We Only Do Business With Freedom-Hating Communists To Make Them More Free, Or Something

By Darryl Mason

It's taken a while but finally, he's done it. The Professional Idiot is now using Fox News' Glenn Beck as a source of wisdom, and revelation :



Glenn Beck is, of course, the American version of Andrew Bolt, but with more tears, and only slightly more whining.

Bolt's boss, Rupert Murdoch, has bent over backwards (perhaps even frontwards) in recent years trying to do business with the Communists spawned by Mao.

Only a few days ago, Murdoch was literally begging the Communists to save his media empire by allowing him to expand into China. The last time he tried to do that, he lost a few billion.

Unfortunately, Rupert Murdoch didn't have the time to denounce the philosophy of Mao - as The Idiot and Glenn Beck think everyone should do - to his Chinese hosts while he was in Beijing.

Maybe next time.

Games Within Games

A commenter on this ABC News story about PM Rudd's presumed inaction when it comes to pressuring China to handover Rio Tinto executive Stern Hu, who they accuse of espionage, spying, takes a plausible theory on what might have happened out for a run :

It's an interesting game that people are playing

Hu buys a state secret from someone - the secret? that's easy: the Chinese position on where commodity prices are going (ie Up)

Hu passes that secret information to his RIO bosses and consequently RIO does not need to negotiate on lower prices

Then China anounces prices for the next year hooray.

But because of Hu's actions China has been damaged financially.

But consider that there are games within games. Maybe Hu was allowed to buy the state secrets from someone allowed to sell them (either overtly or covertly).

Now we have China sitting in a pretty position - it has secured a hedge against dropping prices. With no financial outlay for doing so.

If prices drop then RIO (who acted on insider information by not acting in the absence of that info) could be sued by the Chinese and Australia would have to step in and back RIO. And of course if anyone ends up out of pocket it will be the Australian tax payer.

It's a brilliant game.

While Stern Hu may be, and hopefully is, innocent, and will be allowed to return to Australia, corporate and industrial spying and espionage runs rampant across the global business world.

Of course it does.

If Rio Tinto has never knowingly engaged in such activities, however many levels removed from the executives so plausible deniability can be maintained, they've been putting themselves at a distinct corporate disadvantage, because most, if not all, of their minor and major international competitors engage in such activitites, to some extent, as simply a way of doing business. An acceptable, if not expected, way of doing business.

One 'Janet' Unit Of Time Measurement = About Four Years

By Darryl Mason

Time moves at a curiously different speed on Planet Janet :

Almost the moment David Hicks was being measured up for his orange Gitmo jump suit, Get Up was up and running a very vocal campaign, castigating the evil Yanks for incarcerating one of our own and demanding that his rights be protected.

Almost the moment....Right.

David Hicks was captured in Afghanistan and sold to the US military and transported to Guantanamo Bay in December, 2001.

GetUp! was founded in August, 2005.

Janet Albrechtsen isn't even trying anymore.

How much does News Limited CEO John Hartigan expect us to pay read her trundling Talking Points For Desperate Howard-Era Liberals online next year?

Janet's so desperate for anything of substance she even resorts to quoting The Greens' Bob Brown, however reluctantly, with approval. W0w.

Tony Abbott is seriously being discussed as the next leader of the Liberal Party and Janet Albrechtsen thinks Bob Brown is right. These are politically hallucinogenic days.

The short version of this week's transmission from Planet Janet is that Evil Pagan Lefties should be out protesting against the Chinese regime, like they do a lot already about Tibet and human rights, but they should have shut the fuck up when it came to the Bush regime, and though she usually thinks protests are useless at effective change they should now all shout "You Bastards!" at the Chinese regime and protest and write letters, because....and this may shock you....the Chinese Communist regime plucks people, including foreign nationals, off the streets and detains them and interrogates them and doesn't give them access to lawyers and fucks around with the detainee's home government diplomats when they try to get access to the prisoners.

By imprisoning Rio Tinto executive Stern Hu for a week, so far, without charge, the Chinese communist regime is acting like, I don't know....a bunch of bloody communists or something.

Or like Americans.

Obviously, we all expect better behaviour from communist regimes. Regardless of how much coal they buy from us.

I'm not quite sure Janet Albrechtsen is aware that she has successfully compared the violation of the human rights of Stern Hu by the Chinese Communist Regime to the violation of the human rights of David Hicks by the United States under the Bush Warparty Regime. But good on her for finally recognising the truth. All these years later.

Just don't expect to see Janet Albrechtsen at the barricades outside the Chinese embassy.

As she so often told us during the Bush War For (Our) God Years, as so many opinionists and editors of the Murdoch Old Media railed so effervescently back then, protests don't work. Protests are pointless, usually misguided, often offensive and utterly meaningless.

Unless the protests are against the actions of a communist regime who doesn't recognise the democratic right to protest, of course, then they can really make a difference.

Something like that.

You try and make sense of it.

Planet Janet Classic : Obama Wins Presidency, This Confirms America Is "A Racist Nation"

Planet Janet Classic : Rudd Wins Election, "Conservatism Has Triumphed!"

Planet Janet Classic : Before She Wrote Her 'Howard Must Go' 2007 Column, She Rang Howard's Office To Tip Him Off

Who Can We Ban Next?

You can imagine the NSW government will be very happy with the first headline from this Daily Telegraph graphic. The bottom line? Not so much.



If the NSW government, as this story claims, really does end up spending $4 billion or so on local businesses for government contracts that would have previously ended up overseas, then it's obviously good news.

But do you think they really had a choice?

The NSW Liberals and independents, along with the unions, would have been hammering Labor all the way to the next election if they still allowed police and fireys uniforms to be made overseas while local clothing manufacturing is hitting the skids.

As for NSW Bans China, well, what a surprise, the story itself says no such thing at all. Not even close.

But the Daily Telegraph gets to serve up its daily dose of xenophobia, along with a nice big Fuck You to China on behalf of the boss, who is still smarting over his failed efforts to grab a major slice of Chinese media action, a business experiment that cost him more than $1.4 billion.

"America, Can You Hold? We Have China On The Other Line"

"So what's the good news?"
"You keep digging it up, we'll keep buying it."
"Are you sure? Can I announce that?"
"Of course. Just don't try to put up your prices any time soon. That would not please us."
"That's great news. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you..."
"Please do not grovel. We find it very unattractive."


The United States stumbles out of the casino, pockets empty, pants around the ankles, cleaned out, gutted, dropping near worthless IOUs nobody inside wants to cash anymore. China still sits at the high stakes tables, hanging onto most of its mountain of chips. A few big bets go down, there are substantial losses, but the chip mountain remains formidable, and the game is not over for them yet. Waiting, waiting, waiting...

You can almost hear Kevin Rudd humming that old Hunters & Collectors song, 'don't rock the boat, keep your head down...'

Kevin Rudd has sought and received a personal assurance from the Chinese Premier, Wen Jiabao, that China's demand for exports would remain strong enough to prop up the Australian economy in the face of the global slowdown.

With the rapidly slowing global economy now a reality, Mr Rudd said he rang Mr Wen at 9pm on Monday to quiz him about his growth projections for China. Mr Rudd said he was told growth would slip from "something like 11 and 12 per cent down to 9 and 10 per cent", still strong enough to sustain a healthy demand for Australian commodity exports.

Mr Rudd believes China is the greatest militating factor against the global crisis and said the Communist nation was "now critical for Australia's continued economic performance".

"Part of the long-term strategy of this Government, and the strategy for the period immediately ahead, is how to more deeply and broadly engage with the Chinese economy," he said.

Asia will set the rules for the New Economic World Order, now that the UK, the EU and the US are busted out, choking on debt, shocked and staggered by the collapse (or demolition) of their banks and once AAA-rated financial institutions.

So the Communists didn't really lose, in the end, did they?

Just another confirmed lie, to heap onto the festering pile of lies we've been fed for decades, about free markets, globalisation, investing vs saving, and the bitter freedom of bountiful credit.

Canberra Swamped By Sea Of Communist China Flags

Chinese Embassy Helped Organise Pro-China Nationalism Psy-Op



There were a few moments when it looked like Australian Federal Police were considering hauling away the two Chinese paramilitary blue tracksuiters they allowed to escort the Olympic Torch through the streets, and past the monuments, of Canberra. The paramilitary eventually got the message and backed off, boxed in as they were for most of the 16 km run by police.

It didn't get too ugly in Canberra yesterday morning, unless you were a lone 'Free Tibet' protester, surrounded and swamped by dozens of yelling, shrieking Chinese students drowning you in huge Communist China flags.

Some 10,000 loud and proud pro-China supporters were bussed in, in a minutely co-ordinated exercise. More than 40 buses arrived from Melbourne. Even more buses journeyed down from Sydney.

The Chinese embassy in Australia were heavily involved in this very successful psy-op :

China helped to orchestrate the mass demonstration by thousands of Chinese students that turned Canberra into a sea of red for yesterday's torch relay.

ACT Chief Minister Jon Stanhope confirmed the Chinese Embassy in Canberra was closely involved in helping transport up to 10,000 Chinese students, ensuring pro-China demonstrators vastly outnumbered Tibetan activists.

The revelation of official Chinese involvement in the demonstrations could trigger a diplomatic row with Australia's largest trading partner.

It is understood Beijing's officials in Canberra were in constant contact with travel companies and student leaders who were recruiting China's red army of young activists

Jon Stanhope : "...the ambassador has indicated that he was in contact with representative Chinese organisational groups, (for the) most part in Sydney and Melbourne. "

Asked if he believed China had helped to supply the thousands of professionally made flags and bunting, Mr Stanhope said: "I believe it must have been provided by a central agency."

The Chinese demonstrators appeared highly organised, with leaders sporting walkie-talkies and colour-coded uniforms.

Dozens of Tibetan protesters were surrounded by mini-mobs of Chinese protesters, who screamed "Liar, liar" and "One China forever" at them.

At one stage, near the National Library, the pro-China activists hurled water bottles and fruit at nearby Tibetan supporters.

In many instances, police ordered outnumbered Tibetan activists to leave sections of the relay route for their own safety.

The Tibetans were also told to leave the final stage because of concerns mass violence might break out.

But most of the pro-China students didn't resort to violence. They didn't need to. They had the strength of numbers.

Lone or small groups of pro-Tibet supporters were quickly surrounded by dozens of Chinese students with their huge flags on long poles. Naturally, a few pro-Tibet supporters got whacked in the head by those poles during the pushing and shoving.

The slogan shouting from the Chinese students was loud and intimidating for not only other protesters, but many of the local families who walked to the nearest corner on the torch relay route to find themselves pushed and jostled as packs of students ran screaming through the crowds.

You will see the exact same methods of non-violent but extremely intimidating protest suppression in Beijing in August. For starters.


Surround, drown and shout down : Chinese students use flag poles to box in a pro-Tibet supporter.

Sydney Morning Herald ;

Pro-Tibet protesters have reported being heavied by groups of Chinese students who were bussed to Canberra in their thousands to support this morning's Olympic torch relay in Canberra.

One woman called Marie said she was mobbed by screaming Chinese students as she tried to watch the relay go past. She had to be rescued and escorted away by police.

Alistair Paterson, 52, from Lake George outside Canberra, said he was standing with his seven-year-old daughter on Limestone Avenue with an older couple, their teenage son and two other young women when they were attacked by a group of about 50 people draped in Chinese flags.

Mr Paterson said he was holding a "Free Tibet" banner and the older couple also had a pro-Tibet placard, which angered the group as it ran along the crowd side of the barrier.

"I got a flying kick in the leg, another bloke was hit in the head with a stick with a Chinese flag attached to it and our banners were torn down," Mr Paterson said.

"When I looked around there were three or four guys who I can only assume were Chinese who wanted to fight me.

"This gang of thugs rolled right through us and we had kids with us. My daughter was still shaking an hour later..."

"We were just a small group of people basically exercising our right, our responsibility to say 'We don't think this is correct'," he said.

Another pro-Tibet protester, Marion Vecourcay, said she felt frightened and threatened by the Chinese demonstrators.

"They mobbed the sign, they were really aggressive, insulting and swearing," she said.

"They said we have no right to be here but I live up the street.

"It was just a mob mentality."

Pro-China demonstrator Jeff Li...said pro-Tibet protesters were ill-informed.

"These people are idiots, they know nothing about China's history," Mr Li said.

We're presuming Mr Li learned of China's history in Australia, not back in China, where the official histories tend not to focus on the imprisonment and execution of dissenters and political activists.

As for the sea of Chinese flags, hundreds were unrolled and unfurled during the singing of the Chinese national anthem, much to the surprise of Olympic organisers, in Australia at least :

Pro-China demonstrators turned out in force in what relay organisers have said was a co-ordinated attempt to "carry the day". A sea of red flags emerged when the Chinese anthem was sung to officially end the relay ceremony.

The pro-China and a rival group of pro-Tibet demonstrators hurled abuse and taunts at each other throughout the entire relay after police forced them onto separate parts of the route. Scuffles broke out and a Chinese flag was burned.

Near the end of the relay, the groups clashed again. Witnesses said pro-Chinese used their flags to hit pro-Tibetans before police again

The Chinese students were mostly non-violent, as has been said, as were the pro-Tibet supporters, but the pro-Tibet supporters didn't have the financial support, psy-op knowledge and bureacracy of a Communist state behind them to help organise and co-ordinate their activities.

And their flags were much, much smaller.

Not Just Friends, But True Friends

Australian China scholar Geremie Barnie's views on PM Rudd's dealings with China during his visit last week were some of the more insightful, and went a long way to explaining Rudd's motives behind lightly, but significantly, chastising the Chinese regime over Tibet and what exactly he meant when he talked about "friends", "friendship" and particularly "true friends".

The Washington Post picked up on Barnie's comments, and asked if Kevin Rudd is the West's "new secret weapon in dealing with China" :

Rudd's brilliance in the speech involves turning the Chinese term "friend" on its head. Friend (pengyou in Chinese) and frienship (youyi) are two of the most distorted concepts in modern China culture. In modern China, a friend is someone who will do you favors and who expects favors in return. A "foreign friend" is someone the Chinese party-state expects will carry water for them and NEVER criticize them.

"To be a friend of China, the Chinese people, the party-state or, in the reform period, even a mainland business partner," Barme writes, "the foreigner is often expected to stomach unpalatable situations, and keep silent in the face of egregious behaviour. A friend of China might enjoy the privilege of offering the occasional word of caution in private; in the public arena he or she is expected to have the good sense and courtesy to be 'objective.' that is to toe the line, whatever that happens to be. The concept of 'friendship' thus degenerates into little more than an effective tool for emotional blackmail and enforced complicity."

So what did Rudd do? He went back -- way back -- into Chinese history, to the 7th century AD, and used another word for friendship (zhengyou).

"A true friend," Rudd said, "is one who can be a zhengyou, that is a partner who sees beyond immediate benefit to the broader and firm basis for continuing, profound and sincere friendship."

"Rudd's tactic," Barme wrote, "was to deftly sidestep the vice-like embrace of [the current] model of friendship by substituting another.

"A strong relationship, and a true friendship," he told the students, "are built on the ability to engage in a direct, frank and ongoing dialogue about our fundamental interests and future vision."

This type of engagement could be a model for how the West interacts with China.

Murdoch Media Promotes Protests, Boycotts, Civil Disobedience

China's human rights record, for Tibetans, and millions more of its own people, is appalling, and hundreds of billions of dollars worth of Australian coal sales is not reason enough to blind eye how China deals with pro-democracy advocates and dissenters. China's repressive regime and enthusiasm for human executions should have ruled it out of even being considered as a host city for the Olympic Games.

The Greens, more than any other political party in Australia, have been telling us this for years.

All pressure on China to shape up is positive, but it's still extremely strange to see anti-China boycotts, protests, civil disobedience and placard-waving-at-the-torch-relay being so heavily promoted by Rupert Murdoch's two biggest selling Australian newspapers.

From the Daily Telegraph today :



From Andrew Bolt in the Herald Sun today :



Andrew Bolt is still to acknowledge that much of the philosophy he now eagerly espouses on China's human rights trampling has been a policy staple of The Greens, through leader Bob Brown.



As Anonymous Lefty points out, Murdoch newspapers also recently championed another policy staple of The Greens.


Here's how the Howard government dealt with China on human rights :

....June 28th, 2005...the Federal Government has come under fire for failing to question Chinese officials about claims that Chinese agents have persecuted political dissidents in Australia.

According to the report, at an annual and closed "human rights dialogue" on Monday, Australian officials did not raise allegations that the Chinese Government had persecuted

...the Foreign Affairs Department official who led the talks, said it was "not the forum" for tackling the allegations.

The report stated that the failure to raise the claims have fuelled accusations that Australia is taking a "softly softly" approach on human rights to keep good relations with China.

....yesterday reports emerged that Australia had refused to join "secret" US-led talks to discuss China's expanding role in the world, for fear of offending China.

Bob Brown from the Greens party accused the Australian Government of being cowardly.

Despite claims by Boltoids and desperate Liberals that Kevin Rudd would cower before China, he appears to be willing to tell China their human rights record is bogus, that Australia won't be bullied, and that our resources are not completely for sale :

Kevin Rudd has warned the Chinese Government he will "defend the Australian national interest" amid speculation that China is planning a stockmarket raid on resources giant BHP Billiton.

As Australian mining industry doyen Hugh Morgan warned China's move on BHP would "misfire" if the strategy was designed to secure assets for the resource-hungry nation, the Prime Minister made it clear in Beijing he would ensure all investments and takeovers of consequence in Australia would be examined.

Mr Rudd pointed to China's tough restrictions on foreign investment, and offered no sign of changes to Australia's foreign investment rules, which have prevented Chinese expansion into Australian interests.

....Mr Rudd said his job "as Prime Minister is to defend the Australian national interest and the Australian national economic interest, and I make no apologies for that while I'm here or elsewhere in the world".

"Australia is an open market when it comes to foreign investment and we have a history of depending on foreign investment," he said, adding: "We have always had the proper regulations to examine and advise on projects of consequence."

Rudd is going to lose a big chunk of his overwhelming support from the Australian public if he even appears to be backing down in his dealings with China in the weeks and months ahead.

Such pressure on China, particularly if the leaders of Australia, France and the US boycott the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony, will be vital in letting them know they can't be a part of the larger democratic world when they block proper elections and brutalise their own people and think they should not have to answer for it.

Rupert Murdoch lost about a billion dollars and a decade trying to sew up China's vast TV audience, and failed to nail it, and the Chinese government is making life difficult again by refusing to let Murdoch's MySpace snare a large, independent and more profitable share of China's social networking market.

Murdoch's newspapers are going to hammer China all the way to the Olympics.

Australia Must Pull Out Of 2008 Olympics If Athletes Are Forced To Sign STFU Contracts By Chinese Government

By Darryl Mason

There are some things more important than sport. China is about to find out what that really means.

British athletes have been told they must sign contracts that will censor them from telling the truth about the China they see and experience during this year's Olympic Games.

No talk of human rights, or intolerably cruel training regimes inflicted on children, nor talk of the occupation of Tibet will be allowed by British athletes when they are in front of the media at Beijing in a few months time.

If they break the rule, if they use freedom of speech - the most basic human right of all - they will be propelled towards the next plane home. If enough of them speak out at once, as a group, there will probably be a special plane waiting to remove them from the country.

How can Australian athletes be subjected to the denial of freedom of speech, and freedom to publicly empathise, and still board a plane to Beijing?

You would expect that many Australian athletes, or all of them, will refuse to agree to this appalling demand by the Chinese government.

You would expect to hear our prime minister publicly state that unless the Chinese government withdraws its demands for Australians at the 2008 Olympics to not talk about their experiences in China, there will be no Australian Olympic team in Beijing.

You would expect the prime minister to back the side of human rights and freedom of speech and not agree with the Chinese government.

But will he?

The story :

The controversial clause has been inserted into athletes' contracts for the first time and forbids them from making any political comment about countries staging the Olympic Games.

Yesterday the British Olympic Association (BOA) confirmed to The Mail on Sunday that any athlete who refuses to sign the agreements will not be allowed to travel to Beijing.

The BOA took the decision even though other countries – including the United States, Canada, Finland, and Australia – have pledged that their athletes would be free to speak about any issue concerning China.

Australian Olympic Committee president John Coates said: “What we will be saying to the athletes is that it's best to concentrate on your competitions.

“But they're entitled to have their opinions and express them. They're free to speak.”

So that means Australian athletes will not sign the STFU contracts, right?


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The insertion of a clause that forbids Olympic athletes from making 'political comment' about the host is not just for China.

The STFU deal will also be in force when the 2012 Olympics roll around.

In London.

Update : The English language version of China's 'theme' for this year's Olympics is :

Only the one dream?

From the 'One World, One Dream' site :

"One World, One Dream" is simple in expressions, but profound in meaning.

It voices the aspirations of 1.3 billion Chinese people to contribute to the establishment of a peaceful and bright world.

In Chinese, the word "tongyi", which means "the same", is used for the English word "One". It highlights the theme of "the whole Mankind lives in the same world and seeks for the same dream and ideal".

One World. Same World.

The difference between those two descriptions of a united world could not be more immense. Or pronounced.

Do we all really 'seek for the same dream and ideal'?

Is that the kind of world we want to live in?

Sounds boring.

And more than a little creepy.

Climate Change Tops Terror As Chief Security Risk To Australia

Australian Federal Police commissioner cited the fallout from apocalyptic levels of climate change as the greatest security threat to the nation in the coming years. Far worse than anything terrorists can unleash.

The threat of terror, whilst real, takes a backseat to the destruction, death toll and tide of human misery that may be wrought in the region by massive crop failures, rising sea levels and all the other horrors of cataclysmic climate change.

From The Australian :

....Keelty described how climate refugees "in their millions" could create a national security emergency for Australia.

...he described a scenario in which China was unable to feed its vast population.

Law enforcement agencies would struggle to cope with global warming's "potential to wreak havoc, cause more deaths and pose national security issues like we've never seen before", Mr Keelty said.

"It is anticipated the world will experience severe extremes in weather patterns, from rising global temperatures to rising sea levels," he warned.

"We could see a catastrophic decline in the availability of fresh water. Crops could fail, disease could be rampant and flooding might be so frequent that people, en masse, would be on the move.

"Even if only some and not all of this occurs, climate change is going to be the security issue of the 21st century."

Mr Keelty said the implications for China were especially alarming. By 2040, with global temperatures surging towards a predicted 3C rise, and sea levels up 50cm, the land available in China to grow grain and rice could be reduced by 30 per cent.

"The mass displacement of people, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region, could create a great deal of social uncertainty and unrest in the region.

"In their millions, people will look for new land and they'll cross borders to do it."

Prime minister John Howard actually went with 'no comment' when he was asked about Keelty's comments on Tuesday.

Foreign minister, Alexander Downer, tried to claim that Keelty was talking about threats that would take a century to become reality.

The seas won't rise three metres tomorrow, Downer said on Lateline.

But that's not what Keelty was claiming.

Downer, as usual, avoided the substance of the argument and went for the false, but sensational distraction.

Ignoring the looming threats posed by climate change has become a trademark of the Howard government. As with most of the pressing issues of real importance to Australians, Howard and key ministers, like Downer, like to be seen to be doing something, but in reality are leaving it up to someone else, long after their gone, to deal with the challenges they preferred to dismiss as unworthy of their precious time.

Keelty also said that the coming carbon trading market will be rife for corruption, and police will have to become involved in its regulation.

Carbon Cops for real then?

Howard Government Has Left Australian Unprepared For The Global Turmoil From Climate Change

Keelty : Climate Change Will Make Border Security The Most Important Australian Policing Issue Of The Century

Howard, Downer Ban Media So Embarrassing Questions Are Not Asked

Prime minister John Howard and foreign minister Alexander Downer will waffle until your ears fall off about the terrible repression of media in 'regime' countries like Russia and Iran.

But they don't mind engaging in a bit of media banning and compiling a few 'blacklists' themselves, particularly if troublesome journalists trying to ask Australia's APEC guest some hard and important questions might end up queering natural gas deals worth more than $40 billion dollars :

The Australian Government has secretly blacklisted a host of Chinese media organisations and journalists from official APEC functions in an effort to avoid exposing Chinese President Hu Jintao and other dignitaries to embarrassing questions.

APEC officials have drawn up a list of Australian Chinese media that have not been permitted to register for APEC, including at least one respectable newspaper with links to the NSW Government and a journalist who had already been given accreditatio

When Iran and Russia ban media and compile blacklists, they're being totalitarian. When Australia does it, well, we're just being polite to our cashed-up guests.

Howard's Democracy - it's kinda like communism, but with lots more capitalism.

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.

story continues below....
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story continues....


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

$100 To Walk On Bondi Beach

In the early 1990s, I lived in Sydney's King Cross, where I'd regularly see tour buses come straight from the airport and deposit Japanese tourists at their hotels. From that moment on, they were not allowed to leave the eyesight of the tour operators. The tourists drank only at bars chosen by the tour company, the same went for restaurants, who kicked back money for all the international patronage shuttled their way, and the tourists were charged three or four times the standard admission price to get into places like Featherdale Wildlife Park so they could pat a koala bear. Of course, once they were inside the park, the Japanese tourists were often told there was an additional "patting fee".

None of them understood English, so how were they to know they were getting scammed?

I only know all this because I used to drink in a bar in the hotel where many of these well-scammed Japanese tourists used to stay, and I'd overhear tour operators laughing about how much they had fleeced from their patrons that day. Sometimes it was hundreds of dollars. Often it was more than $1000 from a tour group of 20 or 30 Japanese.

I lived in tourist-heavy Katoomba, in the Blue Mountains, in the late 1990s. At the beautiful lookout from where you could see an expanse of valleys and the rocky outcrop known as 'The Three Sisters' I once heard an English speaking bus driver tell his interpreter, to tell Japanese tourists, that there was an additional "viewing fee" of $20 each to just go and take a look at the scenic view from the free lookout.

It used to be the Japanese who got mugged like this. Now it's the Chinese tourists getting fleeced. The only thing that's changed is how much more brazen the tour operators have become.

Some Chinese tourists are being charged $100 just to talk a walk along the very-free Bondi Beach :

The situation is so bad that tourist industry officials fear Australia could be damaged as a brand and the massive economic benefits of the boom in travel from China could disappear.

Scams uncovered in Sydney include:

* Charging tourists $100 to walk on Bondi Beach or to have their photograph taken at the Opera House;

* Locking tourists in shops and confiscating passports until they spend big on overpriced goods;

* Unfulfilled promises of luxury central business district accommodation;

* Travellers crammed into minibuses and denied free time for their own shopping and sightseeing.

According to Choice consumer group spokeswoman Indira Nadoo, the Chinese are the perfect victims for such scams :

"...they are not used to international travel and can be quite naive, and many of them have little or no English, so if someone tells them that a sign on the beach says it costs $100 to walk on it, then they will believe them.

"Culturally, also, the Chinese are reluctant to create a fuss and complain so they will go along with what they are being told.

"We are already receiving thousands of complaints every year from Chinese tourists who are unhappy and we think that is the tip of the iceberg.

"We estimate that only about 10 per cent of those who are unhappy actually make a complaint, so in reality, tens of thousands of tourists are being ripped off."

China is Australia's fastest-growing inbound tourism market and annual numbers have soared by 280percent to more than 300,000 in the past seven years, making it the fifth biggest in terms of visitors and economic benefit. By 2015, almost 1million Chinese visitors are expected to visit Australia each year.

Charging vulnerable tourists to walk on a beach is sickening enough. But the following is downright disgusting :

Some are bussed directly from the airport to suburban warehouses which they are told are duty-free shops. "They are told they can't shop in normal shops in Sydney because Australians don't like the Chinese..." Ms Naidoo said.

If the Chinese tourist market is worth so many millions to Australia, and such scamming is likely to impact significantly on future tourism revenue from China, we clearly need to have people at the airports, or at least some Chinese-language signage, to warn them to be wary.

Or at least to tell them they don't have to pay $100 to take a walk along Bondi Beach.

Claim : 1000 Chinese Spies In Australia

Intelligence Services Recruit Dozens More Spies With Asian Language Skills, But Share Only 12 Arabic Speakers Amongst Five Agencies

Australian Government Has Doubled Staff Of Key Intelligence Agency Since 9/11

While sections of the Australian media and commetariat have been obsessed with paranoid fears that Australian society as they know it will somehow be undone by the 300,000 Muslims who now call Australia their home, the much more realistic security threat appears to be the alleged 1000 Chinese spies living and working here.

In less than five years, the Australian government has doubled the staff of the chief intelligence agency, ASIO, to more than 1600, and have recruited nearly 90 foreign language speaking spies and analysts.

But only twelve of those new recruits speak and read Arabic. More than 70 have been hired specifically because of their skills with Chinese and Asian languages.

The government claims that they are having trouble recruiting fluent Arabic speakers.

The impression is given that those who can speak and read Arabic don't want to work for Australia's intelligence agencies. To become an Australian spy or intelligence analyst, new recruits are subjected to lengthy and highly intrusive 'screening' procedures.

Former analyst Andrew Wilkie has claimed (in his book 'Axis of Deceit') that every single address each new recruit has ever lived at is examined, as well as the backgrounds of those they frequently associate with, be they friends, family members or former co-workers.

Having to explain your relationships, your employment history and your international travel history would prove difficult for most young Australians, not just those who can read and speak Arabic languages.

There is little to suggest that those who offer Chinese and Asian language skills as part of their resume are subjected to less investigation and background checks than those who can handle the complexities of Arabic.

So what's going on here?

Is the threat posed by Chinese spies and espionage greater or less than that posed by Middle Easterners?

So great is the need to recruit Chinese and Asian language speaking spies and analysts in Australia that ASIO has formed a new counter-espionage unit specifically to deal with the perceived threat.

And yet, the five key intelligence agencies are said to share amongst themselves only some 12 people skilled in Arabic languages.

The disparity of new recruits skilled in one set of foreign languages compared to another is vast.

Which raises the question : Is the threat of Chinese espionage now viewed as a greater threat to Australian security than that posed by jihadists or extremists of Middle Eastern backgrounds?

It is also interesting to note that in recent months, senior officials and ministers of the Australian government, including the prime minister, John Howard, are now using the words "extremists" and "radicals" where they had previously word-punched "terrorists."

'Extremist', of course, is even more open to broad definitions and categorisations than 'terrorist'.

So presumably it is no accident that senior government officials are reflecting US President Bush and UK Prime Minister Blair in their change of words to describe the what are deemed to be the key threats to national security.

It's out with "terrorists" and in with "extremists" and "radicals".

The threat of terrorism, it would then appear, is far less than the threat posed by government and corporate espionage, from the Chinese in particular, sniffing out details of new military hardware and software, courtesy of the United States, and examining Australia's relationship with 'The Locals' - Fiji, Tonga, East Timor, the Solomon Islands.

From 'The Australian' :

....many of the new recruits are fluent Chinese speakers who have been assigned to a new ASIO counter-espionage unit specifically to combat the increased number of Chinese spies in Australia.

Federal Attorney-General Philip Ruddock told The Australian that ASIO needed recruits with "a range of experience and backgrounds".

The new intake of Chinese-speaking ASIO officers has bolstered its capacity to monitor the activities of Chinese spies, which now outnumber the Russians that dominated Canberra intelligence circles during the Cold War.

....senior government sources believed Australia had been targeted aggressively in recent years by Chinese spies seeking information on military-related technology and strategic policy secrets.

"China would be the biggest now by a fair way ... they have built up their capabilities over the last 10 years and are more aggressive in their activities," the source said.

China has denied it has spies in Australia, a claim dismissed by security officials who say they operate mostly under diplomatic cover and under the guise of businessmen.

ASIO has now established what has been called "a dedicated division" to ramp up defences against the increased threat posed by "foreign spies."

Since September 11, 2001, ASIO has given its greatest emphasis and resources to the threats posed by terrorism, particularly those threats that may have originated from jihadists or Middle Easterners.

But the establishment of a Counter-Espionage and Foreign Interference Division by ASIO
clearly shows the chief threats to Australia's security have changed in the past two years.

And this change of percieved threats appears to have begun somewhere around the time that a Chinese diplomat announced that there were some 1000 Chinese spies living and working inside Australia.

From the Australian :

Many of the recruits will work in the counter-espionage unit of the new division, which was set up in July. A separately managed unit on "foreign interference" completes the new division.

The division's mission is to "address threats from espionage and foreign interference that complements the focus on terrorism and other extremist activity", ASIO said.

You don't exactly have to read between the lines.

When Australia's chief spy agency is dishing up such details to a national newspaper you can assume they want their friends and enemies to know what's going on, and where their focus is now centred.


June 2005 : Attorney General Confirms Australian Intelligence Agencies Looking Into Claims Of Chinese Spies In Australia

Chinese Diplomat Claims At Least 1000 Chinese Spies Inside Australia

Defector Claims To Be Chinese Spy Master

Mossad In Australia : The New Zealand False Passports Scandal

Government Denies Mossad Obtained 25 Australian Passports

Australia's Top Cop : Don't Blame Australian Muslims For Terror


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AUSTRALIA LEFT BEGGING TO BE AT THE BIG TABLE ON FIGHT TO STOP GLOBAL WARMING

THE RUSH TO GET IN ON THE ACTION OF THE FUTURE WORLD CURRENCY - CARBON TRADING CREDITS

The Australian treasurer, Peter Costello, has sheepishly, but finally, admitted that Australian will join the Kyoto Protocol.

They won't sign up, of course, but they will take part, they will ensure carbon emissions meet Kyoto targets and they will officially acknowledge that carbon emissions are adding to the effects of the climate change inducing reality of global warming.

Only hours before the announcement by the treasurer on ABC's Lateline, Australian prime minister, John Howard was still pretending that he was one tough negotiator when it came to this global warming business, and it was in fact he that was insisting that rapidly growing, mass-industrialised nations like India and China do something about their emissions for the sake of future generations.

It was all pure Howard theatre. China was one of the first countries in the world to join a then experimental carbon credit trading system, more than four years, when Howard was still smirking and snorting about environmentalists and the dreaded Greeeennnsss, mocking them all for having panic fits about something called global warming.

After years of insulting the Europeans over their insistence that the Kyoto Protocol must be taken seriously, and that countries like Australia need to get on board, the harsh reality has well and truly dawned on the money men of the Australian government that they are about to miss out, bigstyle, on becoming part of the new unofficial world currency known as 'carbon trading credits'.

It doesn't even matter anymore whether John Howard believes global warming is a reality, or if he acknowledges that rapid industrialisation using coal as a key energy source (Australia's leading export industry) is adding to the problems. Most of the rest of the world has well and truly left skeptics like Howard far, far behind.

Which is why Howard, five to eight years late, is rushing to catch up.


Australian environmentalists, and climate scientists, are still shaking their heads in disbelief that John Howard has so quickly taken up the mantra of "Something must be done about global warming".

All this comes, of course, after the Howard government spent years trying to block the truth from emerging out of Australia's leading scientific body, the CSIRO, about climate change and the dire long-term environmental, and economic, effects of global warming.

Howard has an agenda, and that agenda is using the reality of global warming to push for the rapid and massive expansion of nuclear power as an alternative energy source.

Australia is already one of the world's leaders when it comes to mining uranium. Howard wants Australia to become the world leader for uranium exports. a market worth, literally, hundreds of billions of dollars over the next decade.


Austraila's reputation as an international pariah, thanks to a decade of near inactivity on the key issues of climate change, will take many years, and probably a change of government, to shake off.

Short of two or three Australians cities getting bombed, global warming will be a far more important issue at the 2007 federal elections than international terrorism, or the 'War On Iraq'. Howard knows this, of course. He will flog global warming to death, regardless of whether or not he believes it is an economy shredding reality. Most Australians believe, so Howard does too. Now.

Go To Your New Reality For The Full Story


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