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David 
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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I certainly don't think we should be shy in criticising China for its human-rights abuses or geopolitical bullying (and have been critical for politicians on both sides for being overly reluctant to do so in the past). But Morrison's reaction to this Twitter incident does seem a bit like getting needlessly sucked in, to be honest. The best way to respond to low-level trolling like that is to ignore it (unless of course one is trying to capitalise on stuff like this for domestic political gain, in which case ...).
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All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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stui magpie 
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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I'd call it standing up to a bully rather than being needlessly sucked in, and many other countries are supportive of us and our stance.
We've been far more subdued than they have, but maybe enough is enough. We're not going to kowtow and kiss their arse and they don't like it.
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Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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watt price tully 
Joined: 15 May 2007
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watt price tully
Joined: 15 May 2007
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| stui magpie wrote: | I'd call it standing up to a bully rather than being needlessly sucked in, and many other countries are supportive of us and our stance.
We've been far more subdued than they have, but maybe enough is enough. We're not going to kowtow and kiss their arse and they don't like it. |
I know what ur saying & I’m as angry as the next person but we need to be strategic about this too. Don’t have to be subservient but need to be smarter than Scotty has been so far.
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“I even went as far as becoming a Southern Baptist until I realised they didn’t keep ‘em under long enough” Kinky Friedman |
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watt price tully
Joined: 15 May 2007
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This is in an Israeli "Left of Centre" News outlet called Haaretz in todays (2/12/2020) online edition, obviously not an Australian News outlet.
China's ‘XXX Files’: ‘25 Thousand People Disappear Each Year, Their Organs Are Harvested’
"..China experts and activists claim that the repression of minorities in Xinjiang has escalated in recent years, with thousands of Uighur Muslims in ‘reeducation camps’ being murdered and their organs harvested for wealthy Chinese and foreign patients. The Chinese deny all such allegations..."
"...Ethan Gutmann, an independent researcher who’s considered a world expert on this issue, unequivocally believes the practice is occurring. “Harvesting never left Xinjiang, it just took a vacation,” he tells Haaretz. “The Chinese Communist Party [CCP] first experimented with the live organ harvesting of death row criminals on the execution grounds of Xinjiang as early as 1994. By 1997, surgeons were extracting livers and kidneys from Uighur political and religious prisoners for high-ranking CCP cadres – small-scale, but it set a precedent..."
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-china-s-xxx-files-people-just-disappear-and-their-organs-are-harvested-1.9340106
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“I even went as far as becoming a Southern Baptist until I realised they didn’t keep ‘em under long enough” Kinky Friedman |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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| stui magpie wrote: | | I'd call it standing up to a bully rather than being needlessly sucked in, and many other countries are supportive of us and our stance. |
Chest beating about China today is about as courageous as chest beating about Muslims a decade ago.
Where were all these indignant heroes when Little Johnny was doing PR work for the invasion of Iraq? When the nation, political parties, political system, people's savings and job opportunities became dependent on mining and fossil fuels exports to China? When anyone with half an understanding of the global economy wanted world-class fibre internet to help grow the knowledge and information industries? When banks and multinational financial institutions were becoming too big to fail and investment vehicles too intransparent before the GFC? When it was obvious the price of green energy would fall relentlessly and unstoppably, requiring a shift in economic focus? When Trump scuppered the TPP, a comprehensive agreement designed, among other things, to encourage liberal economic reform in China? When Trump was suppressing the global economy and Australia's wealth by trillions of dollars so he could glory in overheated US markets? When Aussie species and habitats were increasingly at risk of being barbecued into oblivion because climate change mitigation and properly funded forestry were being undermined by mining and fossil fuels companies, their propaganda and their political minions? When Trump attacked the only international body that could plausibly help coordinate and manage efforts to contain a global pandemic?
The only responsible thing to do right now is to put away the teen chest beating and start thinking of ways in which a mutually-beneficial relationship with China can be forged and China nudged in a more productive direction. Revisiting the TPP, spoiled and soiled by Xi's PR dream, unprecedented global idiot and embarrassment Trump, might be a place to start. There are fewer Facebook likes and fist pumps in serious international work, but that's part and parcel of actual courage.
As we have seen as clear as day over the past two decades, whenever the country jumps in with fist-waving dimwits it inevitably gets the arse end of the deal. What would be nice is to see someone lead on something for once — someone, anyone — even if it costs them short-term glory.
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In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/dec/04/wa-museum-boola-bardip-denies-changes-to-china-display-were-due-to-political-pressure
| Quote: | [Mark Harrison, a senior lecturer in Chinese studies at the University of Tasmania] told Guardian Australia the inclusion of Taiwan as part of China was not actually reflective of “Australian government policy” as the museum claimed.
He said the Australian stance “uses a deliberate ambiguity on the status of Taiwan”.
“The museum is not correct to say that including Taiwan in the map of the People’s Republic of China is in accordance with Australia’s official position under Australia’s One China policy,” Harrison said.
“Australia’s One China policy uses a deliberate ambiguity on the status of Taiwan. Australia does not have diplomatic relations with Taiwan and recognises the PRC as the sole legitimate government of China but only goes so far as to acknowledge the position of the Chinese government that Taiwan is part of the PRC.
“The deliberate ambiguity of Australia’s One China policy makes the representation of Taiwan complicated in maps. The Australian government is very careful to not use maps of national boundaries that show Taiwan as part of the PRC.” |
Try getting your head around that (particularly the bolded bit, which is supposed to contrast with the position of a WA museum depicting Taiwan as part of China). I'm sure some will say that this is all just diplomatic caution and realpolitik, or whatever, but if Western countries en masse collectively decided to recognise Taiwan as independent tomorrow, what's the Chinese government actually going to do about it? Perhaps some fear reprisals or worse against Taiwan, but I'm sceptical – certainly, that was never the rationale for us freezing them out to begin with.
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All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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stui magpie
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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Who's lacking integrity?
Fairfax for accepting the money to publish it or 9 for stopping it?
I hope you mean the first
_________________
Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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stui magpie
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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Look, I don't know. I thought I had a pretty good handle on how you think on most things but when you apparently become a right wing Trump supporter, i've entered the Matrix.  
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Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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Let's put it this way: if I ever become a right-wing Trump supporter or CCP apologist, you'll know you have entered the Matrix. 
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All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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This is the right way to get things done concerning suspicions of genocide against Uighurs — through an ICC case:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/11/international-criminal-icc-china-uighur-genocide-claims
Assuming effwit Trump doesn't undermine the ICC again, and doesn't wreck the initiative as he did earlier efforts to pressure China via the TPP, proper international consensus is the only way to move the ball forward with China on anything.
Loud chest beating by hypocritical big mouths, and two-faced unilateral sanctions corrupted by domestic politics, only provide PR fodder for Xi's conservative nationalists.
The question is whether enough leaders can be bothered doing the hard work for zero hysterical tabloid and social media recognition.
_________________
In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
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stui magpie
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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Nah, fuckem.
Their idea of diplomacy is everyone has to kiss their arse, or else. Nope from me.
Give the pricks some of their own back:
reduce iron ore and coal exports and increase the price of what we do send.
aquire or nationalise with no financial compensation all property with a priority on agriculture, owned by Chinese nationals or companies
find new markets to sell stuff to.
1.5 million people are dead because of China. #fuckchina
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Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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| David wrote: | | I'm sure some will say that this is all just diplomatic caution and realpolitik, or whatever, but if Western countries en masse collectively decided to recognise Taiwan as independent tomorrow, what's the Chinese government actually going to do about it? Perhaps some fear reprisals or worse against Taiwan, but I'm sceptical – certainly, that was never the rationale for us freezing them out to begin with. |
That's the way anything has to happen — broad international consensus. But while it's easy to condemn certain things unambiguously such as the mistreatment of Uyghurs, Taiwan is a much more complex problem. Aggressively supporting Uyghur human rights hurts no one, unless it incites even worse treatment, a point which highlights the perils of remote interference because it could do just that on the ground. So, tactic is still vital when people's lives are at stake, even in cases where the morality or rights are clear.
In contrast, supporting Taiwanese independence in the wrong way might not only trigger the complete obliteration of Taiwan, but it cuts across internal Taiwanese opinion. At the most obvious level, aggressively supporting Taiwanese independence means aggressively defying a pro-Chinese segment of the population, albeit a minor segment. But it also means defying a much larger segment of the population which, while by no means fond of China, is not willing to pursue independence at the cost of conflict. The data here paints a picture of the complexity:
https://jamestown.org/program/taiwan-opinion-polling-on-unification-with-china/
While Xi and his band of fasco-nationalists have moved sentiment away from unification, it's still a very complex game. Imposing external will on people, and forcing them to accept a certain risk equation, has nothing to do with real politik and everything to do with ethics.
Furthermore, when you dig below the surface, as with Iraq and Saddam Hussein, perhaps the vast majority of onlookers don't give the slightest fig about the average Taiwanese person; simply, from their remote vantage point they want to oppose China and resolve a tension that's bothering themselves internally. Playing video games with other people's lives to solve one's own internal psychological tensions sits beneath a lot opinion on international issues like this.
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In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
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