Registered Chinese agent of influence, big coal lobbyist, and former Australian ambassador to China, Geoff Raby, is back again this time at the Press Club:
“I think that state governments and the business community have allowed themselves … to become delegitimised in this highly polarised China debate that we’re having in Australia at present,” he said.
“When industry or business speaks about its interests in the relationship, there’s a phalanx of government officials, ministers and journalists who say they’re just talking their own book and looking after their own self-interest.”
Victorian Trade Minister Martin Pakula on Wednesday criticised the Morrison government’s handling of the relationship after legislation was introduced to Parliament that will give the federal government the power to tear up deals between foreign governments, the states and universities. The legislation is expected to target Victoria’s Belt and Road Initiative deal with Beijing over national security concerns.
Mr Raby is deeply confused so let’s clarify a few things for him. By becoming an agent of influence for state-owned Chinese coal – that is, the Communist Party of China (CCP) – Mr Raby has disqualified his own voice in the Australian national interest China debate. Indeed, his conflict of interest is so huge that it is only the second man-made structure in history to be visible from space. The other is the Great Wall of China and probably we need to debate which is the more prominent.
And why is it always Labor that is on the wrong side of this debate? Chris Uhlmann sums it up:
It is also hard to discern just what Labor wants; beyond using China’s bullying and Trump’s grim reign to make grief for Scott Morrison.
Some in its ranks have ripped their analysis from the editorials of the Global Times where the Australian government is always cast as entirely responsible for any bad blood. This neatly ignores a fact personified by Beijing’s wolf warrior diplomats: China has changed.
Others in Labor like to chant that no minister can pick up the phone to a Chinese counterpart. That would be because China has blackballed Australia for calling it out on three things: alerting the entire world to its rank interference inside our borders; banning Huawei from the rollout of 5G; and calling for an inquiry into the origins of COVID-19.
Labor supports the substance of all of these actions, although it argues that we should have waited for some other nation to lead the charge on COVID-19. Why? Because we are too gutless to do it? If we aren’t prepared to speak up when the health of Australians and their livelihoods face an existential threat, when exactly would Labor lead?
…it would be good if Albanese] could convince some of his other MPs to stop parroting China’s talking points.
It’s actually worse than that. The CPP is quoting directly from Labor and Geoff Raby to form its propaganda:
Meanwhile, outside of this Borgesian feedback loop of untruth, Australia will never get a better chance than it has right now to carve out its sovereignty vis-a-vis an increasingly belligerent China. It’s the peak of the commodity cycle and China needs our dirt more than ever. We should use this power to draw the lines in the sand that will govern China relations for decades. If we can’t do it now, or we give in now, then we will be weak forevermore as the cycle turns, with catastrophic consequences for our democracy.
This extraordinary moment is dramatically underlined by recent developments in China itself. The CCP has chosen Australia as the test case for its new policy of imperial economic coercion. This was made plain in the Fifth Plenum which elevated economics and trade relationships into the pantheon of “Xi Jinping thought”. That is, both are now thoroughly politicised and anointed as official tools of CCP geopolitical influence. Thus, if we give in to the CCP at this stage then it will get much worse for the entire free world.
Yet, if we resist, and prove that even China-dependent Australia can succeed in pushing back the CCP bully boy, then we will help rally the globe to the cause of defending liberalism.
I will go so far as to say that right now and right here is a defining moment for the future of regional and global liberalism as China seeks to undermine, cajole, crush and supplant it everywhere.
But don’t take my word for it. Ask the Australian people where the national interest lies:
Seriously, it’s time to stop listening to paid CCP apologists and to get on with rallying the world to what is the most just cause since 1945. To wit, at Bloomie:
President Xi Jinping effectively neutered the most democratic institution under China’s rule, sending a message to Joe Biden that no amount of pressure will prompt him to tolerate dissent against the Communist Party.
China’s top legislative body on Wednesday passed a resolution allowing for the disqualification of any Hong Kong lawmakers who aren’t deemed sufficiently loyal. Chief Executive Carrie Lam’s government immediately banished four legislators, prompting the remaining 15 in the 70-seat Legislative Council to resign en masse hours later at a joint press briefing.
“This move makes it clear that dictatorship has descended onto Hong Kong and that Chinese Communist Party can eradicate all opposing voices in the legislature,” Fernando Cheung, one of the lawmakers, told Bloomberg News. “There’s no more separation of powers, no more ‘one country, two systems,’ and therefore no more Hong Kong as we know it.”
This is the political model coming to our kids if the Mr Rabys of this world have their way.
