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The Forum > Article Comments > The Taiwan test > Comments

The Taiwan test : Comments

By Graham Young, published 22/4/2021

Russia is massing troops on the borders of the Ukraine at the same time the Chinese are increasing their unauthorised flights of military aircraft into Taiwanese airspace. This can't be coincidental.

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Dear Mr. Opinion,

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I wrote :

« China is not only our leading trading partner, it is also our friend and neighbour in Asia. There is no reason why our different political regimes, different physical features, different customs, different cultures, and different worldviews should be anything other than a source of inspiration and enrichment for us both »

And you replied :

« I totally disagree with you. I would put you in the pro-China camp and say that you fail to see the writing on the wall. »
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You’re right, Mr. Opinion, I don’t see any writing on the wall. As a matter of fact, I don’t see any wall either. Maybe you have in mind the Great Wall of China, but so far as I know, there is no writing on it.

Let’s say we don’t see eye to eye on this one, Mr. Opinion. But, who knows, perhaps we could still be of a similar frame of mind – despite you seeing walls and my being blind.

What I have in mind is that the British created our nation by transplanting their outlaws to this island-continent in Southeast Asia a couple of hundred years ago. They colonised Asian territory, transplanted European culture in it, and let us get on with it.

We are the ring-ins here and we have to make the best of it. The Asians didn’t invite us. We were dumped here in chains by the British government and put to work with the whip. History is full of hostility between the British, the French, the Germans, the Italians, the Spanish, etc. Always fighting in Europe among ourselves. It’s no wonder if there’s still some hostility to strange-looking, ghost-like foreigners like us here in Asia. We are a pretty hostile mob too.

It all seems rather futile to me. As I said, I prefer conciliation, understanding, and cooperation instead. But that’s just my personal point of view.

If a majority of our compatriots want war, that’s fine with me, Mr. Opinion. I’ll fight. I always have.

I imagine you would too.

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Posted by Banjo Paterson, Monday, 26 April 2021 11:01:00 PM
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Dear Mr. Opinion,

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Thank you for that 9News article entitled “'China is militarising ports across our region” for which you posted a link in which Peter Dutton is quoted as having said :

« China is militarising ports across our region. We need to deal with all of that, and that is exactly what we are now focused on »

It’s a pity he didn’t do something about it when he was Minister for Immigration and Border Protection in Tony Abbott’s and Malcolm Turnbull’s governments in 2015 when the Northern Territory granted that 99-year lease of the Port of Darwin to the Chinese-owned Landbridge Group.

It would have been easy and cost us nothing to stop the deal from going through at the time. Now it will let all hell loose and cost a fortune to get us out of it.

And, by the way, you seem to have mistaken me for Peter Dutton, Mr. Opinion, when you wrote :

« I suppose the Chinese can take comfort in knowing that people like you are behind them. »
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But, not to worry, Mr. Opinion, no harm done. As we have never seen each other, you had no way of knowing I have a full head of hair !

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Posted by Banjo Paterson, Tuesday, 27 April 2021 12:03:54 AM
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Banjo Paterson,

I also have my hair. Difference is that unlike yours mine is not grey.

By declaring its intention to take Taiwan by force, China has declared itself a threat to world peace.

Russia is doing exactly the same thing with its actions supporting the East Ukraine rebel forces trying to undermine the Ukrainian State.

Australia should decouple from China, nationalise Chinese assets in Australia, and deport all Chinese nationals who have migrated to Australia.

I don't think it will stop the rot but at least it will give us breathing space to prepare for an imminent Chinese invasion.

PS I will not fight an Asian nation to protect an Asianized Australia. It doesn't make sense to do so.
Posted by Mr Opinion, Tuesday, 27 April 2021 7:01:13 AM
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Dear Pliny of Perth,

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Commenting on my statement : “You also mention the Uyghurs, Mr. Opinion. Allow me to suggest that we reflect carefully on our treatment of our own Aboriginal peoples before we condemn the Chinese for the way they treat theirs”, you wrote :

« ... there is no legitimate comparison to make. The circumstances are vastly different. Further, allowing for the mistakes that colonists made the world over, the British settlement of Australia especially in the 20th century was marked by much good will and intention, and money (even if sometimes mistakenly). »
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You paint a somewhat idyllic picture of British colonisation, Pliny. It’s a bit of a stretch of the imagination to consider that the estimated 90% reduction of the indigenous population between 1788 and 1900 due to colonisation was an act of “goodwill” on the part of the British government.

According to the historians, this dramatic reduction in population was due to three main factors : introduction of new diseases in epidemic proportions (mainly smallpox, measles, and influenza); expropriation of native land, depriving aboriginal peoples of their traditional food sources; hunting and killing Aboriginal peoples like wild animals.

And it’s a euphemism, to say the least, to qualify all this simply as “mistakes that colonists made the world over”.

Many Aboriginal people were exploited by the early settlers as slaves, food and tobacco being their sole recompense. They were often forced to work, badly treated and sometimes severely punished when they disobeyed their masters or tried to escape.

In addition, the early British and the following successive Australian colonial governments both systematically and relentlessly pursued a strict and vigorous policy of assimilation of the indigenous peoples into European culture. Children were confiscated and educated in Church missions or adopted out to European settlers.

The treatment of the Uyghur ethnic minority by the ruling ethnic Han majority in China is not as different as you seem to think from the manner the indigenous peoples of Australia were treated and, to a certain extent, continue to be treated by their colonisers :

http://www.3cr.org.au/asiapac/episode-201707080900/aboriginal-workers-fighting-against-slave-exploitation#:~:text=Aboriginal%20people%20in%20Australia%20have,known%20as%20the%20Stolen%20Wages%20.

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Posted by Banjo Paterson, Tuesday, 27 April 2021 7:18:58 AM
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Dear Faustino,

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You wrote :

« There was no rational reason for a longer lease rather than one which would come up for renegotiation after 15-20 years »
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The Port of Darwin affair represents a serious failure of the federal government, Faustino.

As ABC News pointed out in an article published in 2019 :

« For years, the NT had lobbied the Commonwealth to invest millions in developing the rinky-dink Darwin Port that was only turning over a few million dollars annually in cattle, mining, and gas interests.

« Successive governments believed the port held the cure to the NT's economic maladies and that if it could be expanded and maintained, it would surely be a secret weapon in the NT's economic resurgence — and the rest of the nation's by extension — as Australia's "gateway to Asia".

« But for years, the Federal Government didn't see its potential — or at least not enough to invest in it. »

As Tony Abbott’s and Malcolm Turnbull’s federal liberal governments failed to provide the necessary funds to upgrade the port, in 2015, the Northern Territory’s Country Liberal Party government, granted the 99-year lease to the Chinese-owned Landbridge Group.

The logic behind the 99-year lease was that no major investor would have been prepared to provide the huge amount of funds needed, not only to upgrade the port and its infrastructure but also to provide first-class hotel accommodation close-by, that was also lacking at the time, unless that investor had a solid guarantee that it would have sufficient time to recuperate its investment and realise a profit.

The contract was put out to tender, and the Chinese-owned Landbridge Group was chosen by the specially-appointed Northern Territory selection panel as the winner of the competition.

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Posted by Banjo Paterson, Tuesday, 27 April 2021 7:26:39 AM
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Banjo Paterson,

You fail to see the place of the Uighurs in imperial Chinese history.

They were peripheral to the central Chinese State but they were important to the State in maintaining order on the western edges of the Empire.

I think that the CCP is trying to depopulate the western fringe of traditional non-Chinese ethnic power groups, replacing them with Chinese (Han, Manchu, Mongolian, etc) in order to make the new Communist Chinese Empire pan-Chinese along lines of race and ethnicity.

Hence the action of the Chinese State to carry out a genocide of the Uighurs and follow up by filling the vacuum in the region with Chinese from the eastern provinces thus establishing a rejuvenated empire based on a principle of One Chinese - One China.
Posted by Mr Opinion, Tuesday, 27 April 2021 7:35:20 AM
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