The New York Times today, in an article by Damien Cave, suggests a quandary for Australia, having to choose between its longstanding alliance with the US and increasingly deeper economic ties to Communist China, a slippery slope for most countries beguiled by China’s imaginary endless markets, which are heavily regulated and controlled by the Chinese Communist Party along political trajectories.
There is no real conflict, it is an imaginary drumbeat to create issues because of Trump’s chaotic presidency. All intelligent people know that the US democracy elects a president every four years come hell or high water, and the country continues to function as the world’s only superpower whoever is sitting in the White House.
The notion that there is a difficult decision between survival (e.g. the century old military alliance with the United States, both vibrant democratic countries) and trade with China, a totalitarian behemoth which has traditionally operated politically in foreign affairs through blackmail and propaganda is a false issue. This is not really a choice. The dangers of becoming too dependent on China’s trade only mitigates in favor of not becoming “captive” of a totalitarian nightmare, especially a nation which can be economically suffocated by too many entanglements with China.
Of course, anyone can do business with China, but obviously doing business with China comes with conditions which require diplomatic decisions and concessions (often turning reality on its head, such as the One-China fiction) favoring the hegemonic plans China has more recently become bolder to pursue. The conflict is not whether Australia will continue to ally itself with the United States, a military and political alliance essential to Australia’s safety and high profile in international affairs, but whether Australia should be cautious when doing business with China, the world’s largest and most dangerous propaganda and blackmail machine, and one of the best regimes at floating a honey-trap for overly eager and unsuspecting trade partners, who may become addicted to what China allows to be doled out to further its own hegemony.
While China may be Australia’s largest trading partner, China allows that to be the case so long as Australia adheres to the policies China requires of it (which begs the question of “independence” the detractors from US influence in Australia (such as former PM Paul Keating (a serial sinophile, who sits on the advisory board of China Development Bank and has met with Chinese President Xi Jinping) who said Australia should not “put all its chips” on its relationship with the US.) are fond to argue – is it better to be influenced by the world’s strongest democracy, or by the world’s most horrific totalitarian dictatorship (having murdered as many as 80 million of its own people throughout its history, and currently stifles even the smallest hints of freedom of expression or speech, human rights, or justice, and stomps its heavy boot on the commerce of all around the globe who do not kowtow to its hegemony and fictional “One-China Policy”)?
It doesn’t seem to be such a difficult choice, unless too much emphasis has been made on doing business with the devil, and Australia has become hopelessly entangled with (or addicted to) Communist China beyond its own control. Caveat emptor, let the buyer beware.
Strait Talk by Lee Longhwa 