Comments on my highlighted bits:
1. Reciprocity: Basha criticises restrictions on Huawei and ZTE in Australia, because they are, allegedly, “without evidence”; but the evidence is there, held by our intelligence services, and revealed in their actions in other markets. We have valid reasons for being concerned about what they are up to (besides just making money). To imagine that Huawei, with its military ownership, is innocently building the cyber scape in the west, that “there’s nothing to see here”, is naive in the extreme. Meantime China is immensely more restrictive on foreign investment in its own economy. Just look at all those internet companies (basically all of them) that are banned in China. We, Australia, the west, should always have been pushing for reciprocity. It’s not too late.
2. Rules-based order: it is China that is in breach of WTO regulations, in its blocking of Aussie exports, not Australia. That’s a fact, attested by the WTO. Moreover, China has been in breach of many WTO regs, especially on transfer of technology, since before and even after it joined WTO. In any case, Australian exports have hardly suffered from China’s brutish bullying; it has found new markets and helped to decouple from an increasingly erratic and unreliable partner.
3. “Lack on independent thought” in Australian foreign policy: this shows Basha’s ignorance. Australia has, and has always had — since I was a young foreign affairs cadet in 1976 (and well before!) — a robust, lively, combative internal debate at all levels of government, think tanks and the media. So much so the there are even plenty of people who agree with Basha’s thesis. Which I’ll summarise crudely, as “we must bend to Beijing”. We must kowtow. Because… money.
On the Covid origin issue, Australia was right to push for a full-scale investigation. Including into the lab-leak theory, which remains a high level contender for Covid-19 origin. It’s an international scandal, and a WHO scandal, that we, the west, have not pushed China, much much harder. That’s what you get when you internalise being a supplicant to the dragon.
Re the Comments: I haven’t seen them yet, but I’m going to guess most are violently anti-Australia, coz that’s the way it breaks here at the SCMP, whenever it comes to articles on Australia-China relations.
