Comments on: More on the Yellow Peril

By: Baraholka

Baraholka — Mon, 25 May 2009 05:01:06 +0000

Joe Hockey and Sharman Stone are continuing to run the Yellow Peril Dog Whistle. In their appearances on ABC’s Q&A of May 7 and May 14 they both emphasised that China will hold significant levels of Australian debt and that Australians should be aware of this, but failed to specifically state why this would be a bad thing.

http://indifferencegivesyouafright.wordpress.com/2009/05/24/yellow-peril-dogwhistle-familiar-territory-for-liberal-coalition-sickos/

By: Katz

Katz — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 22:39:35 +0000

Look at the excessive and anti-democratic fanaticism displayed during the Olympic Torch run.

Yep, the torch holocaust should go right to the top of everyone’s catalogue of modern atrocities.

I agree that domestically, during its period of nation-building, the Chinese Communists perpetrated huge and appalling breaches of human rights. Indeed, their record of tyranny rivals the worst in the world. (I count the reduction of Tibet as a domestic event. Others may argue otherwise.)

However, in its commercial dealings with countries that are sources of raw materials, China has been punctilious in its pragmatic and respectful treatment of its counterparties. At the same stage of US development, the US government was sending dozens of Marine contingents into the Caribbean and Latin America, bullying the “natives” into compliance.

Will China continue to be so benign? Probably not. Anyone doing business with China Inc. needs to be extremely cautious. Their sheer commercial and financial power are capable of crushing the strongest rivals. This being the case, it would appear, therefore, that it will be China’s rivals that may seek solutions to the dominance of China not in trade and peaceful competition but in other forms of confrontation, including, perhaps, military.

The nations that may choose to confront China in those ways may well claim necessity and national survival. These, indeed, were the arguments that drove Japan’s attacks on Pearl Harbor.

I imagine that some Japanese continue to argue that Pearl Harbor was justified. But most of them know that the rest of the world disagrees vehemently.

Nothing in the ANZUS Treaty compels a military course of action. Any Australian government that may be motivated to take military action in concert with the US against China needs to ask itself whether they are signing up Australia to a US version of Pearl Harbor.

By: Adrien

Adrien — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 06:11:10 +0000

Nick – Adrien, do you honestly believe any Asian nation-state’s political class (let alone that of the PRC) has the kind of cultural links with the very white, anglophone commenters of LP, that the US Right has with the likes of Greg Sheridan*?
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No I don’t.
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The transnational links amongst the political classes of the English speaking world appear to verge on hegemony thanks largely tom the usual associations, modern communications and the likes of News Ltd. The PRC in particular and Asia in general are another zone with their own culture and governmentality whether or no they possess the apparatus of democracy. Japan, for instance, seems to also be a one-party state by consent.
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But we in Australia have always lived on the fringe between the post-Imperial Anglozone and that of Asia. Our position is becoming significant and both the US and the PRC understand this and may compete with one another to court our favour. At least one foreign policy article I’ve read contemplates Australia’s posture in the event of a Sino-US military conflict and recommends that we stay out of it. This would probably be the least bad of three options and would negatively affect ANZUS. Probably destroy it.
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I’m not saying that LP commentors have any kind of links with the PRC at all. I don’t have that information.
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Where is this `servility’ coming from?
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It comes from the discomfort that one feels at Australia’s xenophobia toward Asia which many in the intelligentsia feel, with reason, is not entirely an historical matter. It is still commonplace in polite circles these days for people to assume that one is being racist if one discusses race.
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A version of said assumption is at play when, in light of legitimate concern about the government minister responsible for adminstrating the defense of this country has been exposed in a relationship with an important figure in the PRC economic apparatus. I read somewhere above that The Age made Ambassador Fu Ying look diabolical or something. I read that article it didn’t do anything of the kind. It simply speculated that Rudd was trying to put a distance between the PRC and himself to avoid the Fitzgibbon fall-out. Standard politics.
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I know I carry no brief for the Tiananmen Square mob.
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I’m not sure what that ‘mob’ has to do with the intrigues of the PRC, but anyway.
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Perhaps you think everyone here defending Rudd and Joel has come out of the old CPA(Marxist-Leninist)?
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What a caricature. Those here defending Joel are doing so because they’re in, or support, the ALP not the CPA (M-L) which btw is now the CPA. They’ve even got a newspaper. They leave months old copies of it in phone booths every now and then so I guess they must be a roaring success .
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Again, the concerns about Fitzgibbon’s behaviour are legitimate. I’m happy to have anyone point out a Yellow Peril hysteria to me but thus far I haven’t seen one. He should’ve declared his interests. He didn’t. Time to go.
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Also standard politics.

By: Adrien

Adrien — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 05:43:51 +0000

Katz #31 – A more considered reply:
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If Adrien thinks that the Right is rummaging around for a casus belli that will draw Australia closer to the US in his hypothesised inevitable confrontation with China
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Well I didn’t say that the Right was doing that. I’ve received the impression that others here say that. Maybe I’m wrong.
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Fact is both sides of the House, those capable of potentially forming a govt anyway, are more or less uncritical supporters of ANZUS. The ALP less so yes but not substantially. I have a feeling that despite the 2/3 disapproval rating for such a move we will soon be boosting our presence in Afghanistan. Wasn’t one of Rudd’s riffs the anti-war one? I’m reminded of a columnist in The Age who wrote a piece lauding Obama as the leader of the world. I got the impression that she would be highly disinclined to celebrate US hegemony if the GOP were in the White House.
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‘My hypothesis’, btw, is not mine but standard discourse in the serious literature speculating about Australia’s future foreign policy stance. Yet another way in which we are still the lucky country is our fortunate alliance with the World’s Biggest Power. First the Brits, now the Yanks. This enables us to carry on shangri-la with a defense force of 40 000 to defend an entire continent. It will not last.
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As matters stand, China is on the cusp of world dominance despite having fired virtually no angry shots
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Virtually none? I wonder what the people of Tibet have to say about that? Or those whose lives were ‘improved’ by their education viz The Cultural Revolution. The Manichean view of geopolitics is really the biggest impediment. Just because the US foreign policy is a catalogue of nefarious hypocrisy does not make China the good guys.
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…which is a record more savoury than a nation that has invaded half the countries in the world and has an unhealthy obsession with the preservation of its bodily fluids.
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And when China bumps the US off its hill will it act any differently? Consider the staggering arrogance of the PRC. Look at the excessive and anti-democratic fanaticism displayed during the Olympic Torch run.
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Again I have not seen any substantial discourse that warns of Yellow Peril. Just legitimate concerns about our defense minister and his secret dealings. If this was the Libs you’d all be howling. Instead there’s just the same PC orthodoxy working overtime.
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If you want to think serious geopolitics than consider this. That is the future for good or otherwise.

By: joe2

joe2 — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 23:17:13 +0000

Yes, I was far too cruel Ken@73. Hey, I wonder if Nick is the brother of Dave?

By: Helen

Helen — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 21:38:07 +0000

Down on cyprus avenue
With a childlike vision leaping into view
Clicking, clacking of the high heeled shoe
Ford & fitzroy, madame Liu

OK, now I’ve got my earworm for today. At least for once it’s a nice one.

By: Ken Lovell

Ken Lovell — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 12:39:52 +0000

That’s a bit harsh joe2. He probably sent out an email to all staff asking that anyone who had investigated the minister should give him details by COB Friday 27 March. Nobody responded so what else can the poor bloke be expected to do? Absence of evidence = evidence of absence, it’s a well-known bureaucratic truism.

By: Adrien

Adrien — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 09:53:15 +0000

Nick and Katz – If Adrien thinks that the Right is rummaging around for a casus belli that will draw Australia closer to the US in his hypothesised inevitable confrontation with China, I hope the Right will find something more substantial than a couple of suits and some flights to China.
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Adrien, do you honestly believe any Asian nation-state’s political class
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Um I didn;t say anything that even remotely advocates the Howardarian endorsement of non-critical colonial support for Uncle Sam. I merely said I don;t see this Yellow Peril thing at play.
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As a Catholic conservative commentor on foreign policy matters said (and I’m not a Catholic conservative): My views on US foreign policy coincide with the radical Left.
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But unlike most of them I know why there are people like Kissinger.

By: joe2

joe2 — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 07:15:07 +0000

“And still we have no evidence of the alleged DOD snooping.”

That is true Razor@69. It might be a sign that the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, Ian Carnell, is actually doing his job and investigating the allegations, unlike Defence Secretary, Nick Warner, who just seemed to know straight away that none of his team would engage in that kind of thing.

By: Razor

Razor — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 06:52:17 +0000

The blocking of the Oz Minerals takeover is purely political window dressing – an attempt to appear to stand up to Beijing. The security pretext is a joke.

And still we have no evidence of the alleged DOD snooping.