 |
| Click above for the video |
I met Paul Keating when he was Prime Minister, back in 1994 and I was Executive General Manager of East Asia for Austrade. I was flown to Canberra to brief him on his forthcoming China trip. In the room just him and a couple and on my side just me and a couple. As I went through the issues and what we needed to hit hard on the trip, he took notes by hand on an A4 lined pad. Detailed. Like... asked for me to repeat some bits so he could get it all down. I went to China and we next met in Beijing, with the then Chinese President, Jiang Zemin. I was in the room sat one away from Keating, next to our Ambassador. What impressed me was that when it came to trade issues, Keating made the exact points I’d asked him to make, and word perfect.
I don’t know anything about submarines, but it appears that Keating does. He makes a good case why we’re crazy, in Australia, to buy these nuclear subs. When we could by 45 Collins-class subs, for the price of the 8 nuclear ones we’re going to get. And we’d get them sooner. And they’d be more relevant to Australia defending its borders, as opposed to going into the South China Sea to confront China.
He mocks -- rightly, it seems to me -- the last PM, Scott Morrison, boasting of making the decision to buy the nuclear submarines in less than 24 hours. Crazy!
All that said and even agreed, on the overall China-Australia relationship he most certainly does come across as a China Bull, to the extent of being a China shill. Not a single criciticm of China. Not a one. When there are many that impact us directly. Or on which we ought have views, because of International Treaties we’re signed on to.
On the latter point, of course, there’s Xinjiang and the treatment of the Uygurs. The imprisonment of one million in camps for “reeducation”, which has been called a genocide by the United Nations and senior politicians in the UK and the US. Keating dismisses it as “there’s some debate on it.” Shame.
There’s the trade embargo on Australia. Which is against all WTO rules. Which, again, he dismisses as a piffle.
There’s China’s encroachment in the South China Sea, which has upset countries in SE Asia. They have historically high distrust of China, per various polls. Keating again dismisses this with a wave of the hand, as just some islands the size of Centennial Park in Sydney.
There’s the way China has manipulated the WTO to its benefit in a case of mercantilism on steroids. Yet again, Keating dismisses this. Even though it was the US that ushered China into the WTO and it was the Chinese manipulation of it that led to US tangles with China that persist to today.
Connected with it: theft of Intellectual Property. Not a fantasy, as I’ve been involved in business deals where it’s been a real and actual thing. We know it happens widely.
Of course Hong Kong and the imprisoning of media people and causing of dissent.
That’s not an exhaustive list. Just some that come to mind, without going off an Googling. But for Keating all of this is for nothing and he has only the highest praise for China. And only criticism for Australia. For that I’m kinda anti the guy. Even if he may be right on the submarines.
ADDED: I had views on his 18 November 2019 speech. Here.
