Australia’s one-sided cancellation of Victoria State’s Belt and Road memoranda with Chinese authorities was a stupid decision, both politically and economically.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has allowed himself to be influenced by both former US president Donald Trump and Rupert Murdoch the media mogul. After his thoughtless statement and claims on the COVID-19 virus origin, where he sought to blame China in a crude, rough and ill-mannered fashion, he was neither big enough nor man enough to apologize and back down.
Instead, he has instead committed the substantial diplomatic blunder of digging his hole deeper.
He broaches no criticism, so those around him in government and the public service who seek promotion and preferment mirror his negative anti-China attitudes and statements.
His intelligence agencies reflect the mood change as well as echoing their American counterparts.
Many Australians, including the government, have negative thoughts toward China, compared to five years ago when the relationship was far more positive.
Morrison now plays to and in turn fans up the anti-China sentiment amongst the Australian public which is judged to be a vote winner.
Morrison and those before him are struggling to come to terms with China's position in the world. Rather than negotiating or encouraging negotiation they seek diplomacy backed by arms, the only means by which they still dominate the world. They seek confrontation. They seek to bully
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The April 21 decision of the Australian federal government to cancel the Belt and Road memorandum of understanding and framework agreement signed between Victoria and China’s National Development and Reform Commission, was undertaken in this light.
However, the unilateral breach of trust reveals the inexperience and stupidity of the current Morrison government.
The Belt and Road Initiative has much to offer Australia. As Victoria State Premier Daniel Andrews noted in December, the scrap is to “make a very challenging set of circumstances for farmers, for workers, for businesses, for every Victorian much, much harder."
It is not difficult to stir up anti-China sentiment amongst white Australians, where there has been concern, actual and subliminal, about the intentions of China toward its small and distant neighbor since the 1880's. This fear arises more from Australia’s distance from Europe and America, the homes of this Australian group’s linguistic and cultural “heritage”.
Morrison and those before him are struggling to come to terms with China's position in the world. Rather than negotiating or encouraging negotiation they seek diplomacy backed by arms, the only means by which they still dominate the world. They seek confrontation. They seek to bully.
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By following the US down this path Australia looks silly, like shouting insults from behind the school bully.
Implementing foreign policy, seeking to change outcomes by use of arms has been the modis vivendi of US foreign policy since WWII. Though without success, it has however profitably driven the US industrial arms complex at the cost of others’ lives and livelihood.
The US seems to be using China’s renegade province Taiwan and the South China Sea to the same ends and it has recruited Australia to sing the chorus.
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute is a partisan vehicle in this undertaking. ASPI is funded by US arms manufacturers, the US and Australian government and interests.
Defence Minister Peter Dutton listens to it, so does Morrison and it can be assumed that together with US intelligence sources were instrumental in eliciting from Dutton. His warning of possible war with China over Taiwan, long considered an intrinsic territory of China, is again playing up what Washington wants.
Michael Pezzullo, home affairs department secretary close to Dutton, made an equally puerile, “drums of war beat” statement within days. The moves are clearly co-ordinated, right before the face-to-face meeting of Group of Seven foreign ministers in London this week.
But Australia has suffered greatly and morally in recent decades by following the US directive to Iraq and Afghanistan among others.
Australia needs help. The current administration is being played by the United States, and it gets lost and ignores the larger good of its people.
Australia is suffering a dearth of leadership which is unable to handle climate change, a coherent COVID-19 vaccination response and a balanced diplomatic relationship with China, our biggest and most important neighbor.
The author is a political commentator and retired diplomat. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.