60 Stand up to China? We decide who gets visas - Rudd

Comment (Peter M.):

Something similar occurred in the case of Asian trade with the US & Australia. Hudson thinks the bankers' confidence trick can go on indefinitely; I think we'll end up in the situation of Latvia, dancing to tunes played by China, Japan and perhaps India and Indonesia.

Laurie Oakes, author of item 5, is a leading Australian journalist; his view is probably representative. China lost the support of the Left when 10,000 Chinese protesters descended on Canberra: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/local/news/general/street-war-victory-to-the-red-army/421698.aspx

On the other hand, Tibetan and Uighur dissidents in the West receive NED/CIA funding (items 8 & 9). And The Epoch Times, from which item 3 is sourced, is allegedly funded by the CIA. It backs Falun Gong.

When I was in Sydney last September, catching a train from West Ryde into the city, I noticed a number of Chinese passengers reading The Epoch Times. They were a minority - most were reading other publications - but I was surprised to see that it's issued as a daily print edition. Eastwood (two stations further up), where I attended school/college from Grades 4 to 11, is now a second "China Town" in Sydney.

(1) China decouples from West; rulership passes from G7 to Asia
(2) China: Protesting steel workers halt plant privatisation
(3) Stern Hu - China's disrespect for Australia. Kevin Rudd studied under Pierre Ryckmans
(4) Stand up to China? Better not to fan the diplomatic flames - John Garnaut (son of Ross)
(5) Visa for Uighur leader: Australia's Opposition rolls over for China's bullies
(6) We decide who gets visas - Rudd
(7) Australia's fraught relationship with China - The Economist
(8) National Endowment for Democracy "funnels CIA money to Dalai Lama"
(9) National Endowment for Democracy "funnels CIA money to Uighurs"

(1) China decouples from West; rulership passes from G7 to Asia

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/KH20Ad01.html

Aug 20, 2009

China leads an Asian charge

By Francesco Sisci

BEIJING - The economic rebound has started in Asia. Yet this is not simply an economic story, it is a political one made of data and history.

The data first. In the second quarter, South Korea grew by about 10% on an annual basis. Taiwan grew even more, as its industrial production recovered strongly. India's industry showed a brilliant 14% increase in that period, and China, the engine of regional growth and the main trading partner of all these countries, saw industrial production rise 11%, while the very significant indicator of car sales increased by a miraculously high 70%.

All-in-all, emerging Asia in 2009 should grow by 5%, while the developed world of the old ruling class clustered in the Group of Seven should contract by 3.5%. In other words, during the crisis, the Asian emerging economies led by China are catching up with the old world even faster than during normal times.

That means that Asia's and China's growth is increasingly decoupled from the fate of the West, as The Economist remarked in its latest issue, and the region is finding its own path to recovery without recourse to the former import markets of America and Europe, which only one year ago seemed to drive its growth.

There are doubts about the figures, especially those from China, but the data of car sales should prove that the rebound is real. Car manufacturers in China largely have foreign investment and are out of the grip of the central office of statistics. Increases in sales by 70% were registered when the economy was growing at a double-digit pace, and thus China is definitely faring very well.

Now, history. The long march of the new global financial instruments that drove the present economic crisis started in the early 1990s. In 1992, philosopher-financier George Soros managed to beat the Bank of England and made billions betting against the pound sterling. This proved many things; among them, that a private fundraiser with enough gravitas could beat powerful states like the United Kingdom. That is, private entrepreneurs/profiteers could wage a financial war against a middle-ranking power, and beat it.

The consequences were manifold. The system of fixed exchange between European currencies was smashed, and European leaders decided not to go back to the independence of their own currencies, which would make each country even weaker before Soros's future threats, but to push ahead launching a new unified currency - the euro - which was bound to change the global economic order and could have a major political impact as well.

At the time, in 1992, China was out of the picture. It was still running two domestic currencies (one for Chinese and one for foreigners); there was really no central bank except in name, and banks lent money not based on financial criteria but on political orders. In the next five years, things changed fast, but how fast could they move, starting from such a low point? This seemed to be the prejudice of Soros and his fellows in September 1997, when they attacked the Hong Kong dollar and thought of making an even greater fortune out of it.

Everything seemed ripe for the attack, with circumstances even better than the storming of the Bank of England in 1992. The Asian financial crisis was raging. The Thai baht, Malaysian ringgit and Indonesian rupiah had fallen one after the other like blinded prisoners before a firing squad. Hong Kong asset prices had been tumbling out of fear for the July 1 return to the Chinese motherland. If Soros had managed to take over mighty Britain, then Hong Kong - the tiny former colony returned to China - should have been a piece of cake. The primitive Chinese financial systems would be no match for the sophisticated instruments wielded by the financiers.

Soros was wrong. Because it was more primitive, shrouded in layers of bureaucratic regulations, China could not be beaten by Soros's over-sophistication. It was the old story of asymmetric strategy: China refused to fight the war Soros had in mind; it fought its own war on its own turf and predictably won.

The assault on the financial system on Asia was like a war. It vaporized decades of wealth, stirred social disturbances and toppled governments and political systems. In a few days, the devaluation of the Indonesian rupiah squandered 80% of the country's gross domestic product. Thailand's present suffering is a legacy of the collapse of the baht. And China owes its present resiliency to the battle waged and won then, in contrast to Japan, which let the then much stronger yen slump against the dollar, signaling something deeper than the simple lack of economic strength.

The attack on Asia was triggered by purely financial motives, but in the meantime, were there also political goals? Was it to teach those arrogant Asian "Tigers" there was no new model of development on Earth, only the Western one? And what did it mean politically that China dared to resist by playing old administrative rules against modern financial methods? Could China actually stand up to the US when Japan buckled and even Russia was in far greater disarray because of the financial crisis?

Perhaps there was some of this hubris in 1999 when China openly rooted for Belgrade against America during the US bombing of Yugoslavia over Kosovo. Then, the US bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. Was it deliberate? Was it an accident? In the end, even if China believed it was a deliberate action, prompted by some form of Chinese support for Yugoslavia, Beijing could do nothing.

This series of experiences taught China many lessons. You have to liberalize the financial system but also have enough reserves to withstand and trounce a financial attack from any side; monetary reserves are a military strategic tool, more important than ballistic missiles and nuclear bombs. You can never take on America - it is too strong and has too many friends. Instead, you have to be as close as possible to America.

With these two lessons in mind, China could claim its role in the financial crisis - it saved Asia. If the Hong Kong dollar had devalued, the yuan would have followed, and there would have been a new round of competitive devaluation in the region. All would have been spiraling down until some "masters of the universe" from Wall Street declared it was enough and came to buy everything extremely cheap, just like after a war. China, conversely, had saved itself and had saved Asia. In this, it proved more than anything its new political primacy over Japan. By doing so, China also saved Japan, which was under attack in a similar manner and even more than China.

China saw that the two lessons (manage reserves and side with America) could merge into one as it went into a buying spree of American bonds, which joined their trans-Pacific interests, gained reserves, and secured American support all at once.

Now China, beginning such a powerful economic rebound - while America and Europe are still struggling with very deep troubles - is making a de facto political and strategic statement. The details are also interesting. The industrial recovery in Taiwan is crucial, as it proves that the destiny of the island is impossible to split from that of the mainland. It is a major victory for President Ma Ying-jeou and his "pro-Beijing" policy. The recovery in South Korea is also important, as the country has moved from hanging onto Japan to hanging onto China.

The world will now have to come to grips with this new Chinese role. America certainly did, when at the end of July President Barack Obama saluted the new US-China ties as the political cornerstone of this century.

Yet, these successes are no reason for joy in China, but causes for worry. There is no easy path ahead. In 1997 and 1999, China had many weaknesses, but they didn't matter because it decided to do what was right and follow the American leadership. Also, America had a model and a path, and was confident about it. Now, America's old model is gone, and the new one is as fuzzy as the campaign slogan "we want change". However, America has been the leader for decades, and there is an overall trust in it.

Although China's primitive economic system is useful when defending itself, it is a major hurdle when the country is at the forefront of the world and everybody looks to it for direction and leadership. China has weaknesses all over. First, its economic profile is in an unhealthy state. Private consumption accounts for 35% of gross domestic product, versus the 58% in emerging Asia and 61% in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries.

Recovery has been driven by investment, but perhaps as much as 30-40% of it went into real estate and stock speculations. There is a bubble that must be contained, if it bursts, the whole Asian and world recovery will burst along with it. But because of China's cumbersome bureaucracy, it is hard to hit the brakes smoothly. If the government hits them, it could come to a sudden dangerous halt. If it tries to move slowly, the bubble could grow even bigger.

These snags were not important a decade ago, but now that China is a world leader, these are major problems for everybody. As such, the recovery is uncertain and weak. There might be new, bigger problems down the road, while the US and Europe are still deep in trouble. As Asia Times Online contributor David P Goldman said in his blog, "The June personal income data were dreadful. I simply don't believe in the recovery story." This may be true not only for America, but also for the rest of the world.

Francesco Sisci is the Asia Editor of La Stampa.

(2) China: Protesting steel workers halt plant privatisation

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/aug2009/stel-a22.shtml

By John Chan
22 August 2009 ==

Steel plant takeover halted due to protests
By Hu Yinan (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-08-17 09:25

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-08/17/content_8576836.htm

ANYANG, Henan: Thousands of workers at a State-owned steel plant in Anyang last Sunday were still waiting for government promises to be delivered after a five-day protest against the takeover of their plant by a private firm.

Henan's vice Party chief Chen Quanguo and Deputy Governor Shi Jichun, who arrived at the trouble-plagued Linzhou Iron and Steel on Friday, promised earlier next morning to suspend the takeover by Fengbao Iron & Steel Co. Ltd and give each worker a monthly subsidy of 550 yuan (US$80) until production resumes.

Fengbao management was unavailable for comment last Sunday.

On July 24, almost a year after local authorities decided to privatize the firm, Linzhou Steel was sold to Fengbao for 258.9 million yuan, or about 64 million yuan less than the initial bid at auction, without the workers' consent.

Workers and their relatives had been pressing for a suspension of the takeover.

They also demanded higher compensation and the resolution of issues concerning unpaid wages during the restructuring.

After they reached a deal with provincial authorities, demonstrators released Dong Zhangyin, a deputy director of the local State-owned assets supervision and administration (SASAC), about 3 am on Saturday, when the protest ended.

Dong had been sent by Puyang city to oversee the takeover and was held hostage by workers during the protest.

But Linzhou Steel's deputy general manager Cai Xinjie said he had "never learned of the 550 yuan subsidy".

It was the second time in less than a month that protests by workers have stopped the privatization of a Chinese steel plant, as the country tries to overhaul the sprawling industry.

Last month, some workers assaulted and killed an executive who was managing the acquisition of State-owned Tonghua Steel in Jilin province in Northeast China.

A group responsible for the restructuring of Linzhou Iron and Steel was reorganized under the leadership of Sheng Guomin, deputy secretary of Puyang City CPC Committee.

Sheng said: "Our work for the time being will be to extensively solicit workers' opinions on restructuring and the future development path of Linzhou Iron and Steel."

Set up in 1969, Linzhou Steel has 5,122 workers and pensioners on the regular payroll and 2,995 workers on the job. The plant is in Anyang, but au-thorities in Puyang, which was formed from part of Anyang, administer its operations.

The company produces 400,000 tons of pig iron and 100,000 tons of cement a year, and has been China's only production base of low-titanium iron.

The workers insisted the July 24 bidding was "illegal", which would cause severe losses of State-owned assets.

But Cai, deputy general manager of Linzhou Steel, told China Daily the bidding was legal.

"The law says any item that nobody bids for can be sold at no more than 20 percent lower than the initial bid," he said.

But no relevant clause exists in China's auction law.

Restructuring of the plant along commercial lines began in August 2008 under the approval of the government of Puyang and the factory suspended all operations in March, sending all employees home.

Workers had tried unsuccessfully to halt the privatization by blocking traffic twice since March.

They said Fengbao, with only 1,500 available job positions, had a bad reputation for unpaid wages and lack of work insurance. They insisted that Fengbao is just an empty shell and has no right to buy a healthy organization such as Linzhou Steel.

The workers said all Linzhou Steel employees were forced to accept compensation of only 1,090 yuan for each year of service before signing a new contract with Fengbao. ...

On Saturday, the provincial mediation team met with representatives from Linzhou Steel and employees about the privatization. But the workers feel they were still left out of the decision-making process, and demanded future meetings be held with representatives of their own.

The current representatives, they say, are cadres who "can no way" stand for their interests. "We must re-elect workers' representatives," a senior staff said. "Not one among us has ever agreed to privatize or sell off the enterprise."

Xinhua contributed to the story

(3) Stern Hu - China's disrespect for Australia. Kevin Rudd studied under Pierre Ryckmans

{Stern Hu is an Australian citizen; China is treating him as a Chinese national - Peter M.}

Australia Needs to Stand Up for Stern Hu

By Frank Lee Aug 12, 2009

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/20939/

{The Epoch Times is allegedly CIA-funded}

Amid the pressures and turmoil inside China, Beijing has opened up a diplomatic rift with Australia to pursue a policy of intimidation.

Australia came under siege on July 5 with the arrest and detention of Stern Hu, a top executive of mining giant Rio Tinto and three of his colleagues in Shanghai.

In a show of disrespect towards Australia, the Chinese authorities stonewalled consular representations to ascertain details of charges against Mr Hu for two weeks before advising Foreign Minister Stephen Smith that they were focusing on a criminal or judicial investigation relating to the 2009 iron ore negotiation.

As an Australian citizen, the 53-year-old Hu is entitled to one consular visit each month at the Ministry of State Security centre in Shanghai, but he has no access to a lawyer or family.

Fairfax China correspondent, John Garnaut, says that the Chinese President Hu Jintao approved the investigation into Rio Tinto by the Ministry of State Security. Its police have been eyeing the iron ore sector for many years.

Soon there were calls from quasi academics and some media for Australia to adopt a position of appeasement towards this bullying from China. Some wanted Australian mining companies to offer special pricing arrangements to Chinese steel mills during iron ore negotiations. Others were telling the Government to observe China's quite opaque legal system where Hu had been accused of stealing state secrets.

When confronted by aggressive Chinese behaviour any form of concessions would be seen as kowtowing and a loss of respect for government, corporations and the people of Australia. ...

Several developments over the past year or so would have troubled the Chinese leadership before embarking on this crude exercise in intimidation towards Australia.

This year China would have expected much lower prices for minerals from Australia's mining giants -  Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton. However Rio has been playing hardball on iron ore prices. As a counter, China has been using the China Iron and Steel Association to try and control iron ore pricing instead of allowing the 1200 steel mills to negotiate prices.

Last year Kevin Rudd told students at Beijing University it was "necessary to recognise that there are significant human rights issues" in Tibet.

A few days later Hu Jintao replied "The Tibet problem is an entirely internal issue for China."

Just weeks ago an Australian federal parliamentary group led by Michael Danby held a meeting in public with the Dalai Lama for talks about human rights in Tibet.

China's pride and ambition suffered a blow in May after its state-owned Chinalco failed in a bid of $US 19.5 billion to double its stake in Rio Tinto.

Leading mining analysts have described the bid as a creeping takeover of one on Australia's most prized strategic assets.

If over time Rio were to be lost, China's mercantilist trade strategy of ownership, control and pricing of mineral resources around the world would have decimated Australia's BHP Billiton, through pricing in the long run and control the world's richest centre of mineral resources in the vast Pilbara region of Western Australia.

The Chinalco episode was a close run thing for the economy of Australia.

Australia's iron ore export of $18 billion last year is the prime driver of economic growth to sustain the legitimacy and likely the survival of the ruling Communist Party. Outside Australia there is no other source of supply to replace the volume and quality of this precious red dirt.

The Communist regime knows that rising growth above 8 per cent is essential to meet the demands of the impoverished rural population numbering 80 per cent for jobs and a share in the prosperity of people living in the coastal zones.

At home in Australia people will look for a continuing firm and principled response from their political leaders to the Beijing bullies.

After all Kevin Rudd studied Chinese literature under Pierre Ryckmans, one of Australia's finest intellects, who may have told him that the totalitarian nature of the Chinese Communist Party often produces mad dogs for leaders.

Frank Lee was editor of The Clerk national journal Federated Clerks Union of Australia

Last Updated
Aug 12, 2009

Comment (Peter M.): Pierre Ryckmans (Simon Leys) is the Leftist author who broke the spell of Mao by publicising the disaster of China's Cultural Revolution. His perspective is Trotskyist.

(4) Stand up to China? Better not to fan the diplomatic flames - John Garnaut (son of Ross)

Stand up to China? Better not to fan the diplomatic flames

Date: August 24 2009

John Garnaut

http://business.smh.com.au/business/stand-up-to-china-better-not-to-fan-the-diplomatic-flames-20090823-ev1z.html

IN THE days of Maoist China Australia did some silly things with the diplomatic relationship, beginning with the fact that we didn't have one. We've come a long way since being "the cat's paw" and "the running dogs of American imperialism".

We've shed the bestial characteristics and graduated to human form. Better still, we're out in front.

We're leading the world's "anti-Chinese chorus", as the China Daily puts it, a paper known in Beijing as China's diplomatic noticeboard.

And we're "Building a stage for Xinjiang separatist leader", according to a Page One headline at the Global Times, a state-owned tabloid which prints 1.5 million copies a day.

It's would all be rather funny, except that there's not much that Australia can achieve in the world without being on speaking terms with China. In the 37 years between December 1972, when Gough Whitlam opened relations with China, and July 2009, Australia never copped the full colour and breadth of China's diplomatic lexicon.

The reason for the long, boring stretch of productive relations was that China's fits of high dudgeon are entirely predictable and therefore mostly avoidable. Each Australian leader - Whitlam, Fraser, Hawke, Keating, Howard - judged that it was preferable to avoid the tripwires unless there was a good policy reason to do otherwise.

Howard ran into early trouble because he didn't know the terrain. But he quickly learnt and fixed things up.

Dai Bingguo, in charge of foreign affairs in China's State Council (the cabinet), provided a China diplomatic roadmap for the Obama Administration on July 28 at the opening of the China-US strategic and economic dialogue in Washington. He said a healthy US-China relationship depended on mutual respect and "defending our core interests".

The first of China's "core interests" is to "maintain its fundamental system and state security", said Dai. Second is "state sovereignty and territorial integrity". And third: "the continued stable development of the economy and society".

The ordering is important. Economic development is indeed crucial to the Communist Party's self-perceived legitimacy, but it comes last. Confusion and disappointment over investment deals such as Chinalco are irritating but not sufficient to derail the relationship.

Beneath China's "core interests" are a series of well-established diplomatic rules. The concept of democracy is inherently threatening to China's authoritarian system while human rights, by definition, means defending the rights of individuals against the Communist Party. So the legacy of the 1989 Beijing massacre, persecuted Falun Gong practitioners, assorted political dissidents and activists all fall under the category of the "fundamental system and state security".

Tibet and Xinjiang come under the "sovereignty" heading, as do military policies that are threatening to China. And so on.

But Chinese diplomats also provide a series of what lawyers would call escape clauses, which are necessary to ensure China is not perpetually raging Sino-jihad against the whole world.

Foreign leaders, depending on who they are, can raise all of the above proscribed subjects if they do so privately. They can also take a surprising amount of practical measures that would otherwise breach the "core interest" rules, if they do so quietly.

So you can tell President Hu Jintao in private that his Tibet policies stink.

You can provide asylum for political dissidents and let them rail publicly against China, but don't be seen to be agreeing with them.

You can announce a fleet of new submarines - even if you don't really have the means or intention to actually pay for them - but don't go out of your way to advertise the fancy that they are designed to counter China's future naval power.

You can raise the case of an incarcerated business executive repeatedly through every channel and you might even get him out early, but best not do it publicly.

You probably wouldn't bother being the only leader in the world to raise the 1989 massacre on the occasion of its 20th anniversary, because there are more current priorities.

Such are the unwritten rules of China's diplomatic handbook. ...

(5) Visa for Uighur leader: Australia's Opposition rolls over for China's bullies

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25962972-5000117,00.html

Libs roll over for China's bullies

Laurie Oakes

August 22, 2009 12:00am

JOHN Howard famously exploited the people smuggling issue in the 2001 election campaign by proclaiming: "We will decide who comes to this country."

In contrast, Howard's heirs seem to believe a foreign government - a communist government at that - should be able to dictate who visits us.

Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith knew he would offend Beijing when he granted a visa to Rebiya Kadeer - exiled leader of China's Muslim Uighur people - to go to a film festival in Melbourne and address Canberra's National Press Club.

But most Australians would believe the minister did the right thing in letting her visit, despite the temper tantrums it has provoked from China's rulers.

Smith told Parliament: "We understand, respect and recognise freedom of speech. We value the capacity of someone to come to our country and say things, even if we do not agree."

Right on! The decision reflected Australia's democratic values. Smith - backed by Kevin Rudd - refused to be bullied by Beijing into selling out on those values.

Yet Opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman Julie Bishop is bagging him for failing "to work constructively with China regarding the visit".

And Liberal Party elder statesman and Amnesty International badge-wearer Philip Ruddock has declared it "a mistake" to grant the visa.

Fortunately, another senior member of the Coalition, National Party Senate leader Barnaby Joyce, has shown more bottle and national self-respect.

"Look, we are our own sovereign nation," he told Sky News. "And people are allowed to come to our nation as long as they haven't committed a crime as we perceive it.

"We can't have other nations telling us what we can and cannot do. Once you fall into that trap you start on the path to subjugation."

Not for the first time, Joyce is talking more sense than his Liberal colleagues.

The determination not to yield over the Kadeer visa was probably strengthened by lingering anger over the thuggish behaviour of thousands of flag-waving Chinese at the Olympic torch relay in Canberra last year.

That disgraceful display, organised from Beijing, left a definite feeling of "never again" within the Australian Government.

Bishop's criticism was not confined to the Kadeer visa decision. She also blasted Rudd for his speech on human rights delivered in Mandarin at Beijing University in his first prime ministerial visit to China in April last year.

"Australia, like most other countries, recognises China's sovereignty over Tibet," he told the students.

"But we also believe it is necessary to recognise there are significant human rights problems in Tibet. The current situation in Tibet is of concern to Australians.

"As a long-standing friend of China I intend to have a straightforward discussion with China's leaders on this."

Rudd was widely praised for the speech, but now Bishop claims it "needlessly offended China".

She derides his "decision to lecture China about human rights", and says he should have made his criticisms privately at the annual dialogue set up by the Howard government.

This gutless "roll over" approach is being advocated by the deputy leader of a party that only a few months ago was accusing Rudd of being too compliant - sycophantic, in fact - towards Beijing.

Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull was calling the PM a "Manchurian candidate" and "a roving ambassador for the People's Republic of China".

One embarrassed Liberal privately describes the Turnbull-Bishop approach as "our bipolar policy".

Talk to senior diplomats and they will tell you that Rudd takes a hard-eyed, realistic approach to the Chinese because he really does understand them.

Long after Gough Whitlam's historic 1971 visit to Beijing, ahead of president Richard Nixon, Labor politicians had a romantic view of China.

That ended when Rudd became leader. His study of China at university and a diplomatic posting in Beijing left him with no illusions about how hard, uncompromising and determined to get their way the Chinese are. Nor did he have any illusions about their interest in human rights.

Rudd's university thesis - titled "Human Rights" - dealt with dissidents in China in the 1970s and the way they were treated.

It not only analysed the dictatorial nature of the communist regime but pointed out that even in Imperial China the idea of individual rights did not exist.

So when Australian leaders criticise human rights abuses in China they are banging their heads against a brick wall. That does not mean, however, they should ignore the issue, even though the response is predictable.

Even Paul Keating, who prided himself on giving priority to engagement with Asia, got the cold shoulder at an official dinner in Beijing hosted by Chinese premier Li Peng.

As Don Watson describes it in his book Recollections of a Bleeding Heart: "Li Peng suddenly rose. Keating rose. The dinner had come to an abrupt end, apparently when Keating mentioned to his host the matter of human rights."

Like Rudd, Howard went through a time of tension with China early in his prime ministership. His offence was to criticise Chinese military manoeuvres and missile firings near Taiwan.

The situation was exacerbated when Howard ignored Chinese protests and held a meeting with the Dalai Lama.

Over the next decade, though, Howard worked hard at strengthening relations with the Chinese leadership.

Interestingly, George W. Bush's great mate did this partly by distancing his government from some aspects of US policy towards China.

The Howard government supported the lifting of a European embargo on arms sales to China, opposed by Washington. It backed Beijing when the US was demanding changes in China's exchange rate policy.

Howard also had a much softer tone on human rights abuses than the US.

Which brings us back to Julie Bishop. It may be that, in her clumsy way, the foreign affairs spokeswoman is trying to channel Howard from Opposition.

Her comments, though, would have gladdened the hearts of the bully boys in Beijing.

The calm, business-as-usual approach of Rudd and Smith gave no sign the Chinese pressure was working; Bishop's antics sent a contrary message.

Laurie Oakes is the Nine Network's political editor. His column appears every Saturday in the Herald Sun.

(6) We decide who gets visas - Rudd

We decide who gets visas: PM

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25964249-5013871,00.html

Lenore Taylor | August 22, 2009

KEVIN Rudd has decreed his government will never "get a permit slip from another country" before deciding who should receive a visa to enter Australia, as the Coalition made contradictory statements about whether it agreed a visit by Uighur activist Rebiya Kadeer should have been allowed.

In a statement reminiscent of John Howard's "I will determine who comes to this country" pledge on asylum seekers, Mr Rudd said yesterday: "The government I lead is one where Australia makes decisions on who it issues visas to or not. The Liberal Party is now saying that when it comes to Australia's visa policy we've got to get a permit slip from another country, in this case China."

Opposition foreign affairs spokesman and deputy Liberal leader Julie Bishop has accused the Rudd government of "bungling" the issuing of the visa to Ms Kadeer and of "failing to work constructively with China".

She told The Weekend Australian that the Coalition was not criticising the decision to give Ms Kadeer a visa, but rather the way the bilateral relationship had been mishandled.

"The opposition agrees with the granting of the visa to Rebiya Kadeer ... but we would not have let the relationship deteriorate so far ... deteriorate to near crisis point," she said.

Former Howard government immigration minister Philip Ruddock said on Thursday that issuing the visa was "certainly a mistake" but then said yesterday that his comments had been taken out of context. "It cannot be dealt with in a yes-no answer," he told ABC radio.

And Malcolm Turnbull refused to give a view. "Look, I am not going to express an opinion on whether or not a visa should have been given to Rebiya Kadeer and I'll tell you why. It's fine for Philip.

"Philip is very experienced and knows a lot about national security and he can express that view -- but as the Leader of the Opposition I don't want to make this issue a partisan issue.

"The reality is the government and the government alone has access to all of the national security information and advice to make an informed opinion," Mr Turnbull said.

Ms Bishop said last night the Coalition "assumes the government would consider security concerns of other countries as part of its assessment of Australia's national security".

"The question of sensitivities of another country would not be part of a national security assessment. But you would also discuss with China their broader concerns and then make a judgment about that."

Foreign Minister Stephen Smith has said China made its displeasure very clear when Australia issued a visa to Ms Kadeer.

It cancelled a scheduled visit to Australia of Chinese Vice-Foreign Minister He Yafei in protest, but the government stood by the issuing of the visa because it had done all the necessary checks and believed in freedom of speech, Mr Smith said.

Mr Rudd said yesterday that it was many years since there had been an opposition "as prepared to play politics with the Australia-China relationship".

"I think the Australian people would expect better of the Liberals on this question."

(7) Australia's fraught relationship with China - The Economist

http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displayStory.cfm?story_id=14256543

With a little understanding

Aug 19th 2009 | SYDNEY

Australia's fraught relationship with China takes another turn

AFTER Kevin Rudd, Australia's Mandarin-speaking prime minister, came to power in late 2007 the country's relations with China seemed set to take an upward turn. But the much-anticipated love-in has failed to happen. On Tuesday August 18th Australia's government announced that China had cancelled a visit by He Yafei, a foreign-affairs minister, earlier this month. He had been invited to a summit of Pacific island leaders in north Queensland, at which Mr Rudd hoped to discuss his plan for a new Asia-Pacific regional body involving China. Instead China sent a lowlier official.

The snub was the latest setback in a relationship undergoing strains on several fronts. Stephen Smith, Australia's foreign minister, talked of "managing difficulties in the relationship we have with China". Those difficulties increasingly involve a clash between Australia's commercial relations with its biggest trading partner, and China's unhappiness with Canberra's political stance, especially over human rights.

The cancelled ministerial visit was a response to a decision to allow Rebiya Kadeer, the exiled leader of China's ethnic Uighurs, to spend some time in Australia. China has accused Ms Kadeer of helping to incite riots involving Uighur and Han Chinese last month. Yet on Tuesday another Australian minister was in Beijing for the signing of a deal under which China will buy liquefied natural gas worth A$50 billion ($41 billion) from Gorgon, an undeveloped gas field off Western Australia's coast. The deal between PetroChina, a state-controlled company, and ExxonMobil is reckoned to be Australia's biggest ever trade contract by value.

China's increasingly prickly relations with Australia were intensified in May when Mr Rudd unveiled a defence white paper suggesting that China was now Australia's biggest strategic threat. Privately, China regarded the document as largely reflecting America's outlook on the Asia-Pacific region. But China was more obviously upset by what it saw as a threat to its business interests the next month. Rio Tinto walked away from an offer by Chinalco, a state-run aluminium firm, to pay $19.5 billion to double its stake in the Anglo-Australian mining giant. Instead, Rio struck a deal with BHP Billiton, its main competitor, to exploit jointly the vast iron ore deposits of Western Australia's Pilbara region. China has long had an eye on Australia's iron ore, a vital fuel for its industrial expansion.

Australians mainly welcomed the collapse of the Chinalco deal, amid perceptions that China wanted to use its economic power to exert pressure on prices of one of the country's most lucrative resources. Previous smaller deals had also met with tough scrutiny from Australia's foreign-investment watchdog. Scepticism towards China in Australia hardened on July 5th after the detention of Stern Hu, an Australian who heads Rio's iron ore operations in China, and two Chinese colleagues. Initially accused of stealing state secrets, seemingly to help Rio's bargaining position in the annual benchmark pricing negotiations for iron ore prices, Mr Hu was charged (along with some colleagues) this month with the lesser offences of commercial espionage and taking bribes.

Around the same time tensions were building over Ms Kadeer's visit to attend the premiere of an Australian film about her. The Melbourne Film Festival's organisers ignored pressure from Chinese officials to cancel the screening. Instead they moved it to a larger venue after publicity over the row sparked big demand to see it. China reportedly threatened Melbourne's mayor with ending a sister-city relationship with Tianjin. It also unsuccessfully leaned on the National Press Club in Canberra to cancel an invitation to Ms Kadeer to speak there on August 11th.

But as China political pressure was growing China cut a deal with Fortescue Metals, a smaller mining firm, to supply iron ore at a small discount to the benchmark price struck earlier this year with Japan and Korea. In return, China will provide a loan of almost $6 billion to help Fortescue boost production.

The Chinese deal with Fortescue may be more than a counter-attack against Rio and BHP. The Chinese and the two firms have yet to settle on iron ore prices this year. Together with the Gorgon deal, there are hopes that China might be sending a signal that commercial pragmatism will dictate its relations with Australia from here on. Ken Henry, the head of Australia's Treasury, seems optimistic. He rightly notes that China's economy will play an important role in shaping Australia's economic prospects "for some time to come".

The political challenges for Mr Rudd, though, seem more complex. Reflecting his own background as a diplomat in China, he has taken a low-key approach to resolving the affair of Mr Hu. China's recent tough tactics may have done little to reassure Australians about the intentions of their giant trading partner. But an opinion poll published on Monday found that 58% of people approved of Mr Rudd's handling of the China relationship. If Australians are fearful, China probably feels disappointment in finding that Mr Rudd's friendship may be harder to win than it once assumed.

(8) National Endowment for Democracy "funnels CIA money to Dalai Lama"

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6530

"Democratic Imperialism": Tibet, China, and the National Endowment for Democracy

by Michael Barker

Global Research, August 13, 2007

The National Endowment for Democracy: Revisiting the CIA Connection

The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) was established in 1984 with bipartisan support during President Reagan's administration to "foster the infrastructure of democracy – the system of a free press, unions, political parties, universities" around the world.[8] Considering Reagan's well documented misunderstanding of what constitutes democratic governance,[9] it is fitting that Allen Weinstein, the NEDs first acting president, observed that in fact "A lot of what we [the NED] do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA".[10]  ...

'Democacy Promoters' and Tibet

The International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) was founded in 1988 and is a non-profit membership organization with offices in Washington, DC, Amsterdam, Berlin and Brussels. Their website notes that they "fundamentally believe that there must be a political solution based on direct dialogue between the Dalai Lama and his representatives and the People's Republic of China." ICT received their first NED grant (of the 1990s) in 1994 to:

"…enhance Chinese knowledge of Tibet by contributing articles about Tibet to newspapers and magazines within China and abroad; translating books about Tibet into Chinese; and facilitating a series of discussion meetings among key Chinese and Tibetan figures, focusing on bringing Chinese journalists and pro-democracy leaders together with Tibetan leaders in exile."

Since then, the ICT has received regular support from the NED, obtaining subsequent grants in 1997, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2003 (all for media work except the 1997 grant). Like many groups that obtain NED aid, ICT are not afraid to boast of their 'democratic' connections, and in 2005 they even awarded one of their annual Light of Truth awards to the president of the NED, Carl Gershman.  ...

Next up is the Tibet Fund, who first received NED aid in 1990 to "produce audio cassettes that will bring world and Tibetan news into rural communities in Tibet." They then received continued NED support for this work in 1994 and 1996, whereupon the distribution of the audio tapes was extended to Tibetan exile communities in India and Nepal as well as those in Tibet. In 1996, the Tibet Fund also received NED aid on behalf of the Tibet Voice Project, "for an educational initiative based in Dharamsala, India, aimed at raising the social, political, economic and environmental awareness of Tibetans through audio-visual media."  ...

Michael Barker is a doctoral candidate at Griffith University, Australia. He can be reached at Michael.J.Barker@griffith.edu.au

References
[8] Reagan, R. W. "Address to Members of the British Parliament." Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, 8 Jun. 1982. 21 Jun. 2007. <http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1982/60882a.htm>.
[9] Rasmus, J. The War at Home: The Corporate Offensive Against American Workers and Unions from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush. San Ramon, CA: Kyklos Productions, 2006.
[10] Ignatius, D. "Innocence Abroad: The New World of Spyless Coups." The Washington Post, 22 September 1991. ...

(9) National Endowment for Democracy "funnels CIA money to Uighurs"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Uyghur_Congress

The organisation is funded in part by the National Endowment for Democracy or NED, which gives the WUC $215,000 annually for "human rights research and advocacy projects".[19] The National Endowment for Democracy is a U.S. non-profit organization founded in 1983 to promote democracy by providing cash grants funded primarily through an annual allocation from the U.S. Congress.

[edit] Chinese government perspective

The Chinese government has accused the organisation of fomenting unrest in Xinjiang, and added the WUC to its list of terrorist organisations in December 2003.[8] It has labelled the Congress president as a "terrorist" who "conspired with separatists and religious extremists to plan terror attacks."[10] Kadeer rejected the accusations, saying that "anyone who is unhappy with China's harsh rule is a 'separatist'".[10] During the July 2009 Ürümqi riots, the Chinese government said it had intercepted phone calls of overseas Turkestan groups and groups inside the country. The government has also alleged that Kadeer has close ties with the Dalai Lama, accused of inciting unrest in Tibet in 2008, and claimed that WUC president Kadeer said that "something similar should happen in Xinjiang."[20][21] The government newspaper, the People's Daily, attacked the WUC, saying that it was funded by the National Endowment for Democracy, whose main sponsor was US Congress.[22]