Hong Kong freedom enters death throes, Australia next?

By in Australian Politics, Featured Article

| 68 comments

Via the ABC:

Hong Kong police made hundreds of arrests on Wednesday as protesters took to the streets in defiance of sweeping new security legislation introduced by China to snuff out dissent.

Police also fired tear gas and water cannons at protesters during the clashes which came one day after the new legislation was enacted.

Beijing on Tuesday unveiled the details of the much-anticipated law after weeks of uncertainty, pushing one of the world’s major financial hubs onto a more authoritarian path.

As thousands of protesters gathered for an annual rally marking the anniversary of the former British colony’s handover to China in 1997, riot police used pepper spray and fired pellets as they made arrests after crowds spilled into the streets chanting “resist till the end” and “Hong Kong independence”.

The US is making a few noises, via Bloomie:

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden vowed Wednesday to impose economic sanctions against China if it threatens U.S. citizens’ First Amendment rights, just as Beijing enacted a new security law that is aimed at tamping down opposition to the ruling Communist Party.

Calling the law a “death blow” to Hong Kong’s freedom and autonomy, Biden said he would also bar U.S. companies from playing a role in aiding China’s “surveillance state.”

Which brings us to Australian universities that do aid the Chinese surveillance state with research collaborations.

The only person that seems to give two hoots about that is one UQ student, a certain Drew Pavlou:

And they did:

The utterly corrupted UQ has responded thusly, via The Australian:

University of Queensland lawyers took court action to block a subpoena on China’s consul-general in Brisbane, Xu Jie — ­appointed last year as an adjunct professor — that had been filed by student activist Drew Pavlou over his campus protests.

Mr Pavlou, suspended last month for two years from the university, issued a subpoena seeking Dr Xu’s correspondence mentioning the student activist and last year’s pro-Hong Kong democracy protests in his ­capacity as an adjunct professor at UQ.

The subpoena was filed as part of legal action, launched by Mr Pavlou under Queensland’s Peace and Good Behaviour Act, seeking a retraction and apology from Dr Xu after he accused the final-year student of “separatist activities”, leading to alleged death threats.

Instead of fighting back against this CCP corruption in universities, the federal government is doing everything to empower it by restoring the flow of Chinese students.

There are good signs. The Turnbull foreign influence laws, funding of the National Counter Foreign Interference Coordinator, the new activity in ASIO, and the tightening of FIRB conditions are all helpful.

But Australian universities are a stand-alone beacon of CCP corruption and it’s time policy addressed it head-on. We need a royal commission or major investigation into university links with the CCP. It should include:

  • the role of Confuscious Institutes;
  • the role of Chinese money in funding;
  • what are acceptable parameters for research collaborations, and
  • how to protect free speech.

What is the point of spending huge quantities on continental defence if there is an insurgency underway in the formative institutions that will govern the use of it?

David Llewellyn-Smith
Latest posts by David Llewellyn-Smith (see all)

Comments

  1. bda2206

    “the tightening of FIRB conditions”
    hahahahaha BA HA HA HA oh my! lolololol

    as if the proceeds of crime will stop buying up our country.

  2. Popcod

    That artwork under Drew’s Twitter thread.

    Maybe gunna can find something good for Sunday?

  3. GeordieMEMBER

    We don’t have free speech in Australia. We have:

    The Australian Constitution does not explicitly protect freedom of expression. However, the High Court has held that an implied freedom of political communication exists as an indispensible part of the system of representative and responsible government created by the Constitution. It operates as a freedom from government restraint, rather than a right conferred directly on individuals.

    In Nationwide News Pty Ltd v Wills (1992) 177 CLR 1 and Australian Capital Television Pty Ltd v the Commonwealth (1992) 177 CLR 106, the majority of the High Court held that an implied freedom of political communication exists as an incident of the system of representative government established by the Constitution. This was reaffirmed in Unions NSW v New South Wales [2013] HCA 58.

    (from https://humanrights.gov.au/our-work/rights-and-freedoms/freedom-information-opinion-and-expression)

    It is important for Australians to understand this as it would be quite possible for our government to enact legislation or support foreign legislation where criticism of a foreign nation leaves Australians in considerable strife should it suit the ends of our political leaders.

    We need to be very careful.

    • The90kwbeastMEMBER

      Why this is never discussed in this country astounds me. We have at best implied, but certainly not expressly granted freedom of speech. What a shocker, I wonder why on earth this never made it into the constitution?

      Meanwhile, the sideshow of identity politics has taken over political debate in this country…

      • bolstroodMEMBER

        I wonder why on earth this never made it into the constitution?
        Truely ?
        I would have thought it obvious.
        There was never any intention of granting the convicts any rights.
        Look at the trouble Magna Carta got authorites into. Never again.
        The Australian Constitution was deliderately draughted to be a document that allowed Free Trade between the Sovereign colonies, AND NOTHING MORE.

      • BlackBeard

        We have a closed secretive society which is democratic to the point where a simple understanding of sociology proves democracy is an illusion. While we have a media determined to tell us what they want us to hear instead of investigative journalism. Identity politics, China politics all an illusion to hide what is really going on. A massive arms deal with USA an occupation force which has demanded we buy $270 billion worth of weapons from USA to arm the US base.

        Hong Kong is a part of China the rest of the story has been invented. Dissent towards the dictator of Saudi Arabia, the king of Thailand and many more has very harsh penalties. As i say the media picks and chooses to suit the grand agenda.

        • Luke Hulm

          “Hong Kong is a part of China the rest of the story has been invented.”
          I tend to believe in the human right of (group) self-determination – do you?

          And while our media and government may play loose with selectively recognising such a right – I do not.
          Freedom for Hong-Kong.

          • bolstroodMEMBER

            I tend to believe in the human right of (group) self-determination – do you?
            And what about Australia, this benighted country is run by foreign interests against the Commonwealth of the population.
            Any attempt to break the chains and liberate Australia for Australians is aborted by British Crown and US CIA (See Gough Whitlam. ) Where are those damn letters by the Crown to Kerr and vis versa that the highest court in the land said were free to be released ?
            If you really believe in human rights of group self determination, and are willing to do more than talk, start here in your own country.

    • Joe Schlag

      They attempted a bill of rights 30 yrs ago but the majority of pollies said no, so it never got put to a vote, Said it’s better to protect via laws. They will decide what we can and cannot say, or how we say it!

  4. Goldstandard1MEMBER

    It’s a good point. We are spending for a traditional war with weapons etc, and it’s already a cold/cyber/trade war.
    They are 10 years ahead. Gladys Poo is still in power for gods sake so we still haven’t even caught up to identifying the damage ALREADY done.!!!
    Straya.

    • Someone ElseMEMBER

      We have the same advantage that the yanks have – ocean-sized moats but we’re too small to deter the chi-coms offensively so our best deterence is to deny them the approaches, á la Taiwan. Which is where the missiles come in.

      We have literally thousands of miles of defense in depth between china and Australia, and those very long range ship-plinking missiles have plenty of time to dissuade any chi-com ships.

      It’s a good plan that the chi-com brass can see and count and think twice about. There’s no underhanded cyber-skulduggery 4D chess crap.

      • bolstroodMEMBER

        If you are going to go up against a Nuclear armed enemy you need lots of Nukes to deter them.
        Nothing else will be sufficient.

        • Someone ElseMEMBER

          Yep. If we wanted to go toe-to-toe with the chi-coms. Which would be ‘ambitious’ to put it politely. And so slow and expensive as to be pointless. Even then we’d turn ourselves into pariahs and would have to go all Samson protocol for it to actually work.

          One alternative is to use nuke-capable yank equipment and allow yank nuke storage. But the outright basing of nukes would piss off our Indonesian northern buffer and we’d lose a huge chunk of our defense in depth, without which escalation would be the only option. Which is double-plus un-good.

          Or we could do what we’re doing now and let yank troops on our soil as human shields, and use equipment capable of delivering nukes at short notice to keep nukes as an option. It’s the most expedient.

  6. GunnamattaMEMBER

    UK says China’s security law is serious violation of Hong Kong treaty

    https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-hongkong-protests-britain/uk-says-chinas-security-law-is-serious-violation-of-hong-kong-treaty-idUKKBN2425IO

    The United Kingdom said China’s imposition of a security law on Hong Kong was a “clear and serious” violation of the 1984 Joint Declaration and that London would offer around 3 million residents of the former colony a path to British citizenship.

    There is word out of the UK to the effect that the Poms have broached with Australia, New Zealand and Canada their scope to take in some of these

  7. PeterMEMBER

    One person is pepper sprayed at a protest in the US and TVNZ in New Zealand covers how terrible it is. At least 80 people are killed in protests against the Marxist dictatorship supported by China in Ethiopia and… crickets…

    • Olaf

      If you can’t use the story to shriek systemic racism and ride the supremacist hysteria bandwagon there isn’t a lot of intrinsic value to our media in reporting such events.

      • Joe Schlag

        No, because the vast majority of people don’t care about what’s happening in Ethiopia. The response would be “yawn, more killings in Africa”. Sad as that is!

    • tonyddMEMBER

      Agreed. SBS should have all ‘editorial and news’ shut down just entertainment shows. Defund SBS news and current affairs.

    • ColinMEMBER

      20 years, or 3 generations of demoralisation & idealogical subversion into soft heads…..

      “Wealthy businessmen are selling the rope on which they will hang very soon….”

      Thanks. I’ll be sending this to some who are struggling to get it.

      • Stewie GriffinMEMBER

        Thanks – a good interview, I’ve seen this before but usually in smaller snippets…. yet our all knowing intelligentsia who get all their information and ‘values training’ from the SBS or the Institutes of Wealthy Entrepreneurs, insist that such things are fantasy and are of zero importance, because we’re all just one big melting pot and no culture or values are actively working against our own, and even if they were it wouldn’t matter because in their belief culture doesn’t matter.

        • Stewie GriffinMEMBER

          My favorite bit (of many):

          ‘Ideological subversion… what it basically means is, to change the perception of reality, of every American, to such an extent that despite of the abundance of information, no one is able to come to sensible conclusions in the interests of defending themselves, their families, their community and their country.

          An example of this in Australia and practically all of the West is the elevation of ‘Multicultralism’, which is a core plank of Cultural Marxism, to the apex of desirable social policies. This is a social policy which is plainly against the interests of the majority of the existing members of a society.

          It is done to transform the natural self interest in preserving and promoting your own cultural values, into some tainted moral crime – you cannot have people arguing for National Interest, when the core values required for it also appeal to Nationalism.

          Multicultural in effect DOESN’T mean many cultures – it means none. As I said it is a core plank of cultural marxism, as the existing society and culture is blended away with the new arrivals, and both dissolve, until you have a pliant, demoralised, confused and angry population willing to turn to a new promised saviour.

          Forced, mass population transfers have been used for millenia as weapons against societies and their people – from King Sennacherib of Assyrian to James II of England, who transplanted an unruly, troublesome community of Scots to Northern Ireland. Yet progressives are actively cheering on this same process in our society, in the misguided belief they are making the world a better place.

          • ColinMEMBER

            In this epoch of Post Religion, Post National, Post Sovereign, Post Cultural, Post Science, Post Truth, Post everything…… except “progress” & Mea ness – What are the (demoralized?) majority to cling to? Are they just going to keep on shrugging at this chipping away till they lose any self identity, or are they eventually going to go Post al?

    • McPaddyMEMBER

      Amen. There’s sport and all the rest of the BS. And then there are true heroes.

    • bnwwwMEMBER

      Junior Australian of the Year.

      Shane Fitzsimmons has a lock on Australian of the Year.

  10. DustyMEMBER

    Imagine the hard on that Dutton must have at the thought of enacting similar laws here.

  12. jdliveuk

    “The world hasn’t known a time of strategic uncertainty like this since the 1930s and 40s.” And it was then, he said, that Australia faced the only existential threat in its history. – Scott Morrison.

    CCP takes advantage of pandemic and seizes Hong Kong.
    Suddenly all those deep water harbours they have built around the pacific and looking very dangerous.
    Next, a Chinese warship will sail into the Chinese owned Darwin port.

    Thanks god Scott Morrison is not asleep at the wheel.
    Time to get in bed with the Americans.
    First step is put in a billion dollar order for some American military hardware.

  13. Rod77

    “spending huge quantities on continental defence if there is an insurgency underway in the formative institutions that will govern the use of it?”
    MB I hope you are not buying this defence build up story.
    It is the usual trick of adding up ten years of spending like the $100B in infrastructure, or $10B over ten years for a nation with a land mass that of continental USA. It is nothing.
    If they really believed we were at risk of invasion $800m for long range missiles would hardly seem enough.
    The USA regularly spends 4% of GDP plus. In Vietnam it was over 7%.
    There is no increase in real terms in the defence budget. This is all bullshit, mainly for domestic consumption by the Proles.

    This is straight out of 1984. “We are at war with East Asia, we have always been at war with East Asia.”

    But lastly again from Heminingway;

    “The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists.”

    No wonder they have gone after the arts, the writers and the painters can articulate the truth better then all the excel spreadsheets these idiots can produce.

  14. bcnichMEMBER

    Guys there are so many things pointing towards a reduction of actual population in Melb and Syd metro.
    Expense
    Disease
    Lockdown issues
    Violence
    Very low immigration
    Immigrants going home
    Reduction in international students (they will eventually wake up that their are no jobs so why even waste the money on a degree)
    There won’t really be anything left in Melb especially……….
    I live here
    AFL will never be the same – more TV v little attendance
    Most restaurants and pubs will close – a lot more cooking and entertainment at home
    I doubt tennis Grand Prix etc will come back TV based
    Plays theatre movies virtually finished the way it was probably online viewing via payment
    Shopping will mostly be online
    Little cafe lanes etc with people jammed up gone

    Huge move to work from home
    5 G internet to work from anywhere

    I’m hearing many people saying they want to leave Melb metro

    I’d say and I wouldn’t be surprised if Melb population was a 1/4 or 1/3 less in 5 to 10 years

    It could be 1/2 but let’s be conservative

    This absolute crapola that Melb and Syd will have 10 million people, these people who say this are morons

    House unit prices metro Melb are going to crash beyond belief in next several years

    This cxrap index thing, what do you put in the index when THERE IS NO BUYER OR TENANT for some properties ever again

    There are so many high rise apartments finishing in next 6 months in Melb

    The Melb we knew is finished

    Sydney not far behind

    I used to live in Syd, if you aren’t on the harbour really why be there

    This will be great for regional

    Think this COVID although not really dangerous will mutate etc, think disease will get worse

    Don’t worry I’m talking to very smart connected Melburnian very senior people in large companies, private business even some very very large developers they know they need to leave the city and many know they need to move to warmer climates, it’s being talked about now that these diseases thrive in cold climates

    SE QLD, N NSW are the destinations being discussed. Home rural prices in these areas will be expensive

    It’s interesting as time goes on you can’t say “Aust property price crash” as a broad term.

    • reusachtigeMEMBER

      That’s a loser Lock. Us. Down. dystopian opinion.

      Instead, most people finally realise that they aren’t old or sick and decide fck it and start living their lives again. The rest stay hidden instead of all of us hiding.

      • bcnichMEMBER

        Reusa
        There will be much more choice for your “swingers parties” you go to in regional areas

    • ram

      Good to see you back.

      I’m a SEQer and we just put on on house this morning 740k four bed 700sq leafy inner southeast suburb.

      It’s frightening but the mortgage repayments actually less than rent with 10% deposit tic toc

    • bolstroodMEMBER

      This will be great for regional
      You reckon ? ? ?
      Leave us out of it, please.
      We like things the way they are, not some spiv RE agents wet dream.

    • Rorke's DriftMEMBER

      Water and other infrastructure doesn’t allow for mass decentralisation of the population. Unless reducing overall which seems unrealistic long term, then perhaps wealthy enclaves dispersed towards warmer climate areas, with populated but poorer/declining big cities.

      I also don’t think technology or business is yet good enough/ready for work from home. More an early experiment this year and longer term trend.
      Best strategy not yet clear I.e. not relocating to regions yet (although I don’t live in melb)

  15. Stewie GriffinMEMBER

    It is almost as though you can take over a society by infiltrating key aspects of its cultural and institutional settings….

    Could it be that…. Culture Matters?
    🤔

  16. JenMEMBER

    It sounds like our Big Australia PM wants to offer safe haven to all 7.5 million Hong Kongers. Is he totally mad. We have no obligation like the UK apparently does, and they have already been offered safe haven in Hong Kong.

    • adelaide_economistMEMBER

      Looks like China is going to block them leaving so once again CCP viciousness will lead to a positive outcome for Australia.

      • nexus789MEMBER

        In surveys there is little desire from the majority in HK to break from China – with 60%+ of respondents to survey supporting maintaining ‘One Country, Two Systems’ and a significant percentage wanting direct governance by China. Those wanting independence has ranged from 11% to 20%. China will never let HK become independent

        • GramusMEMBER

          No support for independence?

          How do you explain the 2 million people who took to the streets on the extradition law?
          The landslide against pro-beijing parties in the last LegCo elections?

          • nexus789MEMBER

            That data was from Reuters and other surveys over 5 years and they are pretty consistent. No fan of China but I’m cynical of the media and their claims re the numbers on the streets.

  17. Luca BiasonMEMBER

    don’t just focus on the collaboration with external entities: the key issue is to whom we give access to specific research areas in Australia, people who come here as PhDs and progress to become staff. This is what must be tightened up as a priority: ring-fencing sensitive areas of national interest, with AI being one of the first in need to be sealed off.

    This is an extremely important priority.

    • nexus789MEMBER

      We don’t currently have the means to do that and it’s not just China that will be picking up and commercialising any good Australian invention. The Japanese and Koreans are just as predatory (its okay though as they are allies). The Chinese government is projected to spend $70 billion by 2020 on AI, up from an estimated $12 billion in 2017 (MIT). Interestingly though MIT say that China’s investment is largely in commercial AI applications.