When Chinese President Xi Jinping enters the House of Representatives chamber this afternoon to address a joint sitting of the Australian Parliament, many Australians will be wondering why he’s there. This is a chamber in which men and women elected by Australians debate and make decisions about what they believe is best for Australia and for the people who have voted for them. It is a chamber in which, no matter how much we disagree over key public policy issues, those issues are resolved, for better or worse, without bloodshed, violence or persecution.
The President may have difficulty understanding such concepts. The government he leads rules not through democracy but through the power of the Chinese military and a police state controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. Xi’s government continues to detain, imprison and torture those who criticise it. Chinese provincial governments “disappear” lawyers, whistleblowers and complainants for years at a time. There are mass killings of Uyghurs in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region; in Tibet, hundreds of political prisoners remain behind bars, and unlawful killing by authorities is routine under a system of brutal repression. Across China, there is no rule of law: over 99.9% of people prosecuted end up convicted, and over 2400 people were executed by the state last year. A vast state apparatus imposes blanket censorship and surveillance to support Xi’s regime.
Inevitably today there will be mention of “human rights”. That bland term fails to convey the immense brutality of the Chinese Communist regime directed toward its own people.
We may depend on Chinese demand for much of our national income; we may seek to strengthen and deepen economic ties with China — to do otherwise would be plainly not in our national interest. But like his predecessor Hu Jintao in 2003, no matter what diplomatically nuanced words are uttered, Xi Jinping disgraces our democratic Parliament with his presence.
15 thoughts on “Crikey says: Xi Jinping has no place in our Parliament”
Lena
November 17, 2014 at 9:21 pmAlso I forgot to mention that at least the chinese government doesn’t hide behind a veneer of pseudo-democracy and “freedom of speech” while actually stripping away basic human rights passed in laws disguised as measures to strengthen homeland security – basically america what with its terribly lax gun laws, militarised police force using excessive force at times racially motivated and without much reason, increased government surveillance and power to detain and imprison people suspected of a wide range of non-specific bullshit, internet censorship, etc while in some states abortion has been criminalised – I mean come on, what is this nonsense? And you think US democracy operates in a manner that is consistent with its original Greek ideology? Of course not. It’s candidates from local government to the presidential elections are increasingly reliant on lobby groups and corporate financing to run highly expensive and misleading campaigns focused on increasing social paranoia and insecurity to win elections. Political leaders in the US are mere puppets strung on a string made of money and you think this kind of “democracy” is somehow better in every way? I would still feel safer and more secure living in China than the US.
CML
November 18, 2014 at 1:51 amThank you, James and Ian – happy to know you don’t necessarily swallow the ‘spin’!!
Well said Mimi – it was reported on ABC tonight that the President of China said today (in his address to the Australian parliament) that China was working toward full democracy by 2050.
Lets hope they do a better job of it than some other countries one could name!!!
AR
November 18, 2014 at 8:31 amI shall wait to see how Xi governs but the verdict is clear on the last abomination to address our Pariament, Shrub.
And note the salvering admiration & tongue bathing that the tories gave that semi evolved simian, right down to physically blocking the Greens Leader Brown from getting close enough to speak to him.
Hypocrisy is too nuanced, try Uriah Heeps, the lot of them.
Ian
November 18, 2014 at 2:00 pmLena you are so right. Every time I hear these Western politicians and spokesmen touting their wonderful “Western Liberal Democracy” I want to be sick. Your post describes what this Western Liberal Democracy really is and it’s the last thing I would be keen to be part of.
James O'Neill
November 18, 2014 at 2:42 pmPepe Escobar has a very revealing comment in a recent article, and I quote:
“What Obama and his advisers have failed to realise is this: Russia and China (backed by the BRICS, SCO, CSTO, EEU) are far more powerful than the US/EU block in political, economic and military terms. This is the big news, the major strategic development, the geopolitical tectonic shift, which the Empire’s corporate media is trying so hard to obfuscate. As for western leaders, they are simply delusional and they have manifestly fallen into the old trap of believing their won propaganda.”
More good sense and truth in that short quote than the reams of BS we have been subjected to over the past few days in both the corporate and so-called alternative media.