China's man in Canberra has unmasked the regime's true face
Peter Hartcher
2 hrs ago
...
Ambassador Cheng Jingye has done Australia a great service. He has taken off the mask.
China's ambassador has shown us the true face of the Chinese government's feeling for Australia.
The Chinese Communist Party for years has been working systematically to undermine Australia's sovereignty. To "take over" our political system, in the words of Australia's former national security adviser and ASIO chief, Duncan Lewis.
...
But the Chinese regime always kept the smiling mask of friendship in place. President Xi Jinping told Australia's Parliament in 2014 that the two countries should "be harmonious neighbours who stick together in both good times and bad times".
Well, the bad times are now upon us, courtesy of the made-in-China pandemic. And what has China's official representative in Canberra done? Ambassador Cheng has openly threatened Australia with trade boycotts.
Why? Because Prime Minister Scott Morrison last week dared to suggest an inquiry into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic. "The Chinese public is frustrated, dismayed and disappointed with what Australia is doing now," Cheng said
in an interview with
The Australian Financial Review's Andrew Tillett, published on Monday.
...
But, to now, the party's functionaries have delivered their threats and pressure tactics in private and coercion has never been declared openly. Now we all see the truth - there is no goodwill, only gangsterism.
Second, "it's a pretty inept piece of
Wolf Warrior diplomacy because he's huffing and puffing after the house has already blown down - China has already done more damage to our economy than any boycotts could," says
Rory Medcalf, head of the ANU's National Security College.
Wolf Warrior was a hugely popular piece of Chinese hypernationalist cinema released in 2017.
And third, Cheng's comments are foolish because an open attempt to intimidate Morrison can only serve to rally Australia around the Prime Minister.
The Foreign Affairs Minister, Marise Payne, coolly rejected "any suggestion that economic coercion is an appropriate response to a call for such an assessment, when what is needed is global co-operation".
...
