The comments are running almost all against Mitrovich: The US is the true great bully, kills and maims innocent civilians; it set up the post-war order for its own benefit.
There’s the usual gaggle of the “fifty-cent army” among the commenters. The Beijing sock-puppets, though you're not allowed to say so or your comment is blocked. You can tell them though, from their poor English — on an English-speaking site. There are others who are just anti-American in the good ol' Chomskyian sense and so have to support a US rival, even if it's an evil regime like Xi's.
Some facts can't be gainsaid. The post-war order, largely US inspired, has given us a fairer and richer world; US soft power for the last 70+ years has been a powerful magnet for the whole world; as a result, the feet vote by running to the United States, not away, and certainly not to China.
If we look at China’s rapid rise in the last forty years, the remarkable increase in incomes and standards of living, consider this: that it didn’t happen because of the policies of Xi Jinping and like minded authoritarians. It happened precisely to the extent that China loosened its grip, precisely to the extent that it let people get on with doing their own thing, precisely to the extent that it allowed market forces to work their magic, even today the SOEs, China’s State Owned Elephants, are monstrously inefficient and still gobble up vast quantities of state mandated funds. So talk of the magic of socialism or even “socialism with Chinese characteristics” is way off the mark.
China state interference in its economy makes a sick joke of its slamming Australia wine with nearly 220% import duties on the claim it gets export subsidies*. I used to work in that industry and I know it’s nonsense. Talk about pots and kettles and glass houses. But they’ll get away with it. Probably. Because they’re bullies and they’re a large bully to boot, the lethal combination.
*ADDED: That story — the one about China blocking Aussie wine — is infested with the “Fifty-cent” brigades in the comments section. How do I know?
1. Because there were 176 comments when I went there. SCMP is not like the New York Times or Washington Post which get thousands of comments. The Post does well if it gets a dozen. 176 is almost unheard of. Especially for a post tucked away in the Business section, which took me a while to find. It suggests - to me, at least — that the swarms were directed there. As they have been whenever there’s been an Australia-China story. Bash Australia, Comrades!
2. Their bad English, in an English-speaking paper. Their grammar and tone don’t fit in.
3. They follow a set of talking points — Australia is a “small potato” (xiao tudou), it’s the US’ lapdog, who cares about Australia, they’re a bunch of racists anyway, block all Australian goods, don’t visit or study in Australia. They have a big thing two against the Five Eyes. First Australia, then the rest, Comrades!
Meantime, I just spoke to an old mate who’s lived in China for 35+ years. He tells me that there’s been a boom in wealthy Chinese shifting money to Australia. Amounts have doubled in recent months. So no matter the vitriol from Beijing and the efforts of the vile Fifty Cent-ers, folks on the ground are still wanting out even to as horrid a place as Oz.
