against China at every opportunity.

    

11. Canberra paid anti-China think tanks to spread false reports and peddle unsubstantiated allegations about Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.

12. Canberra funded investigations into so-called 'China infiltration' designed to manipulate public opinion against the country.

13. Australian police made pre-dawn searches and conducted reckless seizures in Chinese journalists' homes without charge, explanation, or apology.

14. Australian politicians made repeated, false allegations about Chinese cyber attacks. 

15. Australia condoned and repeated government-funded NGOs' outrageous condemnations of the governing party of China. 

16. Australia shrugged off hundreds of racist attacks against Chinese and Asian people.

17. During a riot started by US and Taiwanese agents in the Solomon Islands, Australian officials told Solomons PM Sogovare that they would not protect Chinese infrastructure projects.

18. When an Australian politician, Shaoquette Moselmane MP, repeated the WHO’s praise of China’s Covid Zero, forty police arrived at his home and stayed for 13 hours. They brought sniffer dogs, took hair and dust samples from his car, searched the car engine and door rubbers, had a helicopter hovering and raided his parliamentary office, and froze the Moselmane family’s bank accounts. Minister of Defence Peter Dutton told a reporter, “You can’t have an allegiance to another country and pretend to have an allegiance to this country at the same time”. No charges were ever brought against Mr. Moselman, nor apology made to his terrified family.

19. Australia stigmatized normal cooperation and imposed restrictions, like the revocation of Chinese scholars’ visas – which caused a scandal in China

20. Australia launched intimidatory predawn searches and reckless seizures of Chinese journalists’ homes and properties without charge or explanation.

21. Australia’s national lab, the CSIRO, told staff it will not renew its climate research partnership with the Qingdao National Marine Laboratory, following an assertion by ASIO’s Mike Burgess that ocean temperature modelling could assist submarine operations against Australia (a decision met with robust criticism by Australian scientists).

22. In 2017, the Solomon Islands wanted to lay a cable between Honiara and Sydney.  “This was seen as a red line so we jumped in with a better deal providing the cable as a grant that would be implemented with a procurement partner of Australia’s choosing – that wouldn’t be Chinese.”

23. Australia targeted China with one-third of its ongoing WTO actions and two-thirds of current measures, despite the Productivity Commission finding “no convincing justifications for the measures”.

24. Australia imposed hefty duties on Chinese steel (144%), aluminum, and chemicals without justification.

25. Over decades, Australia sold tons of adulterated gold to Chinese buyers via the Shanghai Gold Exchange.

26. Australia initiated 106 anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigations of Chinese products, yet complained bitterly when China finally resorted to the WTO, for the first time, with barley and wine tariffs.

27. Australia committed $500 billion for a weapon whose only purpose is attacking China.

The Unkindest Cut

There are two standout provocations that heralded the beginning of the diplomatic breakdown between Canberra and Beijing. The first was the Turnbull government’s banning of the giant Chinese tech-company Huawei from operating in Australia. The second was when Morrison’s Foreign Affairs minister Marise Payne publicly demanded that China comply with an international enquiry into the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic. In both cases Australia took the lead internationally in taking these actions. – Allan Patience

Given China’s national pride in Huawei, the nation’s first high tech global brand, Canberra’ decision to launch a world wide attack on the company was particularly cruel. PM Malcolm Turnbull blocked Australian adoption of Huawei then traveled to lobby UK and EU governments against it – with zero evidence to support his allegations. When Huawei offered to base its network security division in Australia Canberra did not respond.  

Points of View

The Chinese see in Australia a pattern of bad-faith dealing, negative discrimination, unprovoked hostility, and unwillingness to talk candidly.

Australians, to quote fellow Substacker Benjamin Herscovitch, see “Beijing’s pursuit of relationship repair with Canberra” and bridle at “its sustained economic coercion of Australia”.

On its current course, Australia’s future seems bleak. Hypocrisy, lack of self-awareness, endemic racism and fear of a non-capitalist neighbor have alienated it from the new world leader and its neighbors in the world’s leading economic region.

1. The Vice-Chancellor of my Australian alma mater told me that collaborations with Chinese universities and scholars overwhelmingly benefited Australian institutions more than Chinese.