At the 20th Shangri-La Dialogue, the regional security forum, in Singapore, on 2 June 2023, PM Aukus (Albanese) presented his most cringeworthy undiplomatic address that publicly insulted a world superpower, which is also Australia’s largest trade partner – China, in a foot-in-mouth effort to make China be nice to USA.
Yes, the same USA that for years has aggressively bashed China’s reputation to the world, with deliberate misinformation about its ‘internal conflicts’ that are actually CIA-sponsored separatist movements of Uyghur, Hong Kong and now Taiwan, to poke the Great Panda to war.
China, in response to USA’s disrespect, has withheld communications as it had with the Australian Morrison government for its obedient babbling the USA’s insolent and fake accusation that China was responsible for Covid.
To lure China to open communication with the USA, PM Aukus, ironically drew from his shallow font of his negotiation experience with the USA to release innocent Australian journalist, Julian Assange, from US & UK torture that doesn’t hold “to the standards that the rest of us respect”.
Note each of the quotes below from Albanese’s address are directed to, though not named, imply China. Ironically, they are psychological projection of his appalling silent refusal to pick up the phone to directly demand Assange’s (and also Daniel Duggan’s) freedom by PM’s AUKUS partners who are “too big for the rules”:
“the silence of the diplomatic deep freeze”
“But we begin from the principle that whatever the issue, whether we agree or disagree, it is always better and more effective if we deal direct.”
“If you don’t have the capacity – at a decision-making level – to pick up the phone, to seek some clarity or provide some context, then there is always a much greater risk of assumptions spilling over into irretrievable action and reaction.
“If this breaks down, if one nation imagines itself too big for the rules, or too powerful to be held to the standards that the rest of us respect, then our region’s strategic stability is undermined,” he warned.
“I can assure you that when Australia looks north, we don’t see a void for others to impose their will.”
These offensive clangers of PM Aukus’ public humiliation of China would have shocked his Asian audience of ‘close friends” of “nearly 600 delegates from more than 40 countries and regions, including the defense ministers of the U.S. and China”. Their politeness must have been strained to control their shock at Albanese’s appalling tactless and undeserved insinuations about China that violate Asian cultural protocol in which RESPECT is the core of relationships.
Obviously, in a coma of post-colonial smugness, both the PM and his speech writer neglected to respect the Chinese pride in their 5000 years of civilisation and importantly, ignored respect for President Xi Jinping’s reemergence of Confucian values for the establishment of the Chinese national moral identity.
If PM Aukus’ blundering pedagogy was bad enough, he excelled his ignorance with this blatant lie:
“Australia’s goal is not to prepare for war,”
The assembly must have shifted from shock to bemusement;
Firstly, the Australian mainstream media has been spruiking, since the election of the Labor War Party, its secret AUKUS deal which provides “the US with access to Australian minerals[esp. lithium]”, “a joint US-UK submarine presence” and a permanent Japanese military presence.
Albanese, Marles,Wong have been on a endless circuit through Pacific and Asian nations to recruit allies and undermine China’s enterprises in the Asia-Pacific region while boosting up Australia’s military preparations for US, UK, and Japanese bases here to lead the US proxy war on China because “AUKUS commits Australia to fight China if America does, simply because the AUKUS deal will be off if we don’t.” (Hugh White)
Secondly, the Asian and Pacific nations must be laughing in the aisles about the decrepit AUKUS members who since WWII have lost every US led-wars: PM Aukus is the tin pot leader of a 50,000 military force (including some war criminals and falling numbers) plus one operational Collins submarine out of 6, that will be replaced, with exorbitant cost, for 8 US nuclear submarines by possibly 2050 by which they will be redundant. The UK’s military is facing its winter of discontent, and the USA military and empire is in decline and its economy is bankrupt..nevertheless will likely cause “conflicts and chaos” as the Chinese military twitter states:
#China’s senior military expert: “During the past 40 years, the #US and #NATO caused a series of conflicts, turmoil, and even wars in the #MiddleEast and #Europe, resulting in severe humanitarian crises and disasters. We have reasons to be concerned that the US-led NATO intervention in the Asia-Pacific region may bring about instability and unrest, and may even lead to conflicts and chaos.”
#WestWatch #USA #war #NATOExpansion #InsideShangriLaDialogue From Frontline, Media Beijing
Despite PM Albanese’s didactic insights and threats, China is busy elsewhere, with real diplomacy resolving conflicts in the Middle East and winning hearts and minds around the globe by spreading prosperity, unlike the USA and its western thugs that attack hearts and minds with bombs, drones and death.
Over 91% of Australians want the government to rescue Assange, and last week Queensland Labor delegates voted against AUKUS.
Australians, not their political leaders, will decide at the next election, to either vote for warmongering major parties that blithely handed over our sovereignty that, ultimately, risks our children’s lives – or vote for a cooperating parliament of Independents who sustain a world of peace along a modernised Silk Road to prosperity.
Dr. Vacy Vlazna is the author of East Timor: Reveille for Courage. Editor of a volume of Palestinian poetry, I remember my name. and writes political commentary for a number of independent online magazines. She was Coordinator of Justice for Palestine Matters, Human Rights Advisor to the GAM team in the second round of the Acheh peace talks, Helsinki, February 2005 then withdrew on principle. Vacy was convenor of Australia East Timor Association and coordinator of the East Timor Justice Lobby as well as serving in East Timor with UNAMET and UNTAET from 1999-2001.
