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Phil Pryor

There was a time when the powerful could charge and be aggressive to maintain momentum, or they might relax and use position to be diplomatic, even civilised. Today, a naked irritablity and fear of being lapped threatens us all as the drives are blind and  rhino-. Elections reflect corrupt and perverted popularity, re-inforce stupidity, magnify  failure. Fear this. The nations of egotistical idiots, e g, Trump, Johnson, Bolsonaro, Putin, Modi are world leaders in cases and deaths of the virus plague, covid-19. Egotistical overconfident stupidity has led to inadequate and late action. People die of this low politics.

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Folks

Do take a look at the Featured Video near the top of the page for more details of the rise to power of Xi Jinping.

TalkTurkey

To my mind, 'Australia' is unto a Chihuahua yapping at the feet of a Sumo wrestler.

A flick of his toe has already left it winded and yelping. 'China' could kick it over the neighbour's roof if he wanted ..

? Why the quote marks? - Because of course it's not landmasses nor nations nor The People who make the decisions, it's those in power.                 

But who owns that little dog anyway? ..                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Oh look at its collar, all red white and blue with stars and stripes!

The Australian Government in its wisdom decided to suck up to Trump by blaming China for the "China Virus" and demanding an inquiry skewed to achieve condemnation of it. Chinese people are intensely sensitive to slights and insults, they hate losing face, and their diplomatic responses are generally nuanced and proportionate. Furthermore they are consummate businesspeople. It is now convenient for China to use Australia as its proxy for the US. We are a soft target, China can smack our economy almost without raising a sweat, and given our yapping, it is no wonder that they have taken action to express their attitude. Given the disparity in size between Us and Them, it may be seen as bullying I suppose, but I tend to view it as deserved and appropriate. China has now agreed to a full but less biased investigation of all matters Covid, but that too is unsurprising given their generally rational attitude to the pandemic. - eg they ALL wore masks for weeks, and got on top of it fast once they had identified the problem. Australia's agenda was to blame China for the very existence of the virus - which all virologists have dismissed as ridiculous and near-impossible - just to please Trump. The rest of the world, China included, just want to learn all they can about pandemics.

I think back to the way the West has treated Asians over most of history, and I don't find it hard to understand that deep-seated resentment may be part of the motivation for China's present actions against the Australian Government. I think those actions are pretty normal as a means of expressing disapproval. In 1973 Australia under Gough Whitlam was first nation in the West to have formally opened diplomatic relations with "Red" China, and while Labor Governments have been in power, relations between our countries has been excellent. But these bumbling bent RW bastards have soured those relations, to our loss.  

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Talk Turkey

I take your points.

You last paragraph reminds me of the "100 years of humiliation" that the Chinese administration talks of over and again.

Desmond Maddalena

A bully is defined as someone who habitually seeks to harm or intimidate those who they perceive as vulnerable. So is China a bully you ask, then use some examples. The barley sales incident. The Covid-19 incident. You might well have used the Huawei incident as well. If we look closely we notice that China was responding to aggressive statements from Australia's PM who is well known as a Trumpite sycophant. Asians are sensitive to loss of face and will generally react negatively when abused. China has done this after being goaded by Trump Pacific Ocean terrier, our PM. To call China a bully after it has been verbally assaulted by our PM is quite ridiculous. Let's be honest, the USA is in a trade war with China. While this is happening Australia sits on a political fence. One third of our national trade is with China and about one twentieth with USA. From a trade perspective we should be backing China all the way. However, we feel very vulnerable in Australia since WW2 when the Japanese bombed Darwin. We cling onto the ANZUS treaty with the delusion that the USA will defend us from all the evil Asians. Would they? Could they? Remember our previous protectors the UK during WW2 deserted us while our armies were in their country defending them. Do you know a large part of our wartime debt was the pay the UK for accommodation of our troops defending them? The real world bully is the USA. It puts unilateral sanctions not only on a wide variety of countries but on corporations and even citizens when they do anything that the USA considers a threat to their world-looting economy. The USA has also put sanctions on Australia. These sanctions sound the work of a bully. Australia needs to seriously resist rubbing our biggest trading partner the wrong way to show how brave we are to Trump's psychotic empire as Aussie jobs and our whole economy is on the line by our PM's rash behavior.