Former Australian PM Paul Keating created quite a stir recently when he criticised the Australian press for neglecting its professional duty and acting as a mouthpiece for the pro-US and anti-China establishment.
He got a bit of pushback from the affected parties for his remarks.
A few days later, I saw a tweet that solicited messages of support from Australians who agreed with Mr Keating, and the tweet also encouraged respondents to copy Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
I decided it was best to stand up and make my voice heard, so I sent out the following email, copying both PM Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong:
Subject: I support Paul Keating's stance on Australian policy re. China
To: susan.grusovin@aph.gov.au
CC: A.Albanese.MP@aph.gov.au, senator.wong@aph.gov.au (The copy to Albanese bounced, since he seems to have discontinued the use of this address, but Penny Wong's office acknowledged receipt of my mail.)
Hi,
As an Australian citizen and voter, I want to make my opinion clear (hence copying the PM and FM) that I am alarmed about my country being frogmarched into a coming proxy war being orchestrated by the United States against China.
1. China is not a threat to Australia. It is our largest trading partner. The Australian and Chinese economies are complementary, and Australia will continue to grow and prosper if we maintain cordial relations with China.
2. Any talk of Chinese invasion is rubbish. Not only does China not need to physically invade Australia when it can acquire Australian resources through trade at significantly lower cost, it is also logistically infeasible. This argument by the anti-China lobby is deliberately emotive but groundless.
3. All talk by the US of freedom, democracy and human rights is well-known to be selective and used for geopolitical reasons only. The US has never criticised Israel or Saudi Arabia for their appalling human rights records because they are allies. (Now that Saudi Arabia has defied the US by signing a deal with Iran under China's auspices, I expect its human rights record will be taken up by the US in a predictable manner.) Besides, when even the Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC) has not complained about China's treatment of Uyghur Muslims, why is the West (which waged two decades of war against Muslim countries and killed millions of people in the War on Terror) so concerned about Muslims in China? It is apparent that the Uyghur Muslim issue is not a real one but just a handy stick to beat China with. Why is the treatment of Muslims by the Hindu right-wing government of India not mentioned by the same people who seem so concerned about the Uyghurs? Probably because India is considered an ally for now.
4. The US is only interested in preserving its hegemony, nothing else. It has no allies, only useful vassal states that it uses in proxy wars. If we are a truly sovereign nation, our foreign policy should be aimed at securing the interests of the Australian people, not at furthering the interests of the US.
5. We have seen how devastatingly Ukraine has been wrecked in the US's proxy war against Russia. Regardless of the moral posturing over Russia's "unprovoked aggression" (yeah, right), we know that the US has been deliberately stoking this conflict for years, and it became blatantly obvious with the 2014 Victoria Nuland-orchestrated coup that deposed a democratically elected Ukrainian government and installed successive puppet regimes. An elected Australian government has a sacred responsibility to ensure that Australia does not suffer a similar fate as Ukraine. We have this dire example before us, and cannot feign ignorance of the fate that awaits a US proxy.
6. It is alarming in the extreme to see the orchestrated establishment and media campaign reaching a crescendo on China. The US is stoking a conflict with China over Taiwan, engaging in deliberately provocative actions when it officially has a One-China Policy that only recognises the PRC. Not only is the sudden interest in Taiwan unwarranted, the prepping of Australia and Japan towards greater militarisation should ring alarm bells. If a war breaks out, it will be Australia and Japan that will do the actual fighting as US proxies. The US will not put boots on the ground. It will supply arms (on a strictly lend-lease basis, of course, which will keep our children and grandchildren in debt), but it will be Australian and Japanese soldiers who will actually lay down their lives.
7. Although we keep repeating the phrase "Lest we forget" when we talk about Gallipoli, it's clear that we have never learnt the basic lesson from that tragic episode - that Australia should stop fighting other countries' wars.
8. The Scott Morrison government was extremely irresponsible in destroying a hitherto harmonious relationship with China with ill-considered and unnecessary calls for a hostile investigation into the origins of Covid. The fallout in the form of Chinese trade sanctions on Australian goods, though costly to our citizens, was only economic. The Albanese government initially seemed to be repairing that damage and resetting relations with China, but recent actions have lurched in the opposite direction, and will drag us beyond a mere economic rift to actual military conflict.
9. The nuclear element of the AUKUS deal is particularly alarming. In the event of hostilities with China (which is what the war hawks are clamouring for), our government would have made Australia a target for a nuclear attack by escalating our military capability to a nuclear level. It is a shockingly irresponsible thing for a government to do.
10. Spending $368 billion of taxpayer money on this irresponsibly dangerous initiative is not just a waste. It is going to be funded through massive cuts to welfare, healthcare, education, infrastructure and other areas of the economy that require committed government support. This fiscal irresponsibility is shocking too.
11. There is much talk of Australian politics being illegally influenced by Chinese government interests (as with the Sam Dastyari episode), but the fact is that American influence on Australian politics is far, far greater, yet unremarked upon. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) is being given carte blanche to conduct its lobbying activities out in the open, when its chief sponsor is known to be the US arms industry. This organisation must be shut down, its foreign employees deported and its Australian employees investigated for crimes no less than treason. The interests of Australia and its citizens are not just being ignored but actively jeopardised in favour of those of a foreign country. This is a treasonable offence.
In sum, as a citizen, I am horrified that an elected government has so dramatically turned its back on the interests of its own people and succumbed to the pressure of a fading superpower that wants to use us as cannon fodder to maintain its hegemony. I am not privy to the threats the US must have used to get our government to comply, but they are no excuse for this egregious betrayal.
On a personal note, I am of Indian origin, not Chinese, and therefore my views cannot be dismissed as being motivated by cultural affinity towards China.
The government needs to know that its recent steps with regard to China are causing extreme alarm among its voting citizens, and there will be political repercussions if it does not reverse course immediately.
Ganesh Prasad
