China Demands US-Australia-Japan APEC Meeting "Be More Transparent"

China's President Hu Will Sign New Energy, Natural Resources Deals With Australia

This story from the China Post claims that China's President Hu Jintao will be signing new deals for energy and natural resources - read Australian coal and uranium - when he visits Sydney next week.

But those deals are unlikely to feature any significant commitments from China when it comes to climate change, as government ministers have recently claimed.

Australia is now a "main supplier" of energy resources to China, with trade between the nations reaching more than $33 billion in 2006 alone.

But, as expected, China is unhappy with the controversial 'closed door' meeting between the leaders of Australia, Japan and the United States, which is expected to focus on the United States' plans to locate infrastructure for its global missile shield across the region.

Australia's foreign minister, Alexander Downer, repeatedly states that Australia is not helping the United States to "contain" China, but China doesn't believe him. Nor should anyone else.

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China's Assistant Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai said of the United States-Australia-Japan security meeting being held during the APEC summit :

"It is our view that such a meeting should be more transparent," Cui said.

This will be the first trilateral security meeting for the three nations, but China has apparently been rebuffed from having observers sit in on the meeting.

China is already kyboshing any talk that there will be major breakthroughs on the climate change front during the APEC summit.

Which should come as a surprised to prime minister Howard.

Or at least, that news should come as a surprise to anyone who believed Howard when he said he expected there would be significant progress with China and the United States on climate change, thanks to the APEC summit.

China still believes that the United Nations should take the leading role in the fight against global warming, and Australia and the United States should endorse UN plans that have already won praise and support from most of the EU.

Will President Bush Cancel His Sydney APEC Visit To Deal With Iraq And Iran?

Howard Claims Climate Change Will Be Top Priority At APEC - But China And US Already Downplaying Any Major Progress

Local NeoCon Mouthpiece Livid Over BushCo.'s APEC Betrayal Of Howard

Bush/Rice To Australia, Asia : Screw You Guys, We're Going Home

China, Russia Likely To Use APEC Talks To Warn Australia Over US Missile Shield Plans


What does it take to make jets of steam shoot out the ears of the usually fawning local NeoCon mouthpiece, and avid BushCo. apologist, Greg Sheridan?

This :

With Bush to attend only day one of the two-day leaders retreat, which has become the heart of APEC, a secondary struggle with the Australians emerged over who would represent the US in the President’s absence.

Until quite late, there was every chance that Bush might not come to APEC at all.

However unpopular Bush may be in Australia, this would have been a devastating blow for John Howard, APEC and the US in Asia Pacific regionalism.

Nonetheless, this was the course that all of Bush’s top advisers strongly advocated.

He cancelled a summit with heads of government of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to focus on Iraq. Bush was supposed to attend this summit on his way to APEC.

...Bush is prepared to snub ASEAN because of the pressing politics at home of the Iraq war.

His Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, is prepared to do the same. She skipped the ASEAN ministerial conference for the second time in three years because of Middle East commitments.

When Rice first missed an ASEAN ministerial conference - her predecessor, Colin Powell, attended all four during his term - she was mortified by the severity of the Southeast Asian reaction.

...she turned up last year, but this year skipped it again. Rice was also extremely reluctant to come to APEC but Bush’s attendance gave her no choice.

However, the White House advisers had some success in convincing Bush to leave early.

He will attend the first part of the APEC leaders retreat on Saturday before flying home that night.

The Australians wanted Rice to attend Sunday’s meeting in Bush’s place. This led to a fierce argument between the Australians and Americans.

The Australians tried a little brinkmanship. It was to be Rice or nobody. The gamble failed.

With all the critical Iraq work to come up in the next few weeks, Rice was not going to miss 15 hours on a plane with her President.

In short, those 15 hours were more important than a day with 20-odd Asia Pacific government leaders.

This is a sorry reflection on the priorities of the second Bush administration as compared with the first. Powell would never have done this.

...Rice, like Bush, could not be bothered with the second day of the APEC leaders meeting.

In the Asia Pacific, the US president is required to attend APEC once a year, and the secretary of state is required to attend APEC and ASEAN.

It’s not too much to ask for the most dynamic region in the world, containing a slew of US treaty allies. It is, though, apparently too much for the US to give.

The grinding, frightening clanging of an all too obvious reality is rattling Sheridan's head. The United States doesn't regard APEC to be anywhere near as important as Howard does. If they did, Bush, or at least Condi Rice, would be hanging around for the full weekend of meetings.

How could President Bush do this to Australia, Sheridan quivers? How could Bush and Condi Rice do this to Howard?

BushCo. don't give a bucket of fuck about Australia, not as much as Howard would have you believe anyway, and they couldn't care less about Howard's ultimate hour of glory, as he basks in the warm glow of his long dreamed of APEC Sydney summit.

Australia contributed billions of dollars, and thousands of Australian soldiers, to America's War On Iraq, and in his first visit since that fiasco began, BushCo. can't even be bothered hanging around for the full round of APEC meetings. Nor can Rice.

BushCo. are not going to commit to anything more than the most meagre of climate change related "aspirational" goals in cutting emissions, supposedly one of the key focuses of the entire summit. But the US expects Australia, at APEC, to fully commit to supplying uranium to anyone the US tells them to.

They also expect Australia to take the heat from China, and Russia, over the US-Japan
-Australia plan for regional branches of the Missile Defence Shield.

"It's not about containing China," Alexander Downer squeaks.

Who believes him? Nobody.

China, backed by Russia, think that's exactly what the US missile defence shield is for. And clearly it is.

So why is Howard being all but snubbed by the BushCo. in his moment of international diplomatic glory? Has Howard already told them he will begin pulling out Australian troops by mid-2008? If he manages to somehow win the coming elections?

The excuse that Bush has to get back to the US to deal with the General Petreaus report on the Iraq "surge" is worthless. Bush is not going to pull US troops out of Iraq, and Congress is not going to stop funding the war.

Bush could just play tapes of previous "We Gotta Stay In Iraq, Here's Why" speeches and it would have the same effect as him being there in person.

The real reason why Bush wants to rush home is because he wants to be there for the sixth anniversary of the attacks of 9/11. The only time of the year the vast majority of Americans stop wishing that his head or his heart will suddenly explode, taking out vice president Dick Cheney at the same time.

Howard and Downer can spin the BushCo. abandonment of the APEC summit whatever way they want. The Chinese, all the Asians, know they're being snubbed. And they will not like nor appreciate such disrespect from Bush and Rice.

You think you got problems at home President Bush, the Chinese might say, well you better sit up and take notice of this part of the world. If you intend for the US to be a future player in the region, that is.

There will be big, important, world changing meetings at APEC. Yes indeed.

But the biggest and probably most important will be between Russia's prime minister Putin and China's president Hu, who'll be holding follow-up talks to their recent, and apparently successful, joint war games in Russian territory, which marked the military debut of the Shanghai CoOperation Organisation, a future challenger to the global reach of NATO.

They'll share photos and grins with Howard and Downer, and thank them for being gracious hosts, and throwing one hell of an expensive party in the most beautiful city in the world, but Howard and Downer won't be invited to the Russia-China talks.

Well, not to the one that really matters anyway.

Putin and Hu know that Howard and Downer are all but gone from the world stage, and the NeoCon militarism they so avidly supported will go down in history as utterly noxious and horrific, with the smoking ruins of Iraq as its unforgettable apex.

Why should Russia and China bother wasting time with Howard and Downer when, with the US heading rapidly towards recession, they've got half the world to now carve up between themselves?

How much time Putin and Hu spend with Kevin Rudd and his team will be a good indication of how Russia and China are planning to deal with Australia in the coming years.

On the grand bargaining table of a new world order, that is the "One World" that China will market via its 2008 Olympic Games, what does Australia have to offer besides the threat of help the US expand its regional hegemony?

As Paul Keating said recently, "...if we didn't have a pile of minerals to sell to the Chinese they (would) barely doff their hat to (Howard)."

For the next decade at least, China and Russia will both be very interested in our coal and uranium. It seems unlikely the demand for those energy sources will lessen, regardless of who runs Australia.

But Australia is not the only country that can supply such minerals to Russia and China.
Should Australia continue down the road of US-ghosted aggression against China, through its involvement in the US Missile Defence Shield, China may well use the tens of billions it pours into the Australian economy, through coal purchases, to try and ween us away from America.

Alexander Downer would have us believe that China and Russia are not concerned about our involvement with the US and Japan in establishing American missile defence outposts and infrastructure. But Downer is lying, as usual.

Downer, in an interview last night, tried to claim that a meeting between Australia-US-Japan leaders during APEC was no big deal, and was more to do with trade expansion in the region. But China, Australia's biggest trading partner, is not invited to those talks.

Why is that?

Because the prime focus of Japan-Australia-US dialogue will be the firming of plans for co-ordinating defence assets, with an eye towards keeping China from expanding too far, too far quickly, and destabilising the regional status quo.

Whomever controls the Malacca Straits in the next two decades, through which China is shipped most of it oil and coal imports, in turn controls, in some very important ways, the growth of China.

Australia, Japan and the United States intend to keep the Malacca Straits firmly under their control for as long as possible. One of the reasons why the Howard government has assigned billions towards expanding our naval capabilities.

With Australia committing more than $2 billion to the US upgrading of military satellite systems, it's clear Australia is committed, along with Japan, to US plans to deploy missiles and missile defence shield assets throughout the region.

Russia and China will both likely confront Howard and/or Downer over the missile shield controversy during the APEC talks. If either still believe there is a way to stop Australia from going down that path with the US and Japan.

But don't expect to hear Downer or Howard mentioning anything about those discussions. It won't be news of the good kind.

You'll have to look to the Russian and Chinese media to get that story.

Or here.


Paul Keating On The Wasted Opportunities Of Regional Security At APEC

Containing China - Australia To Commit Billions To US Missile Defence Shield

US Military Spying Base In WA Means Australia Is Pre-Committed To All Future American Wars

Australia To Hand Over $30+ BILLION To US War Industry

Australian Defence Companies Drool Over Arms Sales To Middle East Dictatorships And 'Enemies' Of Israel

It's just like the 1930s all over again. A wider world war looms, as economies crash and burn and powerful military nations move on weak states with vast energy and mineral reserves, while Australia, the US and the UK are busy flooding the world with bombs, bullets, jets, tanks and vast arsenals of new weaponry.

BushCo. recently announced some $73 billion worth of military hardware sales to Middle East "allies" and Australia's defence industry are now hankering to get their slice of this international arms race.

As this story in the Sun Herald explains, to get in the action, the Howard government will appoint its own international arms dealer to flog our "war machines" to allies and potential future enemies alike :

Defence experts said the most likely Australian-made military equipment that could be sold to Persian Gulf states included fast troop-carrying catamarans and the Bushmaster armoured vehicle.

"Australian defence firms could get a slice of the action as we have developed some excellent niche technology and equipment," said Greg Ferguson, editor of Australian Defence Magazine. "The new government unit will use the muscle and reputation of the Australian Defence Force to push the overseas sale of Australian defence products."

Professor of strategic studies at the Australian National University, Hugh White, said the massive US arms deal to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel and the Gulf States opened up opportunities for Australia.

"The aim of the US is to armour up these countries to contain Iran, which has a long coast on the Persian Gulf. It would be ideal for the Australian-built high-speed catamarans which could be used for military transports," he said.

Thank goodness for Iran's mullahs acting so crazy and supposedly claiming they want to "wipe" Israel off the map. Otherwise, Australia's involvement in the US effort to "armour up these countries to contain Iran" might look...well, dangerous, or even grossly irresponsible.

Nearly all the Gulf states our international arms dealer will be sent off to schmooze do not officially recognize the existence of Israel, like Hamas, and impose horrific human rights violations on their people, while jailing and torturing dissenters. Nor do most of these future arms trading partners of Australia allow fully democratic elections, even though the United States continually claims it is pressuring countries like Egypt to give its people more freedom and liberty.

But forget all that, we're talking billions of dollars of arms sales here.

The Saudis and Egyptians know that one of the best ways to get the United States to shut up about human rights and democracy is to commit to mega-billion arms deals with the US, or its arms-producing allies. Like Australia.

According to the Sun Herald, and other media reports, the Howard government has committed to pouring more than $31 billion dollars into the coffers of American defence contractors in the coming years, for transport planes, jet fighters and second-hand tanks.

The top 40 defence firms in Australia turnover $6 billion per year. At the moment, they sell $400 million worth of guns, bombs and bullets internationally. A figure that is set to rapidly escalate should our new arms dealer be able to score some of the American action in arming up all those Middle East countries.

Interesting how the fact that Australia, a nation of only 20 million people, is funneling $31 billion into American defence contractors, and currently has a "defence" budget of more than $21 billion a year, barely rates a mention in the American or British mainstream media.

Australia and the US had a virtual shitfit last year when it became known that China, a country of more than 1.3 billion people, had raised its annual defence spend to some $40 billion.

Australia's move to help in the mega-arming of Middle East countries is all part of the US-Israel-Sunni Middle East Alliance against Iran. In part, this is also a future front against the Russia and China, who are now tied to Iran through recent oil and natural gas deals worth hundreds of billions of dollars.


Australia's Massive Plan To Become A Military World Power

Australia's Future Role In Helping To Contain China

Our New Arms Trading Partners : The US-Sunni-Israel Alliance Against Iran