Penny Wong didn’t want to talk about the book she was there to launch. Labor’s foreign affairs spokeswoman used the release of Red Zone — The Sydney Morning Herald international editor Peter Hartcher’s deep-dive into the growing threat of Xi Jinping’s China — as an opportunity to excoriate the Morrison government’s opportunistic, misguided handling of foreign policy.
Delivering a stump speech which had been dropped to media overnight, Wong lashed out at an approach to China that was often “frenzied, afraid and lacking context”.
The Morrison government, she says, is too often caught pandering to the far right, trying to win short-term domestic political battles, and comfortable with letting irresponsibly militaristic voices run wild. By “deliberately encouraging anxiety about conflict” and beating the drums of war, Wong says the government is playing directly into China’s hands.
Often the topic of Hartcher’s book faded into the background during Wong’s outline of the Morrison government’s many opportunistic foreign policy fumbles — from the short-lived decision to recognise East Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in order to win the Wentworth byelection, to Morrison’s years of cosying up to former US president Donald Trump.
And at times there was almost the hint of tension between Hartcher and Wong. For years he has been one of the media’s loudest voices in calling out Xi’s aggressive, militaristic China and its attempts to expand its influence operations in Australia. The thesis of his book concerns Australia “waking up” to the rising threat.
But Wong’s speech, another welcome sign of Labor’s new course on foreign policy, suggests the opposition still thinks the government is sleepwalking.
One of Wong’s few references to Hartcher’s book was to suggest she didn’t necessarily agree with every sentence or every metaphor. Hartcher, meanwhile, opened his portion with a slightly tongue-in-cheek reference to how Wong’s attacks on Morrison had “descended into party politics”.
Wong and party politics quickly became the star of the show, overshadowing Hartcher’s warnings about the state of the China relationship. At an event attended almost entirely by gallery journalists and a smattering of young national security wonks — who else can get to a 10.30am book launch — the senator spent a lot of time deadbatting questions on whether Labor was abandoning foreign policy bipartisanship, and how to solve a problem like Mike Pezzullo’s warmongering.
It’s a pity the discussion was so focused on finding the foreign policy wedge between the two parties. And it’s a pity the launch drew such a scant crowd. A serious discussion about how we protect our 1.3 million-strong Chinese-Australia diaspora from growing McCarthyism and racist attacks was heard by an audience that was overwhelmingly white. An important canvassing of one of the most important policy issues of our time — one which could pose an existential threat to our country — still draws only the most interested observers. It’ll barely get near the front page.
The drumbeats might be getting louder. But it doesn’t seem like too many of us care. Yet.
“how to solve a problem like Mike Pezzullo’s warmongering”
Sack him and break up the Department of Home Affairs into smaller, separate departments, like it once was.
When it comes to aggressive, militaristic policy China has nothing on us – and our great and glorious Imperial master. Instead of mindlessly regurgitating ASPI talking points (and thereby acting as an agent of foreign influence) Kishor Napier-Raman might benefit from reading the experienced and expert commentary of people such as Colin Mackerras or Jocelyn Chey or Dennis Argall or Alison Broinowsky. As the song goes,
It would well repay your pains,
To educate your brains,
And do a little thinking of your own.
And without world superbully as our notional bestie, though the proof would be in the possibly mythical pudding, we’d be forced to be more conscious of realpolitik rather than the fake politik of the LNP’s pecuniary motivations.
As Max Suich said on Monday “A former senior official, deeply knowledgeable of defence policy making, says: “If the Morrison government was genuine in its talk about war with China, it would be criminally negligent not to be spending 5-6 per cent of GDP on defence. Doubling our 100 strike aircraft. Not waiting till 2030-2040 for submarines. It is a surrender of national security policy to domestic politics.”
There has been a note of the casual, the she’ll-be-right, the scary shoot-from-the-lip, even insouciance, in the development of our China policy over the past four years. A highly influential figure then and now in shaping our approach to China since 2017, remarks when risk of war is raised: “Xi Jinping is not suicidal!” Morrison and his idiot mates are running a ‘reds under the beds’ election campaign a la Bob Menzies – unfortunately it has got a bit ahead of them although they might think it will divert from the failed Vaccination and Quarantine issues and the ‘debt and deficit’ Budget which still has not stirred much excitement
The Morrison Government is reying on our allies to come to our aid and hence forth does not see the point in spending big on defence.
If it was serious then it would create a bigger defence forv supply line and not rely on other countries supplying us.
If in any way Morrison can assist one of his mates in procuring some form of defence force spendibg, he will be all over it aka the mate of his who set up contract with French to build subs in Adelaide.
This country should be self reliant in all aspects of Military along with creating a bigger defence force.
If I was worried about losing the next election I would create a few problems now which I could then magically solve just before the election. This would be one of them.
If Morrison thinks he’s in control of this situation he might have a nasty surprise.
I care Kishor. As always we are more than happy to tag onto the American military/industrial complex. Another missed opportunity for diplomacy and mutual benefit. These old crusaders have never grasped the abject failure of all their foreign ventures and that we are all the poorer for it.