It was impressive timing: no sooner had the Chinese government banned Liberal MP Andrew Hastie and Victorian Liberal senator James Paterson from visiting China as part of a study tour and demanded they “repent and redress their mistakes” and “unwarranted attacks” on China’s human rights record, than we learnt in forensic detail that responsibility for Beijing’s horrific oppression of Muslims in Xinjiang goes to the very top.
President-for-life Xi Jinping has, we now know, personally demanded “absolutely no mercy” in the suppression of Uyghurs, transforming Xinjiang into, in effect, one colossal prison camp.
And for a local angle, it was only a couple of days after the Financial Review had revealed that the Chinese consulate in Sydney had been involved in mustering Chinese community support for a Labor-linked mayor with his own Communist Party links. It’s another demonstration of the extent to which Beijing directly interferes in Australian politics, and the willingness of many within NSW Labor to be co-opted by and apologise for Chinese interests.
Which brings us to China Matters, the group that had organised the study tour for Hastie, Paterson and, according to reports, Labor’s Matt Keogh.
Study tours can be a highly effective way for foreign governments to exercise influence over political debate in Australia. The Israel lobby in Australia has for many years organised study tours designed to educate politicians and media representatives about Israel’s security needs and the necessity of its ever-expanding, illegal annexation of Palestinian land. The Taiwanese government has also used tours to demonstrate to MPs that a vibrant Chinese democracy is perfectly possible.
China Matters has no apparent links to the Chinese government — indeed, it lists the Australian government as an official supporter, and former head of Prime Minister and Cabinet Martin Parkinson endorsed their study tours. It “strives to advance sound China policy … We generate public debate about Australia’s relationship with the People’s Republic of China, which aims to inject nuance and realism into discussions … with the goal of formulating recommendations and providing analysis on how these policy challenges are viewed in Beijing.”
The Hastie/Paterson/Keogh trip would have been the third study tour; one was held last year, with Chris Bowen and Liberal MP Julian Leeser; another in September with Tanya Plibersek, Richard Marles, Ted O’Brien and business and peak-body representatives, including the National Farmers Federation’s Fiona Simson.
So who’s behind China Matters? The presence of Hugh White on the body’s advisory council, and Geoff Raby as an “associate”, should give an indication of China Matters’ perspective.
Both are enthusiastic apologists for Beijing: Raby called for then-foreign minister Julie Bishop to be sacked for criticising China and replaced with someone “who has a grasp of the profound challenges Australia faces in the rapidly evolving new world order being shaped, in large measure by China”. The board of directors includes Stephen Fitzgerald, a vocal opponent of the Turnbull government’s approach to China relations, who has argued that “we live in a Chinese world” and that Chinese influence “is not bad, threatening or malign. Most is in fact benign, beneficial to us …”
But the presence of numerous business figures in China Matters is the key to understanding it. This is no China front group or Beijing-funded “study centre”, nor is it funded by Beijing-aligned billionaires. It is backed by Rio Tinto, PWC, minerals hauler Aurizon, Star Casino and ANU — all of whom have a strong financial interest in maintaining good relations with China.
The group is chaired by business doyen and long-time China booster Kevin McCann and includes mining industry veteran Andrew Michelmore. Star’s John O’Neill is on the advisory council, as is Australia China Business Council member Laurie Smith and CHAMP Ventures’ Su-Ming Wong and Vantage Asia’s Jason Yat-sen Li.
China Matters thus represents the concerns of Australian business about how Australian political debate, and commentary about China, “are viewed in Beijing”, and the capacity for such debate and commentary to destabilise and endanger lucrative commercial opportunities for Australian business.
It would prefer strident criticism to be kept out of public, behind closed doors, where there is less risk of it upsetting Beijing and endangering business opportunities across minerals exports, education services, gambling and finance.
Ironically, Beijing’s froth-mouthed reaction to Hastie and Paterson has only served to draw attention to its human rights abuses and thin-skinned reaction to any criticism.
If you’re following this story follow https://twitter.com/nathanlawkc.
There’s a great summation of how it got to this here: https://www.comparativist.org/2019/08/28/a-history-of-hong-kongs-contentious-politics-it-was-you-who-taught-us/
And a somewhat hopeful outside observer’s perspective here: https://idlewords.com/2019/08/a_week_with_no_tear_gas.htm
Why does the Australian Government allow the chinese to operate a propganda radio station in the ACT? If the CIA wanted to do it I’m sure there would be an outcry. The station operates on an HPON license on 1323 khz with a transmitter near the Gungahlin Drive extension.
Bernard doing a bit of ‘frothing’ too – what should we do Bernard with a mob that last year took 38% of our exports – tell them to bugger-off and leave us alone and we will divert those exports to our good and faithful friend ‘the Donald’?
Probably Terry for the same reason the BBC is permitted to broadcast locally on AM and FM or for the sam reason Howard leased (sold?) the ABC transmitters in Darwin to some ratbag evangelical Christian mob to enable them to broadcast their superstitious claptrap into Indonesia
I’m happy to read Crikey’s anti-China line as it’s much more informed than what’s available in mainstream media, even though I think it’s lacking balance. But the writing does sometimes become cliched, like the concept of “apologist” for anyone of a contrary opinion. “Apologist” infers they are a paid-up spokesperson for an evil organisation. What is your proof for that?
Um no, you infer that. Bernard implies nothing of the sort.
Queensland LNP is smarter than NSW labor – They simply have a Chinese only branch of the LNP not associated with any actual electoral lines but based solely upon ethnic lines .
So the Chinese government is catered for and because Morrison government was elected by the Queensland LNP’s performance Canberra won’t dare look at the cozy arrangement neither do any of the journalists including Crikey because it is outside Melbourne and Sydney so it is not newsworthy. Neat arrangement.
But the Palaszczuk labor government will probably publicise it next year in the heat of the election and the LNP will try to camouflage the gaffe- but it is unlikely LNP is in the hunt to win they have been chalking up losses -been out of government 25 years of the last 30 years. So as a betting man who would one put their money on?
Bernard,
What are we to make of your selective reporting. According to the leaked documents, a knife attack by a Uighur group in 2014 wounded over a hundred and left 31 dead. The response was discussed, with the British style response rejected because it gave too much weight to rights and not enough to security. The US post 9/11 response was adopted as getting the balance right. In 2016 a new commander was put in charge of the “re-education” of the Uighurs and the scale expanded so much that some officials complained that so many were under “re-education” that agriculture and herding was suffering. Is this “the whole of Xinjiang turned, in effect, into a giant prison camp”? What does “in effect” mean, Bernard?
Here is a level headed assessment with nothing to do with any former ambassadors, who are China apologists, according to Bernard.
A terrorist attack occurred in Xinjiang and in 2016, an newly appointed official leaned toward making results of re-education the only goal to consider and proceeded to imprison for re-education too many for too long, with economic effects. We are entitled to critics the human rights abuses involved in an excessive attempt to suppress a variant of Jihadi Islam. We should recognise though that this was a response to a terrorist attack and that the Chinese authorities took the US response as their model, and, as Abu Ghraib showed, and the tendency of Chinese bureaucrats to think only of meeting their goals prescribed from above and disregarding everything else, the result could only be human rights abuses.
I agree that China should be criticised for their own version of George W Bush’s occupation of Iraq and setting up centres like Abu Ghraib, where terrorist suspects could in effect be tortured. While protests and holding tortures to account has been difficult in the US, it will not be possible in China.
Now Bernard’s “hysteria,” to use Paul Keating’s term, is only useful in pushing Crikey toward the US Secretary of State’s position, that we should line up with the US against China.
We have criticisms over China’s position in the South China Sea, and those of us who deplored US actions in Abu Ghraib and other places, as exposed on Wikileaks, will deplore China for dealing with terrorism along the lines of the US model. But who, trying to be objective, would say that Chinese authorities have “in effect” turned the whole of Xianjiang into a giant prison camp?
Ian, I don’t believe that China’s ‘adventures’ in the South China Sea were in any way any different from those of the UK and the US in the Chagos Islands – at least the Chinese militarised a lot of uninhabited rocks unlike our allies who removed over one hundred thousand Islanders and built Diego Garcia. The International Court of Justice has ruled the UK and US actions illegal and the Islanders should be reinstated to their Islands. The UK and the US have rejected the ICJ rulings and that sounds very much like the Chinese rejection of the rulings over the Spratlys etc. Jesus I hate hypocrisy especially when it comes from those holier-than-thou States such as America and Britain and, of course, Australia. I read somewhere that quid-pro-quo for the UK ceding the Islands to the US was Us assistance with the establishment of the Brits Polaris system
Yes Terry, it is the hypocrisy that grates. Only this month have we learned of our very own secret trials and anonymous prisoners.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/nov/19/mystery-prisoner-held-canberra-jail-secret-conviction-raided-afp-memoir
News first published by Robert Macklin with both publishers still caught up in various prohibitions as Crikey will be.