Piers Akerman, Chairman Rudd, the dangerous Chinese, and meet the new Mao, same as the old Mao

You possibly remember - and quite possibly and reasonably don't - that back in May Piers Akerman was kicking the communist China can really hard.

He had an exclusive scoop - Security curtain has been left wide open - that warned the world Australia's military chiefs were dumbfounded at the way the CSIRO had awarded a tender to the Chinese to build a mini-series set of antennas for a radio telescope - right next to a top secret joint US-Australian intelligence and operations base at Kojarena, east of Geraldton.

Oh it was a far cry from the good old days of Pine Gap situated near Alice Springs to stop those fiendishly clever Soviet spy trawlers bristling with super-tall antennae eavesdropping on the Americans:

What has happened to Australian government thinking since then? Letting a Chinese Government company run an electronics shop next door to our most important defence intelligence and operations post is beyond dumb. It is recklessly stupid and must be stopped.

It was of course a dog whistle - the CSIRO had announced it in an auSKA newsletter in December 2008 (here) - though the Daily Terror felt so alarmed it also had to editorialize on the scandal. Sure enough Akkers' very first correspondent got very alarmed:

The Rudd-China connection is very worrying and needs to be very, very closely scrutinized.

Rudd is not an honourable man and is in love with Communist China.

A man who cannot be depended on, who cannot be trusted, who is unfit to lead a nation, is in love with a cold, calculating, brutal regime.

This is potentially very, very dangerous for Australia.

Since then we've heard very little about the scandal, though I dare say even at this moment, fiendish inscrutable descendants of Fu Manchu are right at this moment listening in on American signals thanks to the CSIRO blunder, and planning the end of decent Australian society, whereby restaurants will no longer serve Chinese and Australian meals on the one menu.

Meantime, moving right along, Akker's correspondent would have been reassured by Akker's latest discovery, as encapsulated in So much for Rudd's rapport with China.

You see, it turns out that Chairman Comrade Rudd isn't in love with China and doing dirty deeds done cheap. No, he doesn't have a clue about China, unlike Akkers, who has been so busy finding reds under the bed for so long that his expertise on China is insurmountable, perhaps even unsupportable.

Let Akker Dakker take up this story of perfidy and outrage:

Long before Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was elevated to his current status, he was proclaiming his expertise in understanding the most populous nation on Earth.

It was not just his mastery of Mandarin that he touted, but also his intellectual grasp of the light and shade that plays through the internal politics of the Communist Party leadership.

He committed himself and Australia to an unrealistic and unworkable relationship.

In the beginning, it seemed that China’s leaders were prepared to play along with Rudd and the ALP.

The Chinese Consul-General in Sydney was active in Maxine McKew’s campaign in Bennelong and the ALP raised no objections to the involvement of a foreign government in Australia’s domestic politics.

Oh no, it seems that the Chinese government brought down PM John Howard and installed that lickspittle subservient Beijing princess ABC socialist prima donna Maxine McKew. Oh yes, the octopus hand of Fu Manchu moves stealthily, with mysterious power. But wait, there are still more treacherous and perfidious connections to unfold:

The Rudd family has built strong ties to China. Rudd’s elder brother, Greg, has moved his business consultancy to Beijing, where he lives with his son, Lachlan, who is part of the business.

Rudd’s daughter Jessica and her Hong Kong-born husband, Albert Tse _ who also assisted on the McKew campaign _ are also working in Beijing.

All well and good; ...

And here we must interpolate editorially. All well and good if you want to lie down with communist running dogs, but please do expect to get up with Mao-suited fleas. Now let Akker carry on regardless:

...but, according to defenders of the Rudd government, to raise any questions at all about China is to play ``dog-whistle’’ politics.

Indeed, Indira Naidoo, an environmental disciple of former US Vice-President Al Gore, went further recently and claimed that it was ``racist’’ to talk about China’s broken record of human rights.

Oh dear. Poor Akker Dakker, still brooding about the indignities he was subjected to on that filthy ABC socialist program Q and A. You can go here for the transcript, but here's that exchange between Akker Dakker and Naidoo:

INDIRA NAIDOO: I think it's really important that we're all encouraged to learn different languages and, clearly, China is a really important trading partner and it has a growing influence in our region, so I think it's really important that they learn English, as they are, and we learn Mandarin Chinese languages. Like Piers, I am a bit concerned about some of the recent issues to do with China using its muscle to intimidate and bully us, particularly to do with Rebiya Kadeer; and, you know, their response to our Defence white paper; the falling apart of the Chinalco deal. But I am really concerned that we use this as an opportunity to start, you know, really setting out a strong plan of engagement with China. China is becoming a strong economic power and it's thinking that it can use that for extra political clout in this region and I think that we need to re-engage and engage more strongly with them and, unlike Piers, I think those sorts of opinions about going back to the Cold War and Korea...

PIERS AKERMAN: I'm not saying we should go back. But I'm saying we should face the reality.

INDIRA NAIDOO: But bringing that up again, I think, can fan racist flames that I think are really unnecessary.

Outrageous creature. And please explain what was wrong with the White Australia policy and its picture perfect evocation of the celestial octopus looming over the hapless white man?

Never mind, back to Piers:

Interestingly, indications from Beijing are that Rudd’s claims and actions have confused the Chinese. They don’t know where he stands - unlike the relationship the Chinese leadership had with former Prime Minister John Howard, in which the Chinese were never in doubt about their role.

So little in doubt, it seems the perfidious Chinese conspired with Maxine McKew to get him kicked out of his seat! How's that for knowing where they stood, or stand, or whatever. Perhaps it was because they got angry because of his constant demands they should just buy our coal and iron ore at the best price possible and shut up about the price? While he shut up about human rights?

Okay, now you knew it was coming, and here it is. The obligatory bashing of the messianic control freak Chairman comrade Rudd:

Part of the problem is Rudd’s insistence that he run the Foreign Affairs Department from his office, leaving Foreign Minister Stephen Smith to hover on the fringes, waiting to know what he should be saying.

Another part of the problem is that the Rudd government has sent contrary signals to the Chinese about how far they can extend their influence in Australia.

Well yes I did think that demanding all Australian children be taught Mandarin was a little rich, and the demand that Cantonese speakers be shot perhaps a trifle provocative, but I think things really got out of hand when Beijing demanded that all 18 year old Australians had to serve two years in the Chinese army. I guess that should have clued us up to expect the takeover bid which offered every Australian a million dollars and a bag of rice to leave the country and settle in New Zealand.

Oh hang on a sec, got that wrong. It's actually all about the spies that live in our midst, pawns of the tentacles still reaching out from Beijing:

Whether it is its diplomats or members of the Chinese diaspora, China is not unwilling to use them as its agents and spies abroad and it is not averse to applying pressure on family members who remain at home, to ensure that overseas Chinese comply with its wishes.

Most Western governments would have rejected foreign diplomats playing a part in a domestic election campaign, but as the Chinese were supporting a Labor candidate, nothing was said.

Well probably that was because for years John Howard collared the Chinese vote (trading on his status as PM) and then he stumbled and got on the nose with the Chinese community, a goodly proportion of whom shared Howard's attitude to Beijing but still didn't vote for him.

But as for the role in the domestic campaign? Here's the best the rabidly anti-Beijing China View could do its tale of the vice consul getting information from a staffer (here):

The vice-consul sought personal information about federal Labor figures, including frontbenchers Joel Fitzgibbon, Robert McClelland, Anthony Albanese, Tanya Plibersek, and Labor staff in the offices of Mr Rudd, Deputy Leader Julia Gillard, Mr Fitzgibbon and Mr McClelland.

The staffer handed over copies of Labor internal telephone lists, including private numbers of MPs and staffers, Labor briefing papers on marginal federal electorates and information on the largely Chinese-Australian Maxine Support Group, which campaigned for Maxine McKew against then prime minister John Howard in the seat of Bennelong.

The vice-consul said Mr Howard’s defeat would be “good” for Australian-Chinese relations because his government had “lost its way” and Mr Rudd “better understood the role China will play in the future”.

At the request of the vice-consul, the staffer wrote two papers on internal Labor party politics in NSW and several short “backgrounders” on federal Labor parliamentarians.

The vice-consul paid two instalments of $400 and asked staffer to sign invoices for “writing services”.

The vice-consul said further payments could be made for more work if Labor won the federal election.

He encouraged the staffer to get a job with a federal Labor minister and mention was made of the possibility of travel to China, with the cost at least in part paid by a Chinese travel agency.

The vice-consul emphasised it was necessary to “be discreet” about their meetings.

The staffer said he accepted the money because he was “a bit embarrassed financially at the time” and he “didn’t see anything bad about it”.

“It’s not like I was giving them state secrets, it was just background stuff,” he said.

Shortly after the election, however, discussion with a Labor colleague about undergoing security checking for employment in a federal minister’s office caused him to reconsider.

The staffer says he broke off the relationship with the vice-consul shortly after Christmas 2007.

Well at least it beats reading about Helen Liu and Joel Fitzgibbon and Ian Tang and Stanley Ho and China Inc and fishy smells (here).

Most Western nations might have told the Chinese Government that its embassy’s involvement in ensuring counter-demonstrations to human rights protesters during the running of the Olympic torch relay through the streets of the nation’s capital would not be permitted. The Rudd Labor government and the ACT’s Labor government under Chief Minister Jon Stanhope let Chinese thugs largely have their way.

So, when the Rudd government actually said something about the Chinese handling of Tibet or permitted a Uighur leader to enter the country for a speaking engagement at the National Press Club, the Chinese got confused.

Poor unhappy, confused Chinese. Rudd treats them like Akkers wants and they get confused, Rudd bows down to them and Akkers gets angry. Hulk get angry, Hulk mad, Chinese bad, Mao evil, smash Mao:

China wants to be treated as a modern nation, but it remains a feudal totalitarian fiefdom that is no closer to democracy now than it was when Mao died; and, as much as former Labor Prime Minister Gough Whitlam and his adoring acolytes may have worshipped Mao, he remains one of the most brutal figures in modern politics.

Not that we're in any way harping back to cold war politics or attitudes Naidoo. You know when dealing with the Germans, the first way I attempt to establish trust and a go forward attitude is the tried and true Basil Fawlty way. I mention the war and I blame them for Hitler. Works like a treat. Charms their socks off. Trust me on this. Just as mentioning Mao was a mass murderer and Stalin a fiend is a sure and diplomatic conversation starter amongst the commie swine, and a great way to lower the prices on iron ore. Wonder why no one else has worked this out?

That China is a customer for our iron ore and uranium is neither here nor there. That the Rudd Labor government prefers to sell China uranium, while withholding it from India, is a concern, though, and indicates discrimination against a democratic nation with which Australia shares a common language, sporting ties and a tradition of common law.

Sob, oh yes cricket will unite the world, Tim Blair swears by it. Never mind that 189 countries have signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, including China, and only four have failed to do so - India, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea. Yes, let's encourage a nuclear war on the sub continent, and hope cricket will then bring a lasting peace.

Oh dear, on it goes, but what about a wrap up? A final blast from the cold war past? Sure thing:

China is an authoritarian state, not a democracy, and that simple fact should not be forgotten.

Of course, Australia wants to do business with China, as we want to do business with everyone; but the reality is that sometimes we will have to hold our noses while we conduct that business with some regimes.

Well you know if we were really sanctimonious righteous prigs, we could in fact do more than hold our noses. We could withhold our iron ore and coal and natural gas until China left Tibet and provided free and fair democratic elections.

Steady buster, let's not forget who butters our bread and keeps our two dollar stores in stock with the most lovingly crafted gift items, toys for children and incredibly cheap canvases for inner west poseurs.

China’s repeated violations of its citizens’ basic human rights don’t go unnoticed and nor should they; but it is up to our government to tiptoe through the pitfalls of diplomacy as it handles the contradictions between sound business relations and principled foreign relations.
Rudd, the former junior diplomat, doesn’t know the difference.

Principled foreign relations? Oh I get it, take the money and run, and then mutter into our beards? Like the Liberals rabbiting on about how Rebiya Kadeer shouldn't have been given a visa? (Rudd won't listen to the bullies). But is it the Chinese who are confused or the Liberals or Chairman Rudd?

He’s just so excited to be invited to meetings of national leaders that he can’t differentiate between China’s frightening dragon face and China’s cuddly panda image.

Which is to say new Mao is the same as the old Mao. And don't you forget it.

It’s not necessary to confuse China: we have different values, but a shared interest in trade.
We should not let the Chinese force us to sell out our principles as a precondition to our business.

And what exactly then are those principles? The principles of Chairman Rupert, as he did what he was told, when Beijing told him they were displeased? Perhaps that's why Chairman Rudd does what he does so well ... Chairman Rupert has shown him the way ...

Next week ... Akker Dakker picks up Jack Shafer's story for Slate about Rupert Murdoch's Favorite Lie ...

Rupert Murdoch can't stop telling his favorite lie.

In this week's Newsweek, he claims that he booted the BBC World Service Television from his Star satellite TV system in Asia in 1994 for financial reasons, not for its China coverage.

Read that in the Daily Terror? You've got to be dreaming, or joking, or both? Right?

Oh and remember, Wongs can't ever get it right:

Now everybody sing along to some of America's favorite tunes. Let's start with The Artful Chinee:

Chingaring chi, and chingaring chee,

Chingaring chi for the young Chinee.

Ching a raw chaw

Chinger ringer, ring ding, ching

Ho ah, Dinah ding kom darkee,

Chinger ringer, rin ching chaw,

Ho ah ding cum darkey.

And if you want to move on, why not then try Bret Hart's poem The Heathen Chinee. Lordy, I love the full to overflowing intertubes. How did historians live without it?