By Joe Montero
The anti-China crusade is getting hotter and it poses a major threat to us all. This is not about whether one considers China a positive influence or not. It is about the building of a major diversion, to deflect attention away from the emerging home-grown twins of climate and economic crisis, and that most of us have never held our political institutions and those who serve them in such low regard.
And all of this is connected to the progressive loss of basic rights here in Australia.
Thus the China threat is promoted. The narrative goes like this: We are being invaded. The Chinese are taking over everything. Out national security is under threat. The purpose of the accusations is to create a climate, to justify taking even more of our rights, and to prepare for more intense conflict at home and overseas.
Another so-called spy exposure case is aired by the morer addventurous of the China threat promoters. The last one was when Chen Yonglin made his claims in 2005. They were soon exposed as false. The case was buried and we never heard of him again. The same fate will fall the latest blockbuster claims.
The person at the centre, William Wang Liqiang, has a record for fraud in his home, according to Chinese sources. They say he was never a spy. If the intention is to get to the truth, this at least deserves some investigation.
It is on the record that he was convicted for defrauding a father of two children in 2015, after claiming he could get the children into a special school. The case came before a court, was found guilty and received a suspended sentence.
Other criminal investigations have been under way. One is over his involvement in a car importing racket. Another concerns a dodgy property purchase.
This does not fir in with the claim of being a well connected spy.
Feeling the heat, William Wang Liqiang left mainland China on 10 April for Hong Kong under a false Passport. All of this is verifiable and it contradicts his claim of having spent considerable time in Hong Kong and Taiwan.
The spy claim looks very much like the action of a con artist, being used by Australian political elements with an agenda.
Wang claims he was working for a front company that served as a cover for a major spy operation. No evidence of this has been aired. It would have been if it existed, for it would be a smoking gun to show the allegations are correct. China says that he was unemployed. This can be checked as well.
The case is so weak that the minister responsible Josh Frydenberg, and Australia’s security organisations are reluctant to talk about it. They don’t want egg on their faces.
It hasn’t stopped the media coverage. Much of which fails to conduct a proper investigation presents unverified claims as fact.
A special feature of the anti-China campaign is its racist overtones, focusing on the Chinese nature of the allegations. Non Chinese allegations are not given the same treatment, if they are mentioned at all.
Another feature is that there is really little to separate right and left attackers. Just that one side it is about fighting socialism. The other argues about fighting capitalist restoration and Chinese imperialism. They are united in calling out the Chinese threat and therefore objectively championing continuing Western dominance.
Let’s look at some basic truths
About 40 percent of the Chines economy is state owned. there are other forms of social ownership. Also Included in the other portion, are small scale traditional family farming and urban operations. Corporate level invest, which does exist, accounts for the remainder.
Whether this defines are socialist economy, and whether it is a good or bad, are other questions outside the present scope.
The evidence does not suggest that China is a power acting in a predatory manner through investment in other countries. Sure, there is Chinese trade and investment. Commercial advantage is sought. All nations do this.
But Chinese investment is too small to fit the accusation. China does not have the capacity. Its internal economy is still in a process of internal development and this is its economic engine.
Why then is China targeted?
Aside from being a useful smokescreen against domestic failures, China is delivering rising living standards across its population. Its economy has grown, to the extent that it is the second biggest in the world. Contrast this with a relative shrinking of the traditional major centres of the global economy, the United States and Europe. China has become the workshop of the world.
Chinese growth rates have been the major factor holding up the global economy. Its example is seen as a major threat to the ideological hegemony of western capitalism, precisely when few have real confidence in it.
China’s efforts to shift to a sustainable and lower carbon emissions are most ambitious, despite a yearly growth the size of Australia’s entire economy. This may seem wrong to those who quote static percentages. But in terms of the size of the task, the ambitions are formidable and will have an impact of a global scale.
China is over target to meet its Paris agreement, a world leader in in the development of sustainable energy alternatives, reducing reliance on fossil fuels and bringing in sustainable manufacturing.
in short, China is well placed to take best advantage of the transition to a new economy.
Fossil fuel interests that have a lot of influence over politics and governments, including that of Australia, have a vested interest containing China’s shift.
American influence over Australia’s internal affairs is the real threat to Australia’s sovereignty
American influence exists in Australia’s most decisive industries. It is overwhelming in finance and banking. Even what are known as the four Australian banks are largely American and British owned. They dominate the mining, oil and gas industries, and own huge tracts of Australian land. American military bases exist on Australian soil. American brand names are what we buy most of the time.
The reality is that by far the greatest foreign influence in Australia comes from corporations based in the United States and Great Britain, their governments and their intelligence services, with which information is regularly shared on their terms.
Representatives of these corporations regularly lobby politicians and are the source of most corruption and other scandals. Australia’s political connections with the United States most of all, have landed us into a series of unjustifiable wars for big power hegemony and the exploitation of people and resources.
The bulk of our highly monopolised media is under the control of a single media empire based in the United States, and is a major propaganda force pushing the China threat.
If we are talking about defending Australia’s sovereignty, surely this is the first place to look.
Dancing to the tune the the anti-China campaign
Sadly, some people fall for it. This is where the ultra-right and ultra-left come together. Both have elevated the China threat.
They have come together on the events in Hong Kong, even when there is ample evidence, to show that historical problems originating from the colonial past, have been manipulated by foreign powers, as a part of the overall offensive against China. Sometimes inconvenient truths are just discarded.
Both camps have little to say about the military encirclement of and the trade war against China, even though they raise the threat of global economic crisis and war, and let’s say it, a new level in the global rise of thinly disguised fascism. their anti-China stance encourages these threats
Who will benefit from this? Those who are driving this agenda hope they will. Their objective is to preserve the dominance of a small minority and the colonial legacy of the United States and Europe
So why is anyone who doesn’t stand to benefit form this dance to the tune? Why the hell is Australia involved in this?
