As far as I can remember back I don’t really recall China ever having any input into Australian affairs. I mean sure they might put out a few press released nobody ever read and demonise us in their papers but for the most part it was internal.

If you listen to the Liberals,  it would seem the reason for this is solely Rudd’s fault.

PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd’s familiarity with Beijing has led to an unwelcome situation in which China believes it can tell Australia what to do.

Liberal frontbencher Christopher Pyne said the Rudd Government’s professed special links with China had certainly transformed the relationship, but for the worse


Probably more of a character attack on Rudd then the Chinese, I mean lets face it that video of Rudd speaking Mandarin or whatever is a powerful political tool. Still, Pyne does have somewhat of a point.

What started with the Beijing Olympic torch relay has since culminated into an increasingly open interference with Australian affairs. Almost as if the Chinese government is under the impression Australians give a crap what they think.

When the Beijing olympic torch was doing the rounds initially there was chaos. Tibet supporters clashed with Chinese supporters and what is supposed to be a relatively peaceful event was tainted with violence. Much of the rest of the torch relay was done via bus.

The IOC even considered cancelling the rest of the torch relay after London and Paris fearing more of the same protests and negative publicity around the world.

In response to this China sent off more soldiers to protect the torch carriers and basically beat down anyone who looked at the torch sideways.

Here in Australia there was a bit of protest over the ‘blue tracksuit thugs’ as they became known as in that most Australian’s felt it was wrong that protesters could be pushed and shoved around by the Chinese military on our own soil.

Initially Rudd stated that the soldiers would not be able to interfere in the torch relay, that instead they would be confined to a bus travelling alongside the torch relay. The Chinese military didn’t seem to get the memo though and they decided to run alongside the torch anyway which then led to clashes with our federal police.

At times there were visible tensions between the Australian Federal Police and China’s so-called flame attendants, the track-suited paramilitaries who had been banned from any security role by the Federal Government.

On more than one occasion federal police officers were seen jostling with or pushing the attendants away from the runner with the torch.


To be fair though I’d probably ignore the Australian government too if I was a Chinese national with family at home and my government told me to protect the flame ‘or else’.

After that we didn’t really have much interference, well at least not publicly. I’m sure the usual political crap went on between the various companies involved in trading between Australia and China but for the most part it was behind closed doors.

That is until Rio Tinto employee Stern Hu was arrested for ‘stealing state secrets’. When this was announced Australia followed diplomatic convention. There was no demands, no drop shipping of protesters in Beijing. We waited the suitable period we were required to due to our diplomatic agreements with China and then requested to see one of our citizens and respected China’s sovereignty in handling affairs on it’s own soil.

All this despite the entire affair being an obvious retaliation to Rio Tinto knocking back a merger with Chinalco earlier in the year. I mean bribery in Chinese business? Who’d have thunk it. The same bribery brought us tainted children’s toys and milk.

Breeding a business culture of bribery and corruption and then pretending to crack down on it isn’t fooling anyone.

Regardless Australia followed protocol and to this day Hu is still being held in China albeit on the lesser charge of accepting bribes from Chinese officials.

Compare this in contrast to China’s actions when Australia granted a visa to Rebiya Kadeer and refused to censor the screening of the film The Ten Conditions of Love:

Following the request denial China then made several calls to all of their directors with films featured in the film festival. Subsequently after talks on the phone two directors immediately pulled their films and when Kadeer was granted a visa later more films were pulled totalling six all up.

As film festival organisers went about finding replacements to fill in the time slots Chinese hackers (clearly at the bequest of their government) then began a DDOS campaign against the festival website. Taking the website down and purchasing tickets to fill up sessions, film organisers were then forced to close down the online ticket purchasing facility and request that people purchase tickets offline.

We even had our our ambassador to the foreign ministry in China “summoned” so he could cop an earful of dummy spitting.

The final attempt by the Chinese government to bully Australia into pandering to their political demands was the threat of severing the twenty nine year old sister city relationship Melbourne has with Tianjin.


Not really respectful of our decision was it?

Indeed still we seem to be ‘paying the price‘ for telling China where to go.

Concerns were raised that the massive liquefied natural gas deal would not get signed because of a bruising diplomatic spat between Canberra and Beijing over the arrest of Rio Tinto’s Australian head of iron ore operations in China, Stern Hu, on spying charges.

Tensions were further aggravated during a visit last week to Australia by Rebiya Kadeer, the exiled leader of China’s Muslim Uighurs, who is regarded by Beijing as a terrorist and criminal.

The Australian understands the failure of ambassador Geoff Raby to arrange any high-level meetings for the minister was one of the reasons for his sudden recall to Canberra.


The $50 billion LPG deal was announced just days ago from Beijing yet we can’t get one official to meet with our ambassador to discuss the fine print? Sure selling resources will help our economy but it’s not like China can continue to pump out cheap crap without raw materials either.

It seems the concept of ‘not losing face at all costs’ in China is still alive and kicking.

Having said all that, it seems the criteria upon which the Australian government chooses whether to bend over for China isn’t as straightforward as the Chinese government would have you believe.

Just a month after granting Kadeer a visa a proposal to have the Dalai Lama visit the senate during a trip to Australia later this year was voted down.

Now I’m not proposing that such a visit would somehow enhance Australian politics or whatever, but clearly there is more at play here then the Australian government simply getting under the skin of the Chinese at every chance they get.

A point I feel is lost on the Chinese government.

Rather then throw your non-existant weight around when things don’t go your way why not instead respect that how Australia conducts itself when it comes to matters we don’t see eye to eye on is our business. We’ll let you protest and make your opinion heard but that doesn’t mean we’re going to agree with it.

Australia doesn’t run around summoning ambassadors, hacking websites, snubbing Chinese officials or dictating our demands when things don’t go our way in China, so who gave China the impression that it’s acceptable behaviour for them to conduct here?

Rudd seems to be pretty certain he’s had nothing to do with it;

PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd says the Australian Government will decide who is allowed to enter the nation – without needing permission from any other country.

“The Government I lead is one where Australia makes decisions on who it issues visas to or not,” he said.


So if the Australian government isn’t responsible then what else has changed prompting this surge of Chinese dictatorial demands thrown at us this year? Or instead are we simply witnessing the beginnings of a more dominant China and the reduction of their long held insular policies.

If so, I don’t like what I’ve sampled. This dish needs to be sent back into the kitchen, it’s not ready yet.

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