Malcolm Turnbull's War on China

Stabbed Huawei in the back, sold watered gold and lied, lied, lied..

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.

In 2020 the front page of The Australian, above, listed 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 by the CCP’. The current chair, James Paterson, called them ‘profoundly disturbing revelations’.  They were also untrue. The outburst was one of hundreds since 2019 in which Australia has actively sought to harm its relations with China and our media, ever keen to bang the anti-China drum, was incurious about the cause of the problem or when it started.

A history of non-violence

China ensured that Australia’s economy, uniquely in the world, never had a down quarter after 2008 and relations were amicable. Between 2015-2020 China consistently lowered tariffs until 95% of Australian products enjoyed zero duties and hundreds of billions of dollars flowed into Australia as rivers of dirt, wheat and beef flowed out. If Australia exporters cheated China, as they regularly did, their ambassador would have a quiet word with Australia’s Foreign Minister, who would straighten things out, because China pays top dollar for quality primary products. Few Australians noticed or cared about the connection between China and their steadily rising prosperity. Today, two-income, middle-class families of six vacation in Italy–as Americans did in the 1960’s. In other words, Australia had a sweet deal.

Malcolm Turnbull’s declares war

• Malcolm Turnbull launched the war with anti-dumping tariffs, that the WTO found illegal, on Chinese steel and aluminum products in 2017.

• Turnbull’s was the first government to ban Huawei, in August 2018¹, charging without evidence that it posed a security risk, a claim since disproven.

• He then banned Chinese investments, including China Mengniu Dairy Co’s proposed $600 million acquisition of Lion Dairy & Drinks, despite the FIRB approval.

• He 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 2020, FM Marise Payne, ingratiated herself with Donald Trump by announcing on government media that she wanted a non-WHO investigation unit (from many countries) to investigate origins of Covid in China. The Labor Opposition backed her, despite President Xi telling the WHO that China would support a ‘Comprehensive Review,’ and then became the only country to permit one. This was the final straw.

• China started imposing quotas, quarantine and other restrictions on selective Australian exports (coal, beef, barley, timber logs, wine, lobster, etc) [and destroyed, apparently permanently, its main value-added export, wine–Ed]. John Menadue.

When Beijing offered to discuss its concerns, Canberra refused. When the embassy in sent a list of concerns to Australia’s Foreign Minister she censored 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''. To this day, the public remains unaware of them. No democratic process was involved. China’s concerns are still unaddressed and, apparently, still non-negotiable.

The Fourteen Points

Canberra has a long history of violence, invasion, and exploitation of Asian neighbors including recently robbing the world’s poorest country, Timor Leste and jailing the whistleblower who revealed this cruel act. The list below, though incomplete, is representative of the pettiness, nastiness and stupidity we have come to expect from Australia’s government, regardless of party affiliation:

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. Hilariously, this put Western telecoms ten years behind China’s, with no prospect of closing the gap nor visible impact on Huawei or China.