Paul Keating attacks media for ‘pious belchings’ over China
Paul Keating has slammed local media for its reporting on China in a speech this week. Michelle Grattan recaps Keating's comments and explains the issues in this crossposting from The Conversation.
Former prime minister Paul Keating has launched a scathing attack on the Australian media for its coverage of China, denouncing “the nominally pious belchings of ‘do-gooder’ journalists” who live on leaks from security agencies.
Keating told the Australian newspaper’s strategic forum on Monday: “The Australian media has been recreant in its duty to the public in failing to present a balanced picture of the rise, legitimacy and importance of China”.
Instead it preferred “to traffic in side plays dressed up with cosmetics of sedition and risk”.
His attack comes amid debate about China’s refusal of visas to two members of federal parliament, Andrew Hastie and senator James Paterson, who have been strong critics of the Beijing’s regime.
Current relations between the Chinese and Australian governments have been strained for some time, with a range of tension points, including the issue of Chinese interference in Australian politics and universities and the government’s response.
In his speech Keating once again had in his sights what he sees as the sway of security agencies in foreign policy especially on China, a point he made forcefully before the election.
“What passes for the foreign policy of Australia lacks any sense of strategic realism,” he said. “The whispered word ‘communism’ of old, is now being replaced with the word ‘China’.
“The reason we have ministries and cabinets is that a greater and collective wisdom can be brought to bear on complex topics – and particularly on movements of tectonic importance.
“This process is not working in Australia, ” he said.
“The subtleties of foreign policy and the elasticity of diplomacy are being supplanted by the phobias of a group of national security agencies which are now effectively running the foreign policy of the country.
“And the media has been up to its ears in it.”
He targeted particularly The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age for their China coverage.
“Drops to journalists by the [security] agencies about another ‘seditious’ publication in a particular university or the hijinks of another Chinese entrepreneur is passed off as the evil bearing of the Chinese State.”
He said he did not know how Scott Morrison and the government permitted this state of affairs.
Keating said big states were “rude and nasty,” and referenced instances of American behaviour. “But that does not mean we can afford not to deal with them – whether it be the United States or China”.
“It is the national interest and its long run trajectory which should guide our hand and not the nominally pious belchings of ‘do-gooder’ journalists who themselves live on leaks of agencies unfit to divine a national pathway.
“Organisations which lack comprehension as to magnitude or moment or the subtleties and demands of a dynamic international landscape.”
Keating said it was in Asia’s interests, including Australia’s interests, that the US remain engaged in the region.
“Closer US political and commercial links with the countries of the region should help establish a web of self-reinforcing, cooperative ties which over time, should assuage Chinese concerns that a structure is being built with the express purpose of Chinese strategic containment.
“Indeed, such a cooperative structure should encourage China to participate in the region rather than seek to dominate it.
“We want a region which gives China the space to participate but not dominate.
“Australia, for its part, should be actively involved in the development of such structures, while being wary of being caught up in a policy by the United States, should the United States come to the conclusion, that the rise of China is broadly incompatible with its strategic interests.”
Keating said President Trump had no appetite for a military skirmish with China – which was good news – but he would not be setting a new international model.
“At the moment the current model is in serious decline. Global institutions are crumbling. Look at the WTO. The global system is under stress.
“And regional institutions are being marginalised into the bargain. For instance, the President did not attend the recent East Asia Summit. He did not even direct his Secretary of State to attend,” he said.
“On the broader point, whether the United States can assume it retains strategic guarantor status in East Asia is open to debate.
“What is not debatable is that we need the US as the balancing and conciliating power in the region.”
Keating said after this presidency the US would not return to being the state it was, regardless of whether the next president was Republican or a Democrat.
Not only was the US withdrawing from Asian arrangements – it was doing the same in Europe.
Australia would be left in the “deep blue sea” dealing with the great powers of the US and China over the next 30 years.
Unfortunately debate in Australia about China had degenerated, with two propositions contributing to this, Keating said. One was the unstated assumption that somehow China’s rise was illegitimate; the other was China was not a democracy. He dismissed the accuracy of the first and the relevance of the second.
China would be – was now – the predominant economic power in Asia.
“That position will not be usurped by a non-Asian power, either economic or military.
“How does Australia respond to this?
“Is it to help divine and construct a set of arrangements which engages China but which also prevents China from dominating the region?
“Or do we seek to insulate or remove ourselves from this enormous shift in world economic power, by allowing our singular focus on the United States and our alliance with it to mark out our international personality?”
Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Keating has taken a commercial interest in China relations. He’s simply an advocate, paid.
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Regardless @Cred, he still has more vision and leadership in his little finger than No-Mo and his Backers
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Advocacy from PK is just what the PRC deserves.
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From the guy that wanted to “bring Australia kicking and screaming into Asia” and is well known not to have a patriotic bone in his body.
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Well what else would he say he is been payed by the communist party in Beijing ‘ and we all know how easy it is for Australia politicians to be bought in Australia This Man has no patriotism for Australia has started that he did not believe in the ANZAC because it was instigated by the English, also does not Believe in the ANZAS treaty because it goes against his ideology expects the media not to criticise Beijing! Is anti American saying Secretary Pompeo was Rodney Rude this man is a communist sympathiser and is a danger to our Democracy not caring about human rights or torture of people in Tibet ! Or HK or re education camps where people are been forcibly been removed from community’s to camp I am ashamed that this person represents Australia in any way he is unconscionable
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So the almighty dollar takes presidents over human rights? dollar rules !what about the people in HK trying to protect there freedom ?or people in Tibet who are been locked up just for there religion,? and the this all happened before history repeats itself !evil happens when good people stand by and do nothing !Did Chamberlin stop the war by going over and appeasing Hitler ?we have a dictator in China don’t forget ? No standing back and saying nothing about human rights will change nothing
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Keating isn’t advocating for the domination of China over the rest of the world, he’s advocating for us to see it’s power for what it is and to take thoughtful and responsible action in shaping and moderating its impact on the world as it grows. If Keating was a ‘PRC Plant’ as you say, it would be in his best interest to advocate us following the U.S in refusing to accept that China’s power exists. Simply, because that means China can do whatever the f*ck it pleases with APAC without interference and while continuing it’s rapid growth into a deeply unforgiving power who – as we can clearly see don’t give a fuck about the environmental, democratic or humanitarian values we share here – would happily see us annexed.
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