Professor of Comms at UTS, Wanning Sun, published a piece in Crikey last week that got my goat. Here is the summary:
Given the recent internal dissent within Labor branches over the AUKUS security pact, it’s a sure bet that it will be a controversial issue at next month’s ALP national conference. It is also unsurprising that the Albanese government would justify the deal in terms of the “national interest”. Quoting recent analysis, Labor tells us the submarines can “deter actions against Australia’s interests”, and their acquisition is therefore in Australia’s.
n the discourse on national interests, what seems to have fallen by the wayside is social cohesion. In most of the debates about AUKUS and speculations about an imminent war with China, few commentators have given much thought to the impact of such rhetoric on society.
As Yun Jiang observes in response to the publication of The Sydney Morning Herald’s “Red Alert” series: “Among all talks about preparation for a war, preparing the population for a potentially divisive society is not part of it.”
Talking up the possibility of a war with China, along with a commensurate expansion of our defence spending, may be believed to deter potential enemies, but research indicates that for many in the various Chinese-Australian communities, reading such speculations has become a constant source of anxiety, fear and uncertainty.
I never write letters to editors for obvious reasons. But, this issue is significant enough to bother given Crikey readers are being showered with dangerous snowflake propaganda and I have some clout on the issue:
The National Interest is not a nebulous concept. It is the specific credo of “realism” in international relations.
“Realism” is the acceptance that the life of nations is nasty, brutish and short. As such, nations will use their power to pursue their interests with ruthless disregard for the cost to others.
One would have thought that any commentator focussed on discussing the national interest would bother defining the term as it exists in its most concrete form.
Especially so, since the article’s purpose appears to be to question the usefulness of AUKUS versus its consequences for “social cohesion” vis-a-vis Chinese-Australian “anxiety”.
There is no doubt that within the “realist” definition, AUKUS is in the national interest of Australia.
Australia is a liberal democracy. It has the backing of the US liberal empire to be so. The only alternative “realist” strategic path open to Australia is supplanting that alliance with a Chinese version.
There is no middle path of balance or neutrality in “realist” terms. As a Great Power, China will seek to impose itself on any vulnerable state in the region until it has created an illiberal Chinese empire.
This need not involve military means. The coercive control measures of soft power can achieve it. As we saw in 2021 when China announced the 14 conditions to end democracy in Australia at the point of a trade war gun.
Australian liberal democracy survived that episode only because of the context of the still dominant American liberal empire and its rules-based system. Which is given objective force through the existence of US hard power and arrangements such as AUKUS.
Imagine the outcome had China been able to park an aircraft carrier off Bateman’s Bay during the 14 conditions strife. Canberra would have folded like a cheap suit and Australian liberalism would have died on the spot.
Including, most alarmingly, freedom of the press.
Professor Wanning Sun is a soft power academic dabbling in matters she does not understand or cares not to explore properly owing to her Chinese-Australian “anxiety”.
As an outfit claiming to support a free press, Crikey should demand more than a chorus of kumbaya from contributors.
David Llewellyn-Smith
Founding Publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, Asia’s pre-eminent international relations masthead.
Founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness, Australia’s leading financial markets masthead.
Co-author of the Great Crash of 2008 with Professor Ross Garnaut and editor of the Second Garnaut Climate Change Review.
Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and Nucleus Wealth.
I recall a discussion with Eric Beecher in my early career in which he declared that the problem with the Aussie press is that it has “no balls”.
These days, a new generation of unreadable woke commentary has seemingly cancelled Eric’s pair!
Crikey refused to publish my letter because I asked for it to get prominent positioning and no editing. Given my CV, this was a reasonable request.
This was an excuse not to publish the letter, not a reason. Crikey would rather stroke its woke fantasies for a coddled readership.
Crikey’s editorial point of view has become so anti-Murdoch that it is now its internecine mirror image. A biased champion of woke cancel culture warriors that would rather debate feelings than the risk of war.
A pretty damning state of affairs for Australian media.
