Former Australian ambassador to China, Geoff Raby, last week wrote a piece praising the rise of diplomacy in our dealings with Beijing, claiming that since changing prime minister, we don’t have a defence minister and senior public servants beating the drums of war, running roughshod over the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Opinion pieces Continue reading »
China
After China entered the period of “reform and openness” in the 1980s, Western liberalism, embracing a form of ‘apocalyptic modernity’, adhered to the fantasy that China “would become like us.” What it meant in fact was that China “would become like us but be subservient to us”. If China was not going to “become like Continue reading »
Timor-Leste President Jose Ramos Horta has been pressing the Albanese government to somehow enable Woodside Petroleum to go forward with the development of the Greater Sunrise Gasfields and the processing of the gas on Timor-Leste’s south coast. He says that his country could turn to China if Australia doesn’t help. On September 23, 2023, Timor-Leste’s Continue reading »
Almost all geopolitical “soft power” explanations draw on the seminal analysis by the Harvard political scientist Joseph Nye, who promoted the term in his 1990 book Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power. At that time, he wrote, “When one country gets other countries to want what it wants (this) might be called co-optive Continue reading »
Make no mistake, had the Australian Government not changed last year, Chen Lei would still be languishing in her miserable detention cell, denied access to her children, relatives, and friends. From the outset, the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister made it clear that they would change the tone of the relationship with China which, by Continue reading »
"Tight hugs, teary screams, holding my kids in the spring sunshine. Trees shimmy from the breeze. I can see the entirety of the sky now! Thank you Aussies."
If we were to believe the UK’s Daily Mail, China should be in mourning, they have lost a crew of 55 and a Nuclear submarine. The Times, historically, a reputable media outlet led with the headline that “China kills own sailors with a trap set for British and US submarines”. But, if we were to Continue reading »
Can Australia reconcile the American and Chinese strands of its foreign policy? Soon the Prime Minister will be meeting the heads of government of the two contending great powers of the Asia-Pacific: China and the United States. What will the background be? Many years ago, when the Timor crisis was at its height, I felt Continue reading »
From China’s perspective, Australia will always follow the US no matter what. And the US is out to contain China – there is nothing that China could do to change that. Australia has made relatively little effort to change this perception. This means for China, there is little point in putting much effort into dealing Continue reading »
Last week was China’s “Golden Week”. It is so called because it is the longest holiday of the year, with the period of Spring Festival and the National Day fused into one marathon stint. During this time, millions of Chinese pursue leisure and travel activities throughout the country in trips that amount to hundreds of Continue reading »