Warren Kennedy, Citizen, Mullumbimby
In a Senate Committee hearing on issues facing diaspora communities in Australia, Tasmanian Senator Eric Abetz, in a racist outburst, demanded that three ethnically-Chinese Australians ‘unconditionally condemn the Chinese Communist Party dictatorship’. Offended I wrote this open letter to the Senator.
Dear Senator Abetz,
I’m a proud white Anglo-Saxon Australian but I can’t unconditionally condemn the Chinese government.
Over the past few decades they’ve successfully brought hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. Surely a significant achievement. According to the Smith Family around 1.2 million Australian children are living in poverty. WHAT ARE YOU DOING ABOUT THAT?
The Chinese government has also turned their country into the world’s greatest manufacturer. And before you say they did it with ‘stolen’ technology let’s not get into a Trumpesque distortion of the truth. They made transfer of technology a condition of foreign companies setting up in China and the executives of those companies accepted the condition. Nobody forced them to; they chose to. Just as they chose to buy Chinese goods resulting in a trade imbalance for which Trump blames China. Again, nobody forced them; they chose to.
The Chinese government spends huge amounts on infrastructure – mass modernisation of cities and 30,000 km of high-speed rail, for example – for the benefit of the people. You make a lot of promises you don’t keep. Or you rort the distribution process.
They also spend huge amounts on R&D while you cut R&D back.
They take climate change seriously while you are a denier.
Their building [of] bases on islands in the South China Sea is clearly not offensive – it’s defensive against America’s sabre-rattling ‘pivot to Asia’. You support American aggression.
The Chinese government governs for all the people. You put profits before people as can be seen from Prime Minister Morrison’s and Treasurer Frydenberg’s hectoring of Dan Andrews whose priority is clearly saving lives. You would turn Australia into another UK or USA.
Yes, China is a one-party state. Yes, their government exerts dictatorial power over the populace at times (a good thing when it came to suppressing COVID-19) which most of the Chinese people accept because it’s a continuation of Chinese tradition. A continuation of their dynastic culture and which has served them well for improving the lives of the whole nation.
Their rapid development would have been impossible if China was a capitalist democracy because the wealth of the nation would have been directed to the top one per cent, as in the western democracies, and poverty would still be rampant. In America, the wealthiest nation in the world, before COVID-19 almost 40 million people lived in poverty; around 12 per cent of the population. And successive US governments have made little attempt to alleviate it, unlike the Chinese Communist Party which you revile so unconditionally.
Yes, China is trying to influence Australian politicians. As it says on our Department of Home Affairs website ‘All governments, including Australia’s, try to influence discussions on issues of importance’. And yes, influence can become interference, which should be condemned wherever the interference originates. But China is not the only country to interfere.
As Brian Toohey documented in his excellent book, Secret, America interfered to the extent of colluding in the dismissal of the Whitlam government. It also helped swing a Russian election for Boris Yeltsin in 1996, drove a failed coup attempt in Venezuela in 2002, orchestrated a successful one in Haiti in 2004, and another one in Ukraine in 2014, among numerous other interferences.
Why do you single China out for criticism? Surely all interference should be condemned. Is it racism after all?
Warren Kennedy
Citizen, Mullumbimby
Yep Warren ! Why dont you do a survey regarding
All the Chinese National’s that have relocated
For a reason Warren !! Ask if anyone would like to move back to China permanently ? How many takers Warren ? You are clueless as iam , however
If you think that no spys are here and not
Sympathetic to the dictatorship. Well have news for
You ..
There are Dictators everywhere. Trump. Our local marketing man & his flock of
forever followers until Dutton takes the baton. When is a polly a for-real polly…
It’s when he truly learns the art & structure of debate – has ideas that improves
the citizens he’s vowed to help lead by thought & intelligent example & admits
that money doesn’t grow on trees unless a ‘deal has been done with wealthy
land owners & such.’ Barrow, there’s a lot of ‘truths’ attached to Abetz’s open
letter. The public in OZ want to buy cheap clothing & everything China produces.
Go take a slow walk through Big W. Pots/pans/shoes/toys anything your heart
desires. Some of the stuff may have been ‘snitched’ but OZ has forgotten to care.
If you were born in China way back when your people were starving to death you’d
understand how all of this came about & why. I don’t condone most of it but realize
there was no other way for China to continue to exist. We have our own ‘dictatorship’
… our poor – sick – hungry – homeless – unemployed & wealthy members of parliament.
Australia is Anglo-Celtic. Not Anglo Saxon. China has been around for yonks. They developed trade thousands of years in name The Silk Road. They brought foods, apparel and business acumen to enlarge the reach in a world encased in religious differences and long view predictions that would develop trade, population expansion and the continuing the status the world is much bigger than the accepted norm of being minimalism. Their belief there are many more friends to make and we all can make money. The Anglo-Saxon however used military persuasion and Christianity to talk away their hindsight The Church of England (an Anglo-Saxon creation) paired Bible in one hand and long rifle in the other. Intelligence is the sole right of the Caucasian. Giving rise to slavery and irreversible racism.. May you sleep well at night under the loving gaze of your Anglo-Saxon God.