"Dad. Says here the Chinese demand Austalians to choose between them or the U.S."
"Tell 'em they're dreamin'."
Posted on 05/23/2012 1:58:05 PM PDT by bananaman22
It is rare in diplomatic circles for governments to speak bluntly, particularly in the Orient, where manners are highly prized.
The exceptions to this rule are retired military officers, who are often able to voice sentiments too impolitic for other channels.
One of the more startling pronouncements in this vein occurred last week when Song Xiaojun, a former senior officer of the People's Liberation Army, warned that Australia cannot juggle its relationships with the United States and China indefinitely and "Australia has to find a godfather sooner or later. Australia always has to depend on somebody else, whether it is to be the 'son' of the US or 'son' of China. (It) depends on who is more powerful, and based on the strategic environment." Noting the rising importance of China as an export market Song added that Australia depended on exporting iron ore to China "to feed itself," but "Frankly, it has not done well politically."
What is also notable about Song’s remarks is that they coincided with Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr's first official visit to China, where Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi urged Australia to dismiss its alliance with the United States, a decades-old bipartisan and central pillar of the nation’s foreign policy, as ''the time for Cold War alliances has passed.'' Full article at: China Warns Australia to Choose Godfather - China or US
Actually, Chiang was a pretty sharp operator. He had almost finished off the Communists, despite major Soviet assistance to Mao, when the Japanese invaded. Then the bulk of his military efforts had to be diverted towards fighting the Japanese - according to Imperial Japanese records, over 90% of Chinese military casualties during the Sino-Japanese War was incurred by the Nationalists. The Communists spent that time recuperating and recruiting while studiously avoiding any major engagements with the Japanese.
My guess is that the Nationalist forces were probably suffering from a very bad case of post-traumatic stress by the time WWII ended, whereas the Communists were well-rested. The end of WWII also saw the Communists resupplied with huge amounts of WWII-surplus American Lend Lease equipment that the Soviets handed over to Mao.
Chiang sent troops to defend the Northeast based on his belief that the Soviets were not providing logistical support to the Communists. He was wrong and thereby lost the cream of his Nationalist forces. Chiang was also hobbled by the fact that in Communism, he was fighting an organized religion that promised, as opiate for the masses, paradise on earth, and gave its high priests, the commissars, the pretext and authority to execute anyone who merely disagreed with them. Meanwhile, Chiang's forces and supposed subordinates were in fact a coalition of independent military commanders with their own sources of funding and supplies.
Finally, at a key moment in the struggle for China, Congress ended financial aid to Nationalist Chinese forces, thereby sending 100,000 GI's to their deaths during the Korean and Vietnam Wars, neither of which would have occurred had China not turned Communist. A recent book entitled "The Generalissimo" examines Chiang's life and a lot of the reasons that the Communists won, using material from Imperial Japanese and declassified Soviet archives. It demolishes a lot of the conventional wisdom about Chiang. I highly recommend it.
The left is a powerful force in Australia, certainly. But even Australian communists wanted European style communism, not Asian style.
This country will never accept any sort of voluntary domination by any Asian power. We are culturally of European stock, and without racism being at all relevant, we like the institutions we inherited - as America did - from the west.
As for being in China's neighbourhood - geographically Australia is about as close to China as the US is to Europe. Centre a globe on Canberra, or Sydney, or Melbourne and you can't even see China. Australia does consider some south east Asian nations to be neighbours but certainly not China.
Sad. I really feel sorry for the Aussies. Up until 3-and-a-half years ago, this “choice” would have been a no-brainer for them. Now, thanks to the Kenyan-in-chief...not so much.
One further comment after a bit of reflection.
Another big reason Australia would never choose China over the US is that the US treats Australia as an equal. China never would. We’ve done our time as colonies. We’re not going back to that.
The bottom lines is in the headline ‘China Warns Australia - Choose Between us or the United States’.
The United States would never demand we make a choice like that. If we chose to cut ties with America, then America would accept that (unless we somehow became a threat to America or Americans). We have a voluntary relationship with the US based on mutual advantage, support, and respect. That’s the only type of relationship with another nation we want.
Very well spoken.
I find that a little airey-fairey. Take it for what it's worth, but my view is that the seeds of Albion will always hang together, bound as they are by ties of blood, culture and language. I believe the ABCA group is way more tightly-bound than NATO even though it's not a formal alliance.
Salve
Agree, though problem was there were so many disagreements. One Chiang had to deal with serious problem going back to 1920’s of China economy, as well growing threats on boths sides: Mao communist activist as well people in serious trouble of economical situation.
Japan decided to go and take Manchuria, which has enormous natural resource, even after capitulation of Japan, Zukov forces where moving there for fallowing week, Stalin was a imperialist, and decided that US has no stomach to fight.
Problem with China was, there were great fighters on Chiang side, but Mao new he has backing of Stalin. In 1945 fights, majority of people were so tired of fighting, they just gave up, in not all the way
Japan invasion was nothing else but imploding communist in China, it was a nothing else but absolute murder of thousands of innocent people, which Mao enhanced much more, he make Stalin look like a kid.
China could be and I think it is in heart a very democratic country of people, but loyalty in Chinese is first. What scares the communist is people speaking up, they will crush this, but one day, they will meet faith of Romanian guy who though same way. Stalin got poison by Beria, he was preparing for war, it was not coincidence he died in 1953.
Merci
Since the Second World War, Australia has gone to war in support of the United States in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and twice in the Gulf (I don't count Korea as that was technically a UN operation). In none of these cases was Australia attacked or under direct threat. We went to war to support US interventions - we expect that if we ever need it, the US will support us - and on the few occasions, we've asked (most notably in East Timor) the US has supported us.
The Chinese population is more than 1.3 billion, while there are a total of just under 23 million Australians, a population less than 2% of the size of China’s.
The Commonwealth of Nations (the current name for what was the British Commonwealth), just for the record, has a combined population of over 2 billion people - just for the record, seeing they've been mentioned. A lot of that is in India - it is still a Commonwealth nation - and if China was a threat to Australia, they'd almost certainly be a threat to India as well.
.....
The Queen’s speech to open parliament has become a sheer disgrace as an homage to leftist causes, with a monarch effectively sputtering the thing as if held hostage; I can find no other explanation as the Queen obviously is learned in tradition and history, is quite intelligent and of wonderful character. IMHO, she long ago simply saw the handwriting on the wall as British monarchs increasingly have since Queen Victoria. I do not fault the Queen but the subjects for their rejection of Christ and God’s Law; the groundwork for today’s dismal situation was laid by some leaders of European and American society going back to the 1800’s.
The Queen is a constitutional Monarch and she treats the British Constitution with reverential respect. Her speech to Parliament reflects that - it is written by the government of the day, and she is constitutionally required to present it as written. That is her constitutional role. The Queen does have powers to be used in emergency situations - but as long as a democratically elected Parliament remains within its constitutional parameters, she can not use those powers. And so far that is the case.
And for the record, she is legally speaking a hostage. That is how it actually works. Today it is mostly symbolic, but when the Queen attends the State Opening of Parliament, she is placing herself in their hands - and Parliament is required to place a Member of the House of Commons in her hands to guarantee her safety - a Member of Parliament is sent to Buckingham Palace as a hostage and held under guard. Parliament decapitated the last Monarch who tried to exceed their constitutional authority by forcing their will on Parliament in a way that they should not.
In the end, though, when the Aussies return a proper government to power, blood will prove thicker than Yuan.
"Dad. Says here the Chinese demand Austalians to choose between them or the U.S."
"Tell 'em they're dreamin'."
Salve
Roosevelt, Truman were politicians without knowledge of geopolitics, , as were majority of politicians in England and United States.(Sounds familiar with today) After Japan, all they had to do , is reinforce Chiang and his army, go in Sun Tzu warfare style, go low hit hard, no, for political agreements were done like in Easter Europe, Yalta, you know send millions of innocent people to death so Britain can have Greece, wow, now pay back is coming back.
Don’t let idiots run show business or it will show you who looser is.
You will not read this in Western Books, they like talking about their victories, but no one wants to talk of millions who were put to gulags, and death because of their policies.
Merci
Australia’s Left is much like America’s, they despise everyone in flyover country. Now, if we were talking about New Zealand, I’m sure they’d accept China before us.
Excellent point.
chicom bump
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