Tag Archives: China

Beijing Reacts to AUKUS

Writing in the South China Morning Post, Mark Magnier argues Beijing will likely step up efforts to avoid ‘encirclement’.

“In response to a new Anglo-Saxon military alliance and more US-designed nuclear-powered submarines in the Indo-Pacific, Beijing will likely step up efforts to avoid encirclement and expand its own nuclear submarine fleet, according to current and former officials and military experts.

“The defence build-up on both sides comes amid louder, if still relatively faint, drums of war around Taiwan, lending greater immediacy to the new alliance and spotlighting broader Chinese, US and allied regional defence strategies.”

Read further on The South China Morning Post.

Mark Magnier

Mark Magnier is a US correspondent based in Washington. Before joining the South China Morning Post, he worked for the Wall Street Journal in China and for the Los Angeles Times in India, China and Japan. He’s covered the Chinese economy, China and India’s explosive rise and conflicts in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

End to China Freeze?

China’s application to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade agreement is dead in the water unless its commerce minister, Wang Wentao, agrees to meet his Australian counterpart, Dan Tehan.

David Uren, writing on The Strategist, suggests Dan Tehan could wield his power to Canberra’s advantage.

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Xi’s Dream 100 More Years

The Chinese Communist Party is at the peak of its power as it enters its second century.

Rowan Callick, writing for the Centre For Independent Studies, and formerly China Correspondent for The Australian newspaper, examines its evolution over the last 100 years, before turning to its centenary celebrations in July 2021 with Xi Jinping at the helm.

Callick looks at potential paths ahead, arguing that the Party’s grip on history and ideology will be among the key signposts as Xi intensifies Party control over country, society and — increasingly — the economy.

The party’s tentacles are enfolding China, its history and culture and people, ever more tightly, with the aim of making it impossible to prise party and nation apart.

This merging of the state and the party is the party’s true ‘China dream’ since any challenge to its ideology, history or leadership is then seen as a threat to China itself.

But the more prosperous and better-educated Chinese generation that is emerging — whose underlying culture is naturally individualistic —  may prove more ready to follow their own dreams than to support the Party’s constant tedious reminders of endless struggle.

Much will depend on whether they can begin to imagine a past, present and future beyond or even without the Party.

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Chinese Bots Rain Down On Canberra

When Oz PM Morrison, wisely or not, decided to run point for Donald Trump, demanding an investigation of the Chinese origins of Covid-19, Beijing reacted badly.

An anti-Australian trade war was launched – which more than a year later – is intensifying, not being relaxed.

Behind the scenes tens of thousands of Chinese hackers launched their own online ‘popular war’ against Australian government departments, universities, companies and non-governmental organizations.

Bloomberg

The hackers are using bots to launch tens of thousands of ongoing attacks.

While mainstream journalists on Newscorp outlets and government outlets like the ABC trade punches over half century old domestic political disputes, the ongoing Chinese attacks have attracted little attention.

America’s Bloomberg news wire has done the work most Australian journalists have ignored.

Read more.

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China Discovers Power Has Limits

Mighty China, the $14+ Trillion-a-year global power, last year confronted tiny $1.3 Trillion Australia.

Slapped on trade restrictions, issued a laundry list of 14 mistakes the Aussies had to ‘correct’.

Matt Chase for The Atlantic

It should have been a totally unequal fight. Beijing, the manufacturing and trading power could reasonably expect to force scrappy, commodity dependent Canberra into submission.

China is a global superpower, Australia just a just an iron ore producer, an exporter of farm goods, coal and wine.

But it hasn’t worked out that way.

Despite a ferocious and abusive campaign, led by the Chinese Communist Party’s English-language propaganda sheet, the Global Times, Beijing is now more dependent on key Australian exports than it was a year ago.

Led by editor Hu Dijin, the Global Times has attacked Australia as nothing more than chewing gum on the sole of China’s shoe. A type of annoyance that sometimes needed to be cleaned off with a rock.

“(Australia is) Chewing gum stuck on the sole of China’s shoes.”

Hu Dijin, Global Times editor

Author Michael Schuman, writing in The Atlantic, argues that the result is an uneasy standoff.

Beijing, while blocking a range of non-essential Australian products, has found that it’s voracious economy requires key Australian inputs. Australian iron ore is the lifeblood of China’s construction industry, and Australian lithium underpins the fast grow Chinese electric vehicle industry.

Australian iron ore is the lifeblood of China’s construction industry, and Australian lithium underpins the fast grow Chinese electric vehicle industry.

Beijing hasn’t managed to force Canberra into submission, but Australia hasn’t made any headway in getting China to back down.

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