China will do whatever it likes. Hu knew!
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Gosh what a tizz the Chinese Government has us all in. China is run by a murderous clique of kleptocrats, with a human rights record that makes Robert Mugabe look benign. And that’s just the national government, never mind the provincial governments. They are rivalled only by Russia for out-and-out corruption. But then, you get that with dictatorships. Governments that don’t understand or accept the need for the rule of law only regard corruption as a problem when the wrong people get paid. That’s why — as Greg Sheridan correctly observed today — discussion about minutiae like the identity of the Chinese state and its corporate interests, and whether what we understand as commercial negotiations could be interpreted as espionage by the Chinese, is moot. It’s like asking a Mafiosi to be crystal clear about exactly the reason why you’re being whacked. The Chinese don’t do the whole rule of law and due process thing. Western corporations are happy to overlook all that, or more correctly budget for it, in the hope of tapping that vast market. Western Governments are happy to overlook all that for the same reason. Increasingly, the latter have little choice, given China’s economic importance. And if China is effective in shifting its growth base to domestic demand rather than exports, that will complete the deal. Kevin Rudd suddenly finds himself in the firing line for failing to meet Australians’ expectations about how we should be treated overseas. We may now laughingly recall the early days of the Rudd Government when there was much nudging, winking and eyebrow-arching over how Rudd was too close to the Chinese, too much the Sinophile. In fact Rudd’s stance toward China if anything has been more aggressive than his predecessors. He literally lectured them — in Mandarin — in Beijing on Tibet. He laid down guidelines for assessing foreign investment bids by state-owned entities. The Defence White Paper squarely addresses China’s military capability and its potential threat. But at the same time, Rudd has been vigorous in promoting a greater role for China in world financial institutions. Sinophile, Sinophobe — either way, Rudd’s calls on each of those issues has been based on policy principles, and has been correct. The Opposition keeps trying to cast Rudd as a Sinophile — it’s only a couple of months ago that Peter Costello was referring to “our Mandarin-speaking Prime Minister” who would tick off Chinalco’s Rio bid — but Rudd’s decisions have made it hard for them. Indeed, Malcolm Turnbull looked rather peculiar as a Liberal leader complaining that the White Paper targeted the threat of China too much. Criticism of Rudd’s “failure” to somehow rescue Stern Hu from durance vile isn’t simple point-scoring by the Opposition, or isn’t only that. There’s a collective element of self-delusion in the criticism of the Government. The fact is, there’s nothing any Government could do, and that’s the awful truth that we don’t want to face. The Chinese are vastly more powerful than us, and, worse, we are now economically dependent on them. It matters very little whether we have a good or bad relationship, or a Prime Minister who speaks Mandarin. The Chinese will do as they please. Australia has extensive resource assets on which China depends, and the Chinese Government clearly resents paying market rates for access. Thus, the Chinese will behave this way more and more often until we give them what they want, in the manner of an African country that is happy to take Chinese cash while they take the minerals. There’s much “inscrutable Chinese” nonsense at the heart of the coverage of the Hu case, as if Beijing’s intentions can only be divined by some white-bearded scholar transcribing ancient texts and considering animal entrails. The Chinese are merely pursuing their interest in identifying low-cost sources of fuel for their remarkable economic growth. Get in their way and they’ll hurt you. The Left might argue that, given our traditional allies the Brits and the Americans have long acted in exactly this manner toward small and medium-sized countries, there’s an element of justice in Australia discovering what it’s like to incur the wrath of an imperial power. But at least there were independent courts and some slight human rights protections even at the height of Anglophone imperialism. And China’s critics don’t offer much of a solution either. Having finally worked out just what monsters have run Communist China for the past 60 years — more or less coinciding with the conversion of Communist leaders to capitalism — the Left can offer the purity of disengagement and criticism, for which quite a few thousand unemployed Australians won’t thank them. And it won’t help any Tibetans or Uyghurs either Australia can’t control what the Chinese do. We are only responsible for our own actions. The Government has to pursue the national interest in dealing with arbitrary-minded Government not averse to butchering its own people. Stern Hu is showing the price of pursuing the national interest, and there’s nothing we can do about it. Don’t like it? Ah well, that’s too bad. |
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20 Comments
Well, like Western Europe and the USA we are also the market for the factory of the world, and just like climate change it will end in t…ariffs.
Ruthlessly honest article. But spot on.
A tangental thought:
And we are super eager to keep trading with this country because?…. oh yeah… I know… we get lots of money from them. Or at least some people make a lot of money out of it.
We use to agree once with the principle of having economic embargoes imposed on countries that were bad on human rights. But the truth is, that if there is a lot of short term economic gain to be made then we don’t apply that rule. Small African nations maybe. But China? Too much money at stake. Stuff principle.
The West owned the world in the 19th century. The story of the 20th century was the transition of ownership of the East back to the East. Will the 21st century see transition of ownership of the world to the East and the South?
Are we already sensing that the BRIC countries will equal or even replace the economic power of the UK, Western Europe and America (i.e the country we used to call USA until the “us” got lost somewhere)?
I can’t see us sending gun-boats up the Yangtze to bomb the who-ever-is-in-charge into submission. I wonder if they have forgotten the last time that was done.
This might be a good time for us to stop shouting and start thinking.
As long as we make money we are happy to deal with monsters who are not averse to butchering their own people. This is all based on correct policy principles. They must be the same principles that compel Australia to support the regime in Israel even when they butcher thousands of women and children, illegally occupying other people’ land, just like the monsters who occupy Tibet. Except we don’t have to sell Israel anything, as long as they provide free trips to Israel to our politicians, just like the ones provided to Kevin Rudd and his mates by the Chinese.
rio should have realised its bad luck to run over a chinaman
of course rio could act sternly and refuse the chinese supply
until some due process occurs
or as a nation we could kill two birds with one stone and embargo coal exports
how do you say fat chance in mandarin
Didn’t Howard sell gas to China at very cheap rates?
Perhaps we should renege on the deal — and then perhaps real negotiations could take place.
In this whole the sad saga I’m reminded of a once great Australian political leader otherwise lampooned as Pig Iron Bob who was savagely lampooned for decades for continuing to trade with the Japanese in their insatiable demands for scrap iron on the eve of World War II.
The parallels are quite similar. In the period prior to the Second World War will happy to trade with the Japanese sending them raw materials while busy raping and pillaging in China. Of course what was good for trade with Australia and human rights didn’t matter a shit. It was lament of many an Australian servicemen that the steel used against them in their battle to save Australiamay well have been sent by Australians to the Japanese in the interest of free trade.
We now have the true measure of the Australian leader the great Mr. Kevin Rudd (ex sycophantic junior diplomat) in the eyes of the Chinese. Our business executives are pawns in a political game, just like Muhamed Haneef a few years ago. It must be especially difficult for the current government to defend Australia and its tarnished human rights record with the rest of the world when seeking sympathy in relation to the not dissimilar behaviour the Australia SeveralPolice in this matter, especially as then Commissioner has been endorsed by the current government.
Here is a great lesson for Australia. If we are serious about our future economic stability, we should just drop kowtow to the great Chinese power machine and leave the room quietly arse first.
This is sad but true when you play in their sand pit you have to obey their rules
Well, the option is to *not* sell resources to them. Before we do that we need to consider whether we can sell them elsewhere, and whether the Chinese would be able to buy them elsewhere.
“Gosh what a tizz the Chinese Government has us all in.” Shouldn’t that be the tizz the rightards are in? Domocracy does has its draw backs, or is that throw-backs! At least the the nightly line up of opposition stooges gives us something to laugh at.
We also sell uranium to China, and people like me who are opposed are frequently derided for our views. There’s no guarantee that our uranium won’t be used in nuclear weapons, and I find this just another hypocrisy on a grand scale - we self righteously carry on about North Korea (they aren’t members of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) and Iran who is. We don’t complain about Pakistan or India who have nuclear weapons, or Israel either for that matter.
I didn’t hear the politicians of either major political party deride the US for its treatment of prisoners of war; Hicks or Habib, and I’m reminded of the main players responses to India re Dr Haneef - it smacked of racist superiority? I only hear defence of Israel’s atrocoties as others have alluded to, and the (at least) million dead in Iraq aren’t even mentioned by politicians in either of the 3 major countries that invaded, killed, maimed, polluted, destroyed and left our (via US?)depleted uranium bombs that are killing even more kids now!
I recall the denials re Abu Graib, and when evidence was revealed by a certain Australian(with the UN at the time) that he knew that Australian military people knew, his name was worse than mud by Howard and his band of warmongers. I Iunderstand, that after the hoo hah died down, nothing changed, except the cameras were banned! The torture continues! We have blood on our hands - lots of it!
The role of the now Opposition is beyond disgusting. The hypocrisy stinks, and who knows, they could jeopardise this man’s position by their demands. If this man is innocent of any crime I feel for him and those who love him. This is just another indicator, that hypocrisy re human rights is noted by people like me, and I’m sure those in the government in China are also taking notes! We don’t have the right to take the high moral ground, as our past and present behaviours have been despicable to say the least!
As per Radio National business coverage earlier today, I think the take out is - there are no reliable laws in a dictatorship. The House has to win so when it doesn’t as per the iron ore price negotiations there is trouble. Now all the stories are coming out of no western company ever breaking through within China as distinct from trading externally.
It all reminds of final year compulsory law subject Jurisprudence where even the sceptical Marxist analysis of the UK Common Law suggests a fortunitous silver lining - grudging admission that the one saving grace of the Law by, of, for the Bosses via money politics here is yet a spider web that tends eventually to ensnare the orb weavers, by precedent of it’s own forms and rules, such that some justice even trickles down into the street.
Here precedent is malleable too but not like China. In a dictatorship there is no spider web, only violence in a myriad of anticipated permutations.
Perhaps Mr Hu should read our Defence White Paper to help him at least come to terms with his situation. Which is probably really our situation also only delayed.
My God, who do we think we are in this world? Doesn’t seem to matter whether an Australian citizen arrested overseas is a druggie, a bar mat thief, or a business man accused of spying and bribery, we all go howling to the government of the day to ride to the rescue. It used to be the “Ugly Americans” who thought they were immune to the laws of overseas sovereign states, now we’ve assumed that mantle. Let’s wait for the details of what Hu is alleged to have done before we make ourselves look silly by trying to bignote.
Naive.
In this case, “Don’t you know who I am” *is* relevant. He’s an executive of a resources company who was pressing Chinese steel mills over breach of contract. Unwise of him to do it in their reach, but what laws had he breached?
It would be good if the publicity and public discussion attending the apparent use of Chinese government power in an arbitrary way led to a better understanding of our position in the world - and that of China and any country, even a kind of democracy like India, with a population many times Australia’s. Perhaps we will cut down the number of subject on which we fatuously preach to others or expect to be taken seriously: e.g. global warming (aka climate change). However we could focus on particular issues where a case could be built up amongst many smaller countries and our own modest influence increased by leverage. That is especially so where even the big powers pay lip service to certain values and all now have some internal dissent to be taken seriously if not appeased.
The case of Mr Hu suggests the thought that a multilateral treaty or just bilateral treasties (and we could try starting with our Asian neighbours) to set out the rights of each country’s citizens in the other country to access to lawyers, recording of all interrogations, fair trials etc. would be a worthwhile objective of Australian foreign policy. Even the long negotiations which would have to take place at fairly high levels would be beneficial because the old fashioned wielders of power to be found in countries which have never come close to being liberal democracies (and not a few in hard-nosed Western circles) would have to understand the standards of modern liberal democracies and, presumably, refine their thinking about what was and was not really necessary in the interests of their governments.
What a peculiar and morally bankrupt piece that is. And confused as well.
Keane does make a really valid point but, in the context of his article, I’m not sure he gets it. He notes, in the last paragraph, that “we are only responsible for our own actions. The Government has to pursue the national interest in dealing with arbitrary-minded Government not averse to butchering its own people.” The actions that we have to take responsibility for are those that involve sacrificing the human rights and welfare of many hundreds of millions of people around the world in the name of commerce.
We all live the lifestyles that we do by virtue of the fact that we trade with countries ruled by brutal regimes who support countries that share a similar sensibility. The untold suffering and brutality in Burma, North Korea, Tibet, and the larger part of the squalor that is the African continent, exists because China supports it with impunity. When we put our heads down on our pillows under warm doonas after a nourishing meal and maybe some family time around our home theatres, we don’t lose a moment’s sleep thinking about the monsters that we deal with in order to have that luxury.
Does the “national interest” that Keane and others speak of exclude anything outside the the narrow prism of economics? Does the national interest not include our behaviour? Is it not in our interest to act morally so that we can provide a model to our children and the rest of the world? Is it not in our interest to truly defend the human rights of others and not simply posture about it? For those that cannot operate outside the commercial paradigm, reduced global conflict would have enormous economic benefit for the world as a whole, but I wish we wouldn’t have to think like that.
And lest people think that these comments are reserved only for China, we could apply the same principles to the past actions of the US. We have some hope that that country may be starting on a new path. We hold our breath. But the issue of the moment is China.
For Keane to say the we “can offer the purity of disengagement and criticism, for which quite a few thousand unemployed Australians won’t thank them, and it won’t help any Tibetans or Uyghurs either” is just an obscenity. This is the same advocacy of appeasement the created the horror of the second world war. Yes, it may cost us and others who may have the courage to do the same, but we will all be much richer - both morally and, dare I say it, economically - in the long run when we have stared down evil.
The Americans can stop the Chinese miracle tomorrow by crashing their currency and defaulting their debt (which they have probably done anyway) and the Chinese would be powerless to stop it.
In fact they may be just about to do exactly that!
GREG ANGELO: Doubtless in your anti-Rudd passion you-together with the leader of the Opposition-would be delighted to pay a little more for cheap Chinese nick-knacks to put in your family’s Christmas stockings.
I can well imagine the expressions on the faces of working class and middle class Australians, when they find out that an item which used to cost $5.00 has suddenly gone to $155.00. Which is exactly what will happen if companies like BHP or RIO can no longer do business with China.
Speaking personally I can always do without tawdry nick-knacks ditto Chinese BBQ sets, bras and knickers. Trashy air-con machines and most of the stuff we get from China. But I’ll bet I’m in the minority here.
It was an excellent article with acute observations.
IMHO I perceive China, for once, having put on a dunce’s cap. Fancy using a steel bar to swat a mosquito!
China is the crisis-du-jour but trade with loathesome regimes is standard practice when they have something we NEED, such as…just a random example.. OIL.
I could barely start larfin’ a month ago when Egypt & Saudi Arabia chided Iran over its negation of democracy - the former has a one party dictatorship and the latter no elections of any description but, oddly (sic!), both regimes would collapse tomorrow with amerikan backing.
We need nothing from China but, as VA sez, we WANT cheap tat. Just imagine those unemployed by no longer selling ore & coal (a whole 2% of the labour force) - they could try their hand at akshally making stuff like wot we used to.