A buddy from the Australia-New
Zealand desk at Langley sent me the following essay. It’s by Ms Lo Hung Phúc
known simply as “Phúc” by her friends and frenemies. Now Phúc’s main concern is
the extent China is compromising Australia’s unquestioning strategic loyalty to
the US.
A measure of US respect for Australia was the Trump
Administration repeatedly getting the spelling of Australia's then Prime Minister Turnbull wrong.
Ms Phúc has come into some unexplained wealth that has raised
eyebrows. Some call it Phúc’s “BBB” (Beijing Bonus Bonanza). Phúc MAY be a
double for Beijing or even a triple “mole”. Who knows!
Anyways here’s Ms Phúc’s latest analysis of the threat that
Australia will no longer be a vassal of America during the unreliable, isolationist Trump Administration. For whatever reason Ms Phúc has coloured it revolutionary red...
“China hopes that Australia can have its independent China
policy, and that Australia's relations with the US do not target third
countries - including China.
Australia, as a key US ally, leans toward the US for security while depending on China for trade. After all, it is a Western country culturally and politically, and geographically hanging off the edge of Asia.
As a member of the Five Eyes network, an intelligence-sharing alliance among Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the US, Australia acts as a fervent US follower. When the US deems it not a good time for it to pick a fight with China at the frontline, Australia often jumps out and tests the reaction of each side.
Malcolm Turnbull, Australia's 29th prime minister, once defined the China relationship in one word - "frenemy," a portmanteau of "friend" and "enemy."
In Turnbull’s recently published memoir, he pointed to his speech during Asia's premier defense summit, the Shangri-La Dialogue, in June 2017, in which he expressed concerns over China's growing power, as the public start date of the current icy age between Australia and China.
A few months later at a conference in Melbourne, attending Australian politicians, academics and former government officials raised concerns that Australia's lack of an independent foreign policy from its conventional US-centric approach had undermined Australia's national interests.
Rational Australian experts are right in saying that Canberra's policy toward Beijing is ragged. But the question is how to save it. Australian politicians should realize that their country's security arrangements with the US and their adaptation of a rising China are not a zero-sum game.
Some Australian media have been quick to point out that China's latest Beef and Barley import suspension is revenge for an Australia-initiated inquiry into COVID-19 and called it "economic coercion."
But it's not. It's reasonable from China's point of view.
Australia, as a key US ally, leans toward the US for security while depending on China for trade. After all, it is a Western country culturally and politically, and geographically hanging off the edge of Asia.
As a member of the Five Eyes network, an intelligence-sharing alliance among Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the US, Australia acts as a fervent US follower. When the US deems it not a good time for it to pick a fight with China at the frontline, Australia often jumps out and tests the reaction of each side.
Malcolm Turnbull, Australia's 29th prime minister, once defined the China relationship in one word - "frenemy," a portmanteau of "friend" and "enemy."
In Turnbull’s recently published memoir, he pointed to his speech during Asia's premier defense summit, the Shangri-La Dialogue, in June 2017, in which he expressed concerns over China's growing power, as the public start date of the current icy age between Australia and China.
A few months later at a conference in Melbourne, attending Australian politicians, academics and former government officials raised concerns that Australia's lack of an independent foreign policy from its conventional US-centric approach had undermined Australia's national interests.
Rational Australian experts are right in saying that Canberra's policy toward Beijing is ragged. But the question is how to save it. Australian politicians should realize that their country's security arrangements with the US and their adaptation of a rising China are not a zero-sum game.
Some Australian media have been quick to point out that China's latest Beef and Barley import suspension is revenge for an Australia-initiated inquiry into COVID-19 and called it "economic coercion."
But it's not. It's reasonable from China's point of view.
by Lo Hung Phúc”
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