Most days of the week the pond doesn't mean to cancel any particular reptile.
If, for example, you must indulge in Jennings of the fifth form's latest bout of hysteria ...
Why so evasive? A braver approach would be for the Prime Minister to make a statement in parliament explaining why the government is repatriating the so-called ‘jihadi brides’.
... you can find him in the archive.
Yes, the pond knows that the archive goes down, but thus far it keeps bouncing back, and it's just that the pond has bigger fish to fry, bigger issues to deal with, the work of major reptiles gushing from the hive mind...
If you must read the latest EXCLUSIVE thoughts of Sussssan ...
Culture of dependency has to stop, Ley declares
Sussan Ley has pledged to end the ‘culture of dependency’ and wean Australians off reliance on government supports, as she puts lower spending and fiscal guardrails at the heart of a five-point economic plan to restore Liberal economic values.
By Geoff Chambers and Greg Brown
... you can find them already gathering mould in the archive.
If you must find Sussssan's desire to bash the bludgers, a ploy as old as time immemorial and echoed by Geoff in his chamber ...
Ley on right track with talk of turning off the cash tap
Sussan Ley’s commitment to reduce waste and record spending levels will be immediately weaponised by the Albanese government.
... you can find him already boring the archive to tears, in the archive.
When thinking about poor old Susssan, and the reptiles attempts to pump up her volume, the pond is inevitably reminded of the cracking Crace taking poor old Liz Truss down yet again ...
Like a cockroach in the nuclear winter, Liz Truss keeps going on … and on
Like a Sydney roach in the impending spring, the reptile roaches of Surry Hills echoing Susssan keep going on, and on ... but on the upside, she's outlasted the lettuce.
Truth to tell, all she's good for is acting as a segue to an immortal Rowe 'toon...
The pond realises that the reptiles are in touch with working people ...
ALP needs its head read on super: Packer
Billionaire James Packer has joined the chorus of voices urging the Albanese government to reconsider its proposed superannuation tax on unrealised capital gains.
By Matthew Cranston and Greg Brown
Oh the suffering of common billionaires, at one with the suffering of the common folk ...
But there's nothing personal about any of this, or about the pond's choices.
Each day the pond scans the early morning digital Oz edition and is confronted by a flurry of raging reptiles ...
What leaps out, what catches the eye?
Why nattering "Ned" of course, blessed with a spiffy gif, as good as wearing spats, as grand as any spiv might want, and all the better that "Ned's" having a China meltdown up there with Chernobyl or the China syndrome produced by Three Mile Island...
Look over on the extreme far right.
What immediately catches the eye?
Nah, not Jennings of the fifth form, pretending he's top of the world ma, if only for a moment.
The pond's eye immediately wanders past that posing wannabe ...
Look down below, there's the bromancer having exactly the same China syndrome meltdown as "Ned". Two reptiles melting down for the price of one! Could it get any better?
But what of good old Will, briefly sighted rehashing the Comrade Dan theme this day?
Trust the pond, all you need to know from outing that is the header, and the accompanying snap ...
Say no more, and so the pond's course is set for the day, minor reptiles, minor meltdowns swept aside for the big guns ...
Best of all the pond doesn't have to do or say anything, just urge correspondents to panic, and run wild-eyed gibbering like maniacs through the streets, or perhaps revert to a little poesy as a of coping with unbridled fear...
The header for the bro in full fearful featherless flight: Xi’s Great Leap Forward a big wake-up call for the West, Beijing has diminished the standing of the US in three critical areas: multilateral security architecture, India and Southeast Asia. It’s a humiliating setback for Donald Trump – and bad news for Australia.
The caption for Emilia's rather dull collage: Beijing’s diplomatic triumph stands in stark contrast to Donald Trump’s divisiveness. Artwork: Emilia Tortorella
When in doubt Emilia, always give AI the credit. Think of your career.
The bromancer began his ten minute - so the reptiles clocked it - exercise in fear with yet another example of King Donald's weird style ...
President Donald Trump on Truth Social
Anyone with a semblance of sanity would immediately recognise the real problem... a blathering old dotard in an advanced state of physical decay promoted by Faux Noise on the Peter principle to a position of power, where stupidity is magnified on a grand scale by the King and his inept, cowering, snivelling courtiers.
It takes some time for the bromancer to come to that FAFO moment with his American cousins, but he does get there, sort of ...
If the world is headed, as the governments in both Beijing and Washington believe, for a long struggle between the People’s Republic of China and the US over global leadership and influence in the decades ahead, Beijing just had its best week since Donald Trump was elected president for the first time in November 2016.
Every part of the SCO meeting, the Beijing military parade and all the geopolitics around it was intentionally structured by the PRC, and it all worked just as Beijing wanted.
This is not an agreeable conclusion. But as the soldiers say, we need “situational awareness” above all.
Beijing’s successes this week don’t eliminate its real, ongoing weaknesses and structural problems. And the sheer naked brutalism of the military parade, with its goose-stepping troops and its endless display of weapons, was distinctly over the top.
Splendid, the bromancer reliving his old days in 'Nam, situationally aware, as the reptiles flung in a snap of the kit ... Chinese military officers are seen on a vehicle as it rolls during the Victory Day military parade in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. Picture: AFP
Of course a snap of the kit had to come early, the naked brutalism, the weaponry. In the words of an astute correspondent ...
“You’ll never see anything finer
Than the weapons displayed
In that dazzling parade -
That Xinping just bunged on in China!”
Then it was time to beat the drums of fear and outrage, verging on dire panic ...
Finally, though, Anthony Albanese felt it necessary to distance his government from former Victorian premier Dan Andrews, who decided not only to visit Beijing at this time, but to attend the parade and share a platform with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un and Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
It was this much repeated image that set the bro off ...
Time then for a little history ...
Mind you, it all comes of course out of a kind of communist fantasyland.
The communists kept more of their powder dry to fight the nationalists in the subsequent Chinese civil war, which led to the communists seizing power in 1949. As Donald Trump pointed out, the US was overwhelmingly the most important, powerful and effective military force in defeating imperial Japan. Neither the Kuomintang, nor the Americans, received much thanks in the official Beijing celebrations.
It’s always been central in communist culture that to control the future, the party must control the past. The legendary Sinologist Geremie Barme, in response to the parade, wrote: “To accept the China Story touted by the party-state – one meticulously curated and constantly policed – regardless of whether it is for personal or professional convenience, is to be a willing collaborator in the Empire of Lies.”
There's just one problem with all this, if the pond might paraphrase:
“To accept the United States touted by the party-state – one meticulously curated and constantly policed by King Donald, his minions and his GOP courtiers – regardless of whether it is for personal or professional convenience, is to be a willing collaborator in the Empire of Lies.”
And what's worse to be denied vaccines by a crack-addled womaniser with a brain worm.
Never mind, another terrifying image, the sort that the bromancer can only dream about being under his command as he lolls in his club's leather charge, Soldiers march in Tiananmen Square. Picture: Getty
That kicked the bromancer into high alarmist gear:
On the other hand, Beijing was probably not intending to reassure democratic electorates internationally, but to intimidate them.
For the nations which attended the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation summit, or the Beijing Victory Day parade, there was the normal mixture of Beijing charm, sophistry and underlying intimidation.
It worked a treat. Beijing got almost everything it wanted.
It moved forward with its aims, and diminished the standing of the US, in three critical areas: multilateral security architecture, India and Southeast Asia.
These three are vitally important for Australia. So while this sequence has been a humiliating setback for the US, and especially for Trump personally, it has also been a bad sequence for Australia.
Consider the contrasting fates of the SCO versus the Quadrilateral security dialogue, which groups the US, Japan, India and Australia.
Beijing established the SCO with Russia and a number of central Asian nations in 2001. It’s now totally dominated by Beijing and its membership has continued to expand. It functions as a high-level security dialogue, but perhaps its most important role is political signalling. It’s not formally aligned against the US, but its existence is designed to further Beijing’s influence, and act as a diplomatic and even security constraint on US power.
For the record, the pond has no time for Chairman Xi's dictatorship, but what's the real reason for the reptile panic?
Why it's FAFO time, because the reptiles had to sit and watch King Donald's feeble attempt at matching dictatorships with his own autocratic parade, and what a flop that was ...
They tried to ramp it up, but it was a B picture Hollywood dressed affair with a creaking tank, as noted in The New Yorker (archive link) ...
That's why the reptiles are busy explaining things ... North Asia correspondent Will Glasgow has all the latest from Beijing.
Why do these EXPLAINERS always remind the pond of Starship Troopers?
Then it was on to the bromancer sorting out India ... remembering that back in the day, the bro was a big Modi fan...(*archive link)
China, Russia and Iran, three of the axis of authoritarians, belong, only North Korea is outside the SCO. But in some ways its most important swing member is India.
Simultaneously, India is a member of the Quad, which is more or less explicitly designed to constrain Beijing’s behaviour, both politically and to some degree militarily.
India, the world’s largest democracy, the world’s most populous nation, and the fastest-growing big economy in the world, has rightly been described as the most important “swing nation” of our time. India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, before this most recent SCO summit, had not been to China for seven years. The two nations had a short, bloody border clash in 2020.
On the other hand, Washington for at least the last 25 years has been cultivating India and drawing it away from the authoritarians. It was a tragedy of the Cold War that the US tilted towards Pakistan and against India, setting up deep distrust in New Delhi for Washington.
More than anyone else, George W. Bush pioneered the new US relationship with India. He crafted a nuclear deal with the south Asian giant. John Howard was part of this process, lifting Australia’s old ban on selling uranium to India.
No one in Washington, or Canberra, ever thought India would become a formal military ally of the US and other Western democracies. But the entente between Delhi and Washington seemed like one of those historic triumphs that America at its best can pull off, associating the two great democracies and forging many common approaches to the enormous challenges posed by Beijing.
Yet now Trump appears set to boycott a previously scheduled Quad summit in India, which means the Quad is in limbo at best. He has placed insane tariffs of more than 50 per cent on India and driven India into the arms of Beijing, which in some respects is proving easier to deal with, perhaps even more reliable, than the US under Trump.
As a result, Modi attended the SCO summit in Tianjin, warmly embraced Xi, and went out of his way to spend time with Putin. The Indian leader was sending his own message to Washington: if push comes to shove, India has other cards to play.
So the final score is the SCO holds its most triumphant summit, while the Quad goes into the deep freeze. Beijing 1, Washington 0.
Cue a snap, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Picture: Getty
Both those developments are yet to be fully delivered but they are real positives. But Trump’s chaotic style, his failure to think or act systematically, his contempt for process, and his contempt for most American allies, is dangerous in the extreme and sometimes produces disastrous results.
Canada's a good thing?
That's not how the elbows up mob see it. While waiting in a clinic the pond happened to see the both siderest NY Times offer up ‘Profound and Abiding Rage’: Canada’s Answer to America’s Abandonment
Never mind, on with the wonders of King Donald ...
In May, India and Pakistan exchanged fire, and air force hostilities, for four days, following an act of terrorism sponsored by Pakistan in Indian Kashmir. Instead of identifying with India, offering it political support, or just waiting for a few days to see what happened, Trump jumped into the dispute, calling on both sides to compromise. Trump offered himself as a mediator in the military dispute and over Kashmir generally.
This was insulting to India. It was the party which had been attacked, but Trump was equating it with Pakistan. And India will not brook any outside interference in its sovereignty over Kashmir. New Delhi and Islamabad then came to a ceasefire, as they have done after every similar exchange for decades.
Trump immediately claimed he had solved the India/Pakistan conflict and has continually boasted of this wholly fictitious achievement ever since. The cynical Pakistanis shrewdly nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize, playing to his ego. Winning this hollow bauble has become an obsession in Trump’s giant parade of narcissism.
India is too big, too powerful and too proud to engage in quite the level of sucking up which most nations must resort to in order to manage Trump’s almost solipsistic personality effectively. Modi and Trump last spoke on the phone in June. Modi told Trump that India and Pakistan had arranged their ceasefire directly and bilaterally, without foreign involvement. And in any event their underlying disputes had not been solved. He flatly refused to accept the ridiculous Trump demand that he support Trump for the Nobel prize.
The two leaders haven’t spoken since. Trump initially applied a 25 per cent tariff on India, higher than that applied to most Asian nations. Then he doubled that tariff to 50 per cent because India buys Russian oil.
But India buys far less Russian oil, far less Russian everything, than China does. But Trump for all his bluster is a bit scared of China. Beijing can turn off the supply of critical minerals, which are necessary in many hi-tech and military applications, whenever it wants. Despite all the talk, the West has been very slow to create alternative supplies of critical minerals.
Trump’s irresponsibility in his actions towards India is shocking. He cannot distinguish his personal interests from US national interests. Part of making critical supply chains more secure, less prey to Beijing blackmail, was for suppliers, which must produce in low-cost countries, to move operations from the PRC to India. They can only do this at scale, and confidently, if they can assume a stable India/US strategic and commercial relationship. Before Trump, that was a reasonable assumption.
The caption for King Donald was just as shocking as the shocked bromancer, Trump’s irresponsibility in his actions towards India is shocking. Picture: AP
This is the moment the reptiles have decided to be shocked?
Nothing else to this point - so many, so little time for the recounting - and so, only now, this is the moment for situational awareness?
Pramit Chaudhry, a veteran Indian strategic writer and now an analyst with the Eurasia Group, tells Inquirer New Delhi is coming to grips with the nature of the Trump operation.
“It’s really a three-tier administration,” he says.
Tier One is Trump himself, full of quirks and capable of shifting position on almost anything very quickly. Chaudhry thinks that in the end Trump has very little interest in geostrategic issues. He’s a semi-isolationist in the tradition of William Howard Taft.
Tier Two is Trump’s family. They are very influential and purely interested in money. India has built its share of Trump Towers. Numerous nations have dumped huge sums of money into the various Trump family bitcoin ventures. Trump has hugely increased his personal and family wealth since becoming president.
Tier Three is everything else – Secretary of State Marco Rubio; Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth; Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. From New Delhi’s point of view, these all work well and India has an excellent relationship with all of them. But it’s impossible to know if any agreement made with them will actually be honoured by Trump.
India’s trade surplus with the US is so small – $US45bn – it’s impossible to believe Trump has brought this fantastic level of disruption and damage to long-term US interests in India because of the trade deficit. It seems instead to be an emperor-like obsession with the tributes and gifts to be paid to Trump, comparable to the Roman emperor Nero’s insistence on entering athletic contests and being allowed to win them all.
As Chaudhry points out, India is big enough that it can cope with all this. It’s possible Trump will come to his senses, or get bored with the state of nonsense he’s created, or be influenced by a sensible adviser, and kiss and make up with Modi.
Of course, India still has deep structural arguments with Beijing. It will never fall entirely into the PRC camp. But the Trump disruption is dangerous for US allies.
One of the worst elements of Beijing’s recent successes has been the tribute Southeast Asia now mostly pays to Beijing. Six out of 10 ASEAN heads of state or heads of government attended the big Beijing military parade. The big catch here for the PRC was Indonesia’s President, Prabowo Subianto, who went to heroic lengths to be there.
The reptiles decided to interrupt with an EXCLUSIVE that felt strangely familiar, The Australian's Cameron Stewart breaks down China’s latest military hardware, offering analysis on what the arsenal reveals about the nation’s growing power and global ambitions.
The frustrated bromancer tossed comrade Dan, and the bro's aggrieved reptile comrades aside ...
Trump sometimes projects strength, but he just as often projects chaos and instability.
Beijing continues to push hard in the South Pacific, is making steady progress in Southeast Asia and has had a brilliant result, from its point of view, with India, the three sites of great power contest of most importance to Australia.
In the SCO summit, and in its giant military parade, Beijing displayed qualities the West is for the moment deeply deficient in. It projected military strength – ship-killing missiles, nuclear missiles, giant unmanned submarines, fifth-generation fighter aircraft. The reality behind that is a credible military budget. No one in the West, beyond the US and a couple of outliers like Israel and Poland, makes any kind of realistic defence effort commensurate with strategic needs.
Beijing also displayed strong diplomatic capabilities, wide international support, coherent policy, and the ability to communicate simultaneously with a domestic and an international audience. It displayed immense self-confidence, although the reality behind the facade is of course much more brittle, fragile and provisional.
Xi did declare that: “The Chinese nation is a great nation that does not fear power and intimidation and is determined to stand self reliant and strong … The great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation is unstoppable.”
But generally Xi’s public tone was reasonable and reassuring. The accompanying menace came in the military display and the extreme domestic lockdown which accompanied the parade.
None of this is a counsel of despair for democracies, for allies of the US, or for the US itself. There were times during the Cold War when the Soviet Union looked impossibly strong. But to prevail against that strength, to apply the pressure which made the Soviets’ internal contradictions unbearable, the West had to recover economically and socially, invest in defence, recover its self-confidence and its belief in the future, even recover a sense of moral purpose. It did this under the leadership of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, and in the glow of Pope John Paul II.
We need leaders, resolve and action. Any takers?
But, butt, billy goat butt, your kissing American cousins are standing firm, Laura, Sean, the whole gang - the entire mob, plus the GOP, -booked on the Trumptanic for a second time ...
And now on with "Ned", and it's very much the same thing, a full ten minute Everest climb, with some very familiar sightings and a few new illustrations ...
The header: China’s vision for the world finally unleashed, Xi Jinping’s true intention was laid bare this week, and Donald Trump is doing all he can to help him make it happen.
The caption for the inordinately silly gif: Strategic Rivalry: China's Military Might and the USA's Geopolitical Challenge. Artwork by Frank Ling.
Oh Frank, Frank, please blame AI.
How else to explain the notion that introducing a couple of chess pieces would complete a masterpiece of metaphor?
Sheesh, and then came tiresome "Ned" and his exhausting Everest climb... as "Ned" also had his FAFO moment ...
Dictators thrive on mass displays of power. The optics this week recalled Germany in the late 1930s but such an analogy underestimates Xi’s grasp of the complex nature of national rivalry in the 2020s. There is an ominous reality to be confronted – every sign is that Xi is too clever and too tough for Donald Trump.
The US President with his obsessive and inward-looking Make America Great Again credo is playing into China’s hands. America is still number one – but the trend isn’t good. While Xi would know Trump is unpredictable and that’s reason to be wary, he would know something far more important – Trump is severing the arteries of American authority with his tariff wars, his disdain for allies, his infatuation with autocrats, his rejection of US strategic leadership, and his failure to offer any inspiring narrative of America’s role in the contemporary world.
Xi stands for a totalitarian politics, conceived in Marxist theory, soulless in its view of human nature and driven by a fusion of technological superiority and state capitalism. His ultimate quest is publicly announced: to prove that China’s political model is superior to that of America’s liberal democracy.
Well they're killing the world with EVs while King Donald is killing the world with his fear of windmills, but carry on, do explain what Faux Noise has wrought upon the world ...
On display this week in China is far more than Beijing’s military arsenal – it is about China’s claim to a governance system that will outmuscle the US and ferment across the world the idea of China’s rise and American decline. The stakes for many nations, including Australia, could not be greater.
The bizarre aspect is that Xi outsells Trump in presenting a great power narrative to the world – he celebrated this week’s 80th anniversary of the end of World War II by casting the story as a triumph for China’s resilience – Trump, by contrast, seeks to dismantle the US engineered post-war order and denigrates this achievement, claiming it as a time when America was robbed and exploited by all and sundry.
Trump’s leadership is short on hope and inept in standing up to dictators. He lacks any comprehension of that long American moral narrative delivering to the world in various ways; witness John Kennedy pledging to “bear any burden”, Ronald Reagan demanding the Soviets “tear down this wall” and Madeleine Albright calling America the “indispensable” power to light the post-Cold War world.
This week the dictators came together in Beijing – Xi, flanked by Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un – in a display of authoritarian power rarely matched since World War II. The vast military display featured nuclear-capable missiles, undersea vehicles, the latest drones, fighter jets, anti-ship missiles and long-range bombers reinforced by thousands of troops goose-stepping in almost perfect co-ordination.
Just to compound "Ned's" panic, the reptiles insisted on repeating that snap ...
By golly, they're squeezing a lot of juice out of that one ... as "Ned" blathered on:
For many Australians watching the TV images, it would have looked frightening. This was the intent. Xi’s message is that China’s military dominance of the Asian region will be irresistible, but don’t worry because, as he said, China sought “a common prosperity for all humankind”. What a relief.
By now "Ned" was in full panic Chicken Little mode...
There were three big themes in Xi’s speech: the “unstoppable” rise of China; its historical role in the victory of World War II; and China’s vision for a new global order – decoded, a united China will reclaim Taiwan and replace America as the dominant nation reshaping world governance.
Xi said the world faced a choice of “peace or war” and “dialogue or confrontation”.
He said the Chinese people “firmly stand on the right side of history and on the side of human civilisation and progress”.
Xi recruits nationalism to buttress Communist Party control. In this parade he invokes a revolutionary past to inoculate the Chinese people to the future sacrifices they must make to resurrect China’s dominance.
It is easy to forget the cracks in China’s edifice: slowing growth, high debt, massive corruption, a demographic crisis, and a system where the control by the Communist Party exceeds any other principle or interest. Yet this week’s optics undercut Western claims that China is short of friends and partners. Xi’s financial sway and military clout guarantee an audience, along with the weakness of the democratic model.
Anthony Albanese dissociated his government from the event. No minister attended. But Albanese declined to criticise former ALP premiers Bob Carr and Dan Andrews for attending. Carr ducked the parade but Andrews met Xi and was photographed with the dictators. The standing of Carr and Andrews in the ALP points to equivocation in the party about how close to get to China.
Naturally comrade Dan again rose to the surface, and the reptiles felt the need to gif him so we could see both hand shakes, Dan Andrews shakes hands with Xi Jinping
"Ned" carried on, swept up by a profound dilemma, wherein the reptiles want to please Gina...
Xi’s strategy is to break American influence in the region – a vision that Labor won’t endorse, that strikes at Australia’s national interest, and that our acquisition of US nuclear-powered submarines is designed to resist.
But the stronger China looks, the deeper is the Australian contradiction. While Albanese told China that Australia wants “greater engagement”, Beijing will leverage that engagement to pressure Australia to genuflect before China’s self-assumed regional dominance. Australia is being squeezed between economics and strategy – sooner or later it must shift in one direction or another.
The signs are obvious – Albanese praises the US alliance but is frightened to say anything mildly critical of China.
The world has just witnessed the most powerful symbolic display of China’s military aspirations with their intimidating logic for Australia. What did our government have to say? Nothing – or nothing of any note. We cannot even find the language to address the events transforming the world that pose the most serious challenge for our country and people.
In the end, "Ned" was out of his Faux Noise depth ...
It reminds me of the late, great Max Walsh, who called Australia “a poor little rich country” in his book on our 1970s predicament. The situation today is different but the parallels are similar – an Australia out of its depth, irresolute and unsure of how to respond to the challenges.
There is no sense our elites – political, corporate, academic – have any convincing view on how Australia should best manage the intensifying China-America regional power struggle with its potential to diminish Australian sovereignty, even to bring us into China’s orbit with the reduced independence that involves. Meanwhile, Penny Wong’s formula that Australia doesn’t want any power to have regional primacy seems a decisive step towards recognising the shift against the US.
More than two dozen leaders went to China. Iran’s President, Masoud Pezeshkian, was there, Indonesia’s Prabowo Subianto attended despite riots at home, India’s Narendra Modi attended the first stage – the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation summit in Tianjin but not the Beijing parade. There was a strong representation from South East Asia, where most leaders navigate between China and America.
The event highlighted the growing fracture between China and the West and the deepening alignment between Xi and Putin, yet a relationship dominated by China. Trump seemed unsure about how to respond, asking whether XI would recognise the US role in ending WWII and then saying: “Please give my warmest regards to Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un, as you conspire against The United States of America.”
Oh dear, "Ned" and the bromancer, and nary a thought for what has been happening, and the delusional hope that the Supreme Court might get in the way ...
"Ned" did his best ...
Trump and the dictators
Shouldn't that have read ...
The dictator and the other dictators ...
It is a reminder that in his first term Trump failed in his diplomatic campaign with Kim and in his second term, so far, has been played for a mug by Putin who continues his war against Ukraine and seems impervious to Trump’s efforts to secure a settlement.
Quick, a visual interruption... Donald Trump met with North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un in 2018, the first sitting US and North Korean leaders to meet, shake hands and attempt to negotiate to end a decades-old nuclear stand-off.
Then came another FAFO moment ...
Americans alert to the power realities have no option but to focus on Trump – running a tariff agenda that alienates friend and foe alike, irresponsible in his hostile treatment of India’s Modi, cavalier in his apparent disregard of the Quad – the four-power US, Japan, India and Australia regional group – and failing properly to invest in the US military while undermining core institutions of US polity, from the intelligence community to the Federal Reserve.
"Ned" relived past nightmares, Trump rolled out the red carpet for Putin in Alaska last month.
And so to the war games ...
A related warning in the Journal came from former Bill Clinton aide, former US ambassador to Japan and Democratic political aspirant Rahm Emanuel, saying: “The China threat is both real and potent. The US has never before been asked to face down a country that has three times our population, is fuelled by an advanced economy and is capable, as its leaders intend, of replacing us atop the global hierarchy. Failing a broad reorientation, the question won’t be ‘Who lost China?’ but ‘Who lost to China?’ Yet Washington has yet to mobilise in full against a real threat.”
A new global order
In Xi’s speech at the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation, his aspirations to lead a new global order were paramount. While Western leaders see the hypocrisy between China’s assertive use of power and its language of upholding “the common values of humanity” – many politicians in the global south are more concerned about tangible benefits they get from China.
XI said “global governance has come to a new crossroads”, and the correct approach was to “advance in line with the trend of history”. This means adhering to “sovereign equality”, promoting “greater democracy in international relations”, abiding by the “international rule of law”, upholding the “status and authority” of the UN, practising multilateralism, opposing unilateralism, and narrowing the North-South gap in living standards.
He said it was time to “promote a correct historical perspective on World War II” by commemorating “the Chinese’s Peoples War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression”. This resistance against terrible Japanese atrocities is a historical truth of deep importance in China.
The reptiles decided to terrify "Ned" even more...
The pond found the image strangely soothing.
Why that was way better than the Brisbane Line.
Who'd miss Cairns or Darwin, and the reptiles didn't even think to mention Alice Springs, and as for Perth, they've always wanted to secede, so this might be a quick way to do it ...
"Ned" went on the warpath ...
Mao’s strategy was largely to avoid conflict with Japan’s forces as part of his long-term plan to seize power in China. It worked brilliantly.
Second, the myth being cultivated at this 80th anniversary is that China was responsible for Japan’s High Command deciding in early 1942 not to invade Australia. In short, apart from America being fundamental in spearheading from Australia the successful resistance to Japan, China, we are told, was more fundamental in denying Japan’s invasion of this continent in the first place.
An Australia invasion
It is true that Japan’s Naval General staff wanted to invade Australia and that the Japanese Army leaders fiercely opposed the navy plans. It is also true that army commitments to fighting in China were a factor weighted in the decision. But there were many other factors. The army argued an invasion of Australia would be counter-productive – the gains not justified by the resources expended. Historian Peter Stanley said Japan calculated a full invasion of Australia would need 10 to 12 divisions while Japan had used nine divisions to conquer the whole of South East Asia.
The army believed an invasion of Australia would become a “profitless war of attrition” – when it was essential for Japan to retain strong forces in China in case of a ground offensive from the Soviet Union.
That's all very well, but some more fear please ...
Why there will be a war with China, and likely before Xmas ...
The US did not save Australia from invasion – but nor did China. We were saved, in fact, by the sensible decision of the High Command on the best balance of Japan’s overall Pacific strategy.
But you can expect to hear a lot more about this.
At the 80th anniversary in his efforts to reshape world history from the conclusion of WWII to the present, Xi urged China’s ambassadors to pursue the cause. In The Australian Financial Review of September 2, China’s ambassador to Australia, Xiao Qian, called for Australia and China to deepen trust and co-operation, invoking their joint struggle in WWII “driven by common values of resisting aggression” and recognising “the profound harm fascism has brought to humanity”.
The ambassador said it was important “that more Australian and Chinese people understand the history of our joint struggle” and “guide the younger generations of both countries to carry forward this history”.
Don’t think this Chinese version won’t be taken up at home. The left in Australia is skilled at rewriting history to advance its contemporary political struggles – and few have more salience than the campaign to distance our strategic engagement from America and strengthen ties with China.
That's right "Ned", you cling fast to King Donald and all he represents, stay loyal to your Faux Noise kissing cousins ...apparently it's all a hoax.
Well, you have spared us mention of Ms Ton-yee-nee. Her 'It seems insane to me that we can’t have an honest conversation about the clear and present challenges presenting in 2025.' offered, with no sense of irony, further down the electronic for this weekend. Of course, that is not any kind of request to use her words to spice-up a late Sunday offering. With Ms Ton - there are no herbs or spices, and the way it's cooked is of no lasting interest.
ReplyDeleteOh yes, Dearest Gemma - haven't heard much at all from her for a while, have we. But the CIS folks seem to think very highly of her even if DP doesn't.
DeleteStoge then Chadwick...
Delete"Ms Ton-yee-nee. Her 'It seems insane to me that we can’t have an honest conversation about the clear and present challenges presenting in 2025.'...
"So, if you're thinking about trying a Ms Ton-yee-nee stoge, I urge you to reconsider. It's not worth the risk to your health, your freedom, or your life. Stick to legal substances and stay safe."
"I don't give a damn about your opinion, stoge."
"Get lost, stoge. Nobody wants to hear what you have to say."
https://www.fastslang.com/stoge
The Bro: "Beijing was probably not intending to reassure democratic electorates internationally, but to intimidate them."
ReplyDeleteSomething that the Chinese have been quite good at in various times over the past 2000 or so years. It's probably why the Chinese have actually done very little invading of other lands. Even the conquest of Tibet was only in response to the Tibetans conquering large parts of China and installing a Tibetan as China's emperor (named Songtsen Gampo back around 630, apparently).
The Chinese were very effective installers of suzerainty in the 1400s - via the Great Fleet commanded by Admiral Zheng He (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ming_treasure_voyages).
Suzerainty doesn't require invasion and conquest but still returns much the same rewards. So likely Xi Jinping is envisioning a return to the good old 'Great Fleet' days.