Chinese imperialism and future Australian sovereignty

[pietillidie]

For anyone who doesn't know, for several years they were publishing an eight-page lift-out every month directly regurgitating CCP propaganda. They made it clear that it didn't reflect their editorial view and that it was more like an advertorial, for what it's worth, but they still chose to run it in their newspaper. Apparently The Washington Post, The New York Times and other newspapers have done the same. You can find out more about it here: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/d ... xi-jinping

Media Watch also did a segment on it at the time: https://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/episo ... da/9972966

Stui, what do you think lol

Why you would publish overt propaganda like that even in a lift-out defies belief.

If heads don't roll/haven't rolled over that any moral high ground they claim is a farce. That's as shameless as any handout Murdoch would take, and totally undermines the critique of these rags versus the Murdoch media and its support of environmental destruction, climate denial, billionaire tax cuts, Brexit, Johnson, Trump, etc.

I still haven't forgiven the NYT for its support of the invasion of Iraq or The Guardian for its mollycoddling of Lexiters and Corbyn the Clueless, and I trust Jeff Bezos about as much as I trust Trump, so I'm not entirely surprised. But you still need them to be as above-board as possible to counteract the fist-waving 'lamestream media' hysteria of the Khmer Rouge Hats.

We already know anyone can be bought. But this is particularly brazen and hypocritical. How you would let a reference to the South China Sea or the cult worship of Xi slip through is beyond comprehension.

[pietillidie]

[Tannin]

Why you would publish overt propaganda like that even in a lift-out defies belief.

You don't get out much, do you.

Newspapers publish anything people pay them to publish. That goes triple for lift-outs. Every single week, every major Australian newspaper publishes page after page after page of glossy overt propaganda. The client can be anyone at all. (So long as they have plenty of money, of course.)

Walk down the street and pick up today's Financial Review. There will be a massive great glossy lift-out consisting entirely of propaganda pushing ridiculous wristwatches. Or "prestige" cars. Or real estate. Or very expensive restaurants. Or cruise ships. Or holidays in Alaska. Or furniture. Or stuff to smear on your face. Or ... well, practically anything someone is willing to spend enough money on.

Or pick up the Sydney Morning Herald. Or the Australian. Or the Age. They all come with fall-out supplements spruiking total bullshiite. Week after week after week. Nobody reads them, of course, let alone takes the content seriously. It's advertising. If you don't like advertising, move to China.

Oh wait ....

[David]

[pietillidie]

We even allow states to do it as a matter of routine through national branding and tourism campaigns. But it's about credibility to me. You can't go on about the Murdoch media taking all kinds of toxic handouts and then taint your own hand. Reputation is the self-policing force here, and this undermines their reputations.

If I noticed a giant spread in The Guardian extolling the environmental credentials of X fossil fuels giant (and those ads do exist elsewhere; not sure about in The Guardian), I would be annoyed not on the basis of it being different in principle to any other ad, but because The Guardian has made a song and dance about its commitment to reporting climate change.

The bits on the South Sea and Xi are no starters regardless. But even if they were an oversight, the Chinese government under Xi has been clearly oppressive for some time, so the line was already there. The principle here is not one of 'any propaganda' but 'recognised violators of human rights'. The contradiction is that that principle ought to take a lot of other companies and orgs down with it as well, but I think a lot of us agree on that already.

Credibility is the safety net here, though. You don't take money from China for overt propaganda because that taints everything else you write about, and boosts populist dismissal of the otherwise plain facts you report.

[stui magpie]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-14/ ... n/12979900

Agree almost 100% with this article, the only place we differ is I'd really like to mess with their iron ore imports.

Diplomacy is useless with these cnuts unless we're prepared to just completely debase ourselves which we should not do under any circumstances. Morrison has done the right things but China don't want partners thet want vassals, and dictators dont react well to being spoken back to..

#****

[pietillidie]

^No one is being 'debased' by playing the smart game. Reactionary, ill-considered fist waving that shoots oneself in the foot is debasement. Becoming the Karen meme of international relations is debasement. Exciting Xi and his fasco-nationalists with more evidence of self-entitlement is debasement. Triggering a cycle of increasing losses to yourself through a trade war is debasement.

Your exaggerated outrage is very reminiscent of the 'Muslims are taking over the world' hysteria of a decade ago. Nope, despite a trillion Facebook posts to the contrary, Muslims were never taking over the world because from Europe to Asia to Latin America, the vast proportion of people and power on earth were not fans in the slightest. Well, the same applies to China.

Apparently, though, the proper alternative is no longer within your grasp: rolling your sleeves up and working assiduously behind the scenes to form a global alliance that acts in concert to impose trade standards. Let Xi live by the sword and become despised like Trump and see where it gets him.

A new agreement with the Biden White House has the chance to pick up where the TPP left off. That Australia elected a rural school principal with the international gravitas of a limp lettuce leaf as PM won't help, but there must be someone in the Glib government who can do more than negotiate handouts from mining companies.

Without broad international consensus China will simply divide and conquer, and international scabs will keep crossing the line. Clear as day. And we already know how the mutually-assured destruction of trade wars work.

Recognising you're being pushed about is not a great achievement. Moreover, the less entitled parts of the world have endured far worse for far longer, so building relationships with them will require more than self-pity.

You seem to have thrown the towel in on being sensible.

[roar]

Softly, softly approach does not work with China. One just has to look at the takeover and militarisation of disputed islands to see the appeasement policy just works in their favour.

[Tannin]

^ Precisely. China keeps on pushing, pushing, pushing, always looking for a moment of weakness it can take advantage of.

We need to scale back our trade with China ASAP, go looking for more reliable customers, and manufacture more stuff for ourselves.

We also need a federal government which acts more and mouths off less. Morrison's rabble have waved through any number of Chinese buy-outs of land and productive assets, and at the same time been obnoxiously loud-mouthed about being the first to call for a public with-hunt re the origin of the coronavirus (this was a stupid move made to crawl favour with Morrison's hero Trump) and in hysterical responding to that Twitter troll (because Morrison lacked the maturity to handle provocation in a measured, diplomatic way).

Where is the diplomatic action with PNG re the new spy base ... er ... sorry .. fishing port? Why is PNG in bed with China? Ans: because Morrison's scum have relentlessly cut our ties to Pacific nations to (a) save money out of the foreign aid budget, and (b) avoid having to do anything about sea levels and climate change.

Morrison is correct to stand up to China, but he is too childish and incompetent to make a decent job of it.

[David]

[Tannin]

Agree with all of that, David. And yes, good ties with the Japan, Taiwan, Korea, India, the EU, the Pacific nations, all that helps. SE Asia too, though that's harder as there are so many poxhead governments in that region - Indonesia obviously, but also the Philippines is cranky; Brunei has become an Islamic fascist state .... it's not an easy area to find friends in.

Also, New Zealand needs to get of its arse and stop bludging on its friends. It is unbelievable that a nation with a strong economy and an outstanding military tradition has castrated itself and for all practical purposes has no air force at all, not much of an army, and a pretty useless navy. The Kiwis assume that Australia and the USA will do all the heavy lifting. That is not acceptable to anyone. (Except China.)

[pietillidie]

[Tannin]

A new agreement is indeed required, PTID. However, it does not lie within our power to forge an "agreement" with China as things stand. All we can do is bend over and drop our trousers, or else not bend over.

China is the only country able to fix the problems. China started the trade war, China is escalating the trade war, all we can do is wait, meanwhile behaving in as civilised a manner as possible given that we have a boorish clown instead of a Prime Minister.

[pietillidie]

[stui magpie]

A new agreement is indeed required, PTID. However, it does not lie within our power to forge an "agreement" with China as things stand. All we can do is bend over and drop our trousers, or else not bend over.

China is the only country able to fix the problems. China started the trade war, China is escalating the trade war, all we can do is wait, meanwhile behaving in as civilised a manner as possible.

Point nailed, as per the article I posted this started with China, they want Australia to be an obedient little quarry and market garden, which means when they stamp their foot, we bend over, drop our pants and open our mouth. This trade bullshit is our punishment for not doing that. So be it

It's difficult to resolve things diplomatically when they won't respond to calls. Saying their actions is a response to Morrison calling for an inquiry is false. That's a red herring, this was going on before then and a significant number of countries signed up for an inquiry, which pissed China off even more.

They're the ones who are acting deranged, using their social media arms to insult us while Morrison and co are being quite restrained.

Basically, they've shown their cards, taken the mask off and shown the world their true face and I think they've seriously misjudged the mood in the room.

Trying to run the worlds largest dictatorship, strictly controlling all media access to the population internally, while allowing freedom of movement to other countries requires among other things, a massive amount of good will from the population, willing to trade prosperity for "freedom"

If their economy tanks and the rich people start taking a financial hit, the CCP leadership will start to sweat.