A formidable coalition critical of US alliance is forming

Michael Danby, These people want our foreign policy made in China

So Julie Bishop has a Huawei-donated iPad. Dangerous. Dangerous for her and dangerous for Australia if she ever aspires to become Foreign Minister. The iPad alone is but one of the micro details to emerge from Ms Bishop’s visit to China as a guest of the Chinese telco.

Some Liberals led by Julie Bishop together with vested mining interests questioned the Gillard Government’ accepting ASIO’s advice against letting Huawei bid for the National Broadband Network. But the bar on Huawei has wider significance because the controversy it has sparked illuminates the most vexing issue of Australian foreign policy - our relationship with China...

I’m sorry to sound like an unconstructed cold warrior, but I have to ask: Has anyone told Julie Bishop the real nature of the Beijing regime? ...

Despite 30 years of economic reform, the Communist Party has maintained and strengthened the all-powerful Party and State. China is ruled by an interlocking alliance of party, state, military and business elites...

China is still run by a regime whose main priority is the preservation of its own power...

The Huawei episode also highlights the widespread concerns about China’s role in cyber-espionage, both military and commercial...

It’s quite understandable that the mining billionaires Clive Palmer, Andrew Forrest and Gina Rinehart, who fund the Liberal Party to which she belongs, don’t want Australia to do anything that might upset their largest customer. But someone who aspires to be Australia’s Foreign Minister, has to think about our national interest, not just the commercial interest of her party’s paymasters...

Malcolm Turnbull ... like paleo-conservtive editor of the Spectator Tom Switzer and Switzer’s bizarre anti-American columnist Mark Latham all think the relationship with the US has gone too far.

This consensus reaction to China/US tensions is very similar to that of the West Australian mining oligarchs and the arguments of the chief academic advocate of accommodating China, Professor Hugh White...

A formidable coalition critical of the traditional US/Australia alliance and accommodating Beijing is forming. Most surprisingly it is mainly forming on the political right.

File under: coalition of the willing to submit.