Hi Chris,

Just to clarify: I used to be a Maoist, and clearly Misop, as an pre-adolescent, can't get past that. I abandoned all that, slowly, from the time I learnt how Mao murdered Lin Piao in 1971 (by howitzer), but completely by the time of the Tian An Men massacres.

Hand in hand with that went a slow realisation (thanks to Solzhenitsyn) that Marxist socialism ALWAYS degenerated into an executioner-run fascism in the name of the people. In fact, ALL Utopias necessarily degenerate that way, Right and Left.

So there is only Democracy left, imperfect, forever unfinished, full of surprises, twists and turns. I'm happy to contemplate political positions right across a broad centre, the wide brown land of Democracy. I firmly believe in it, although mongrels like Trumpf are not doing it any favours. And the current Chinese leadership/Mafia has never, and will never, promote it.

Joe

Joe, yes, I just wanted to see how MR O could justify his inaccurate assumptions about your views.

I encourage Mr O to lift his game as a brilliant Arts student.

Hi Paul1405

Here's a very relevant China POSSIBLY bribing a Liberal identity episode that some would rather forget.

This concerns Andrew Robb, former Minister for Trade and Investment (2013–2016) in the Abbott and Turnbull Governments. Robb was also a former Federal Director of the Liberal Party. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Robb

SMH reported "Andrew Robb's secret China contract: money for nothing" of 6 December 2017.

See http://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/andrew-robbs-secret-china-contract-money-for-nothing-20171205-gzzaq5.html

"A secret letter to former trade minister Andrew Robb reveals that his consulting deal with a company closely linked to the Chinese government contains terms so vague and ill-defined he gets paid $880,000 a year even if he does nothing.

Former NSW Supreme Court judge Anthony Whealy, who examined the terms of the leaked letter from Chinese firm Landbridge to Mr Robb, said that "on the face of it, he is required not to do anything and still get a whacking great fee".

The news comes as the Turnbull government moves to establish a new public register for people who seek to influence the Australian political process on behalf of foreign interests.

...Attorney-General George Brandis suggested on Tuesday that Mr Robb would have to sign up to the new register.

...Though the $880,000 yearly payment from Landbridge to Mr Robb – beginning shortly after he left parliament in 2016 – was revealed by Fairfax Media and Four Corners in June, the full details in the letter to Mr Robb were only recently leaked by a source with concerns about the nature of the deal.

One government official described it as a "disgraceful" look for a former cabinet minister."

MUCH MORE see http://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/andrew-robbs-secret-china-contract-money-for-nothing-20171205-gzzaq5.html