‘Mongrels’
and ‘bastards’
S P
SETH
Not many people would have heard of a guy named Clive Palmer, a
billionaire businessman and a member of the Australian parliament. But he
certainly created quite a stir recently when he labeled the Chinese “mongrels”
and “bastards” on national television. Referring to the the Chinese government,
he said “… they shoot their own people, they haven’t got a justice system and
they want to take over this country. And we’re not going to let them.” His,
apparently, unscripted tirade arose out of a business dispute with a Chinese
company. The Chinese government-owned CITIC Pacific has accused him, among
other things, of siphoning off $12
million out of their funds into financing his political ambitions. Palmer recently
founded a new political party, called Palmer United Party (PUP). And he managed
to get elected to the parliament, along with a bunch of his nominees to the
senate, the upper house of the parliament. And he has come to exercise
considerable political influence through his senators who can and do frustrate
the government’s political agenda.
Not surprisingly, Palmer’s remarks were condemned by all sides of
the political spectrum in Australia as damaging to China-Australia relations.
Australia’s foreign minister, Julie Bishop, called his comments “abusive and
unnecessary” and said that China had every right to be offended, which it did.
The Chinese embassy called his remarks “absurd and irresponsible, which are
full of ignorance and prejudice.” The
state-owned Chinese media was not as restrained as the official response. The
English-language Global Times reportedly said, “Palmer’s rascality serves as a
symbol that Australian society has an unfriendly attitude towards China.” And
that “China must let these prancing provocateurs know how much of a price they
pay when they deliberately rile us.”
In rushing to her leader’s defence, senator Jaccqui Lambie only made
things worse, warning that Australia risked becoming “slaves to an aggressive,
anti-democratic, totalitarian foreign power.” Lambie said, “I strongly support
the general point that Clive made about Communist China’s military capacity and
threat to Australia. If anybody thinks that we should have a national security
and defence policy which ignores the threat of a Chinese Communist invasion—you’re
delusional and [have] got rocks in your head.” The good thing is that Palmer has since
apologized to China for his offensive remarks. But his colleague, Lambie, is
still sticking by what she has said.
On the face of it, Clive Palmer and his PUPs might appear a bit unhinged,
and they might well be, but they are not entirely out of sync with the
underlying unease, if not fear, of China’s rising power. Australia’s 2009 defence
white paper underlined it. And the country’s deepening security relationship
with the United States and Japan is a pointer to it. Only recently, the same
Global Times newspaper sharply rebuked Australian foreign minister, Julie
Bishop, calling her a “complete fool”,
after she said in an interview: “China does not respect weakness. We know that
the optimum is deeper engagement [with China]. But we’re also clear-eyed about
what could go wrong. So you have to hope for the best but manage for the
worst.” And she pledged to stand up for Australian values. Earlier, she had
strongly offended China by criticizing it for seeking to change the status quo
in the South China Sea and East China Sea on the question of disputed
sovereignty with its South East Asian neighbors, and Japan.
Therefore, even though the Australian government has done the right
thing by condemning and repudiating Palmer’s anti-China remarks, he and Lambie
were, in some ways, crudely expressing a general sense of unease in Australia
about China. It is important to realize that this unease has a long history
from the gold mining days in the mid-nineteenth century when some Chinese
migrated into Australia to partake of the country’s new fortunes. Which led to
the White Australia policy to keep them and other Asians out, that continued
till the seventies. The fear of “yellow hordes” swamping Australia was part of
a psyche that tends to find expression in different ways with the change of
times. And with China becoming stronger by the day and challenging regional
status quo, and to edge out the United States from the region, the perceived
fear is starting to appear real though it is impolite and rude to talk about it
like Palmer and Lambie did.
Beijing, however, is not happy about it, especially as China is
Australia’s largest trading partner with two-way trade of around $150 billion,
much of it in Australia’s favour. Beijing simply lost it when, during the
recent official visit of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan, Prime Minister
Tony Abbot reportedly “admired the skill and sense of honour” of the Japanese
submariners who attacked Sydney harbour in 1942. Clubbing together the remarks
of Abbot and Julie Bishop, the Global Times wrote, “If Abbot’s words were meant
to flatter his visiting counterpart Shinzo Abe, Bishop’s provocation [as quoted
elsewhere] appeared to have come out of nowhere.”
But it is important to point out that the fear of China’s rising
power is quite widespread in Asia. A region wide survey of 48,6000 people in 44
countries conducted by the US think tank, Pew Research Centre, reportedly found
that 93 per cent of the Filipinos, 85 per cent of the Japanese, 84 per cent
Vietnamese and 83 per cent of South Koreans worried “that China’s territorial
ambitions could lead to military conflict with its neighbours.” Viewed against
this backdrop, Australia’s unease and fear of China doesn’t appear too
dramatic.
China’s reaction to Australia’s strong comments is tailored at two
levels. At the official level, it is relatively restrained, even though making
the point that Beijing is not amused. Beijing’s reaction, through its
state-owned media, is much more robust. For instance, in reacting to Bishop’s
comment about standing up for Australian values, the Global Times said
cryptically that, “The country used to be a place roamed by rascals and outlaws
from Europe.” And added: “ Australia’s history is not short of records of human
rights infringement on the Aboriginal people.”
The fact that the two countries continue to operate normally in
their bilateral relations, despite an occasional hiccup caused by outlandish
remarks of a minor party leader or the blunt statement of its foreign minister,
would suggest that they have no intention to ratchet up their differences. The
Global Times, as the standard-bearer of Chinese nationalism, though,
provocatively asked, “Bishop calls for standing up to China, but what resources
does she have to do so with?” Which is true but that is where its security
alliance with the USA and strategic cozying up with Japan come in. Beijing though seems confident that, sooner or
later, Canberra would be forced to accept the reality of the changing balance
of power in the region.
