Posted on 11/26/2007 8:34:39 AM PST by charles m
Washington will undoubtedly be watching Australia’s relations with China under Mr. Rudd, who was once a diplomat in Beijing and speaks fluent Mandarin. When President Hu Jintao of China was in Australia in September, Mr. Rudd spoke to him in Chinese.
But with China a huge buyer of Australian resources, Australia had already been moving closer to Beijing. Under Mr. Howard, President Hu was the first nondemocratic leader to address the Australian Parliament.
A looming source of friction between the United States and Australia is over Australia’s uranium policy; Australia has some of the largest uranium deposits in the world. The Bush administration has been pushing Congress to allow the transfer of nuclear technology and fuel to India, which was halted during the Clinton administration. Mr. Howard’s government said it would sell uranium to India.
But the Labor Party, which was a leader in the world antinuclear movement in the 1970s, opposed the sale, and has said it will not sell uranium to any country that has not signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which India has not.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
It seems almost as if there’s a chunk of anti-americanism that circulates around the world, stopping for a while, them moving on. First France and Germany, under Schroder and Chirac, were venomously anti-american, and Australia a reliable ally. Now the big reversal. Go figure. Australia seems poised now to become the new France.
Foster's Lager swilling surrender kangaroos?
It’s too bad because Australia under Mr. Howard had been a staunch ally in the War on Terror. I fear that the new regime jusf won’t get it till Al Quaeda starts crashing planes into their office buildings.
The Old Grey Whore continues to stir the pot.
The WOT is already close to Australia now.
Indonesia has a radical Muslim element to it. Witness the Bali bombings a few years ago.
Australia will see more of the WOT in a much closer and unfortunate manner as time goes by.
Very true. But there are some who believe that negotiation and capitulation will prevent such atrocities on their soil. Look at Spain. So far so good for that country since it pulled out of the war, but I would not trust these terrorists to spare Spain again. And that’s what a lot of these countries don’t understand. This is not an enemy you can deal with, except by force.
Never happen until Al Quaeda conquers the majority of the Countries on the Earth. Then hell will rain and those that gave in to the head chopping radicals will get their due. Any Country that cozies up to Al Quaeda will be considered by that radical insane nuts as weak and not worth saving from exterminating.
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