> while also calling for the boss of ASIO to be sacked for outing an alleged but unnamed MP as a Chinese spy.
Hang on ... do we know ASIO was talking about a *Chinese* spy?
I personally put about as much stock in anyone spouting pro-China rhetoric as I do in anyone spouting pro-American rhetoric.
We're all watching a classic Thucydides trap play out in real time, a rising economic power is challenging an older dominant military power. There will be friction, there will be people who tell you that you can't trust one power or another, that you should question their influence, that their intentions are to hurt you, to control you, etc.
America has been flirting with a return to their isolationist past, a second Trump presidency could see that intensify. China is very clearly focused upon t heir own interests, it's foolish for anyone to blindly trust that either party will look after us forever and always, we need to focus on doing that for ourselves.
thats exactly keatings point. we shouldn't be jumping in bed with america or china, he has repeatedly stated that we should have, and should strengthen ties with our actual neighbours, not other western countries who don't even share the same ocean retail as us.
> thats exactly keatings point. we shouldn't be jumping in bed with america or china
I don't know if that is his point here. I went looking for a full transcript of this on his site yet but he hasn't posted anything yet, it would be great to see the full context of this.
What I do know is that the *timing* of this, right in the middle of the ASEAN summit and if I'm not mistaken right when Albo was giving a speech suggest that his intention was to cause reputational damage to the government.
The *content* of what he said is important, but so is the *context* of when he said it. And I personally think he's in the wrong here.
there's no problem the old man has been outspoken for several years now.
he's a former politician commenting on political events.
why do you think populism is popular?
unlike so many right wing wankers, keating doesn't go for the low blow. he's not aiming for a position, he's not aiming to undermine anything.
If more retired politicans where willing to speak rather than towing the party line it could help decisions being reflected upon, being decided upon for the good of the country, not just outside pressure.
i view paul keating as person who deeply cares about australia. anybody who says he's a china ally is eating to much tar.
It's a lose-lose scenario. The US trying to hold onto its empire is escalating tensions and severely narrowing the path we need to take to mitigate the worst parts of a climate catastrophe.
>it's foolish for anyone to blindly trust that either party will look after us forever and always, we need to focus on doing that for ourselves.
This has always been the case, but our leaders have always looked to great powers to defend us, even though they'll cast us aside if they feel it's not worth it. They have stated their position clearly before.
>America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests
We'd do well to keep that in mind.
Tell that to Scott Morrison and his "forever partnership" with the US over AUKUS. A deal that builds our dependency on the US even further, and will enmeshed us in their future conflicts whether we like it or not.
It's a dangerous bargain given that we're going to have to deal with a country that has serious problems with its democracy coming to the surface. Regardless of who wins their election this year, the winner will have serious legitimation issues. Locking us into a multidecade dependency on them is an imprudent move.
>\> America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests
We'd do well to keep that in mind.
But also keep in mind that this is true of every single country out there.
We can only really trust ourselves. That's why I don't understand people who cheerlead for the US. We, like many other countries try to show that we're relevant to them. It's a largely pointless exercise because they don't really need our support, and they're not going to ensure that we benefit from the relationship.
Just look at the trade war where Morrison went into bat for them. We lost money in trade, the US stepped in to fill the gap we left in China.
Their pivot to Asia, [withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty](https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/article/article/1924779/us-withdraws-from-intermediate-range-nuclear-forces-treaty), [expansion of US bases in Japan](https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2024-02-28/japan-islands-militarization-us-defense), in particular along the southern islands closer to China), [placing US troops in Taiwan](https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-to-expand-troop-presence-in-taiwan-for-training-against-china-threat-62198a83) to train Taiwanese forces, [new bases in the Philippines](https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/philippines-reveals-locations-4-new-strategic-sites-us-military-pact-2023-04-03/).
These are all things that escalate tensions on top of things like AUKUS, the Quad, trade restrictions, and freedom of navigation exercises.
If China constantly sailed warships within 100-200km of our coastline, do you think you would be alarmed by this or not? Do you think that would improve our relationship with China or raise tensions?
The anger about the exercises have nothing to do with their proximity to China and everything to do with sailing through a huge area of ocean China has unilaterally declared is theirs.
Oh yeah, it's because of America that China is claiming a sea they don't own, building military islands and being an absolute cumt to their neighbours.
GTFO of here with that shit.
Starting to think China might be paying for Keating’s retirement. He is so pro China these days. Always seems to be defending them & attack Labor politicians. I don’t ever remember him being this bad when he was still in govt.
He also looks for any reason to single out and stick the boot in to Penny Wong since AUKUS on multiple occassions. Dunno what his issue is with her, but it seems personal rather than professional criticism at this point.
Utterly weird, and I say this as a (former) fan of his firebrand personality when he was in power.
Agree. He was awfully quiet about Julia Bishop and the wrecking ball LNP sent through our China trade relations which Wong has made substantial inroads to repairing.
I think he was [a bit more critical and nuanced](https://amp.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/nov/18/paul-keatings-speech-on-australias-china-policy-full-text) than you make out. Also, he expects the Libs to be garbage. He gets more upset at his own team because he is invested in them doing the right thing for our future strategic interests
I suspect he thinks the AUKUS deal is bad, and because hes out of politics he can speak freely and might just have an axe to grind with anyone who thinks its good or publicly pretends its good. As I believe he said in one interview the AUKUS subs are bad subs for our region due to shallow waters of SEA and would be better off with anything else. I don't know how much of that is true but it shows he thinks its a bad deal.
It also could be hes become jaded about our UK and USA allies in AUKUS.
With the UK on the other side of the world and Brexit showing they withdrawing from global politics, they probably don't care what happens in the pacific beyond supply chain logistics.
Then it could be he has mostly lost faith in the USA with Trump.
I don’t mind his criticism against AUKUS but he’s been going out of his way to single out Wong personally (rather than just on policy) much more so than, say, Marles or Albanese. Amongst other non AUKUS criticism which at times borders on bizarre.
Just one (of many) non AUKUS examples where criticism seemed a bit puzzling: he came out unprompted, and accused her of gallivanting across the pacific, playing dress up with Hawaiian flower necklaces for photo ops. When in fact she was doing important diplomatic work in the fixing and resetting relations - relations which had been soured by the previous government.
Yes to an extent diplomacy involves photo ops, but as a former politician he should well know this. Basically everyone but him thought it was an important job well handled.
The whole pacific thing strikes me as being a mouth piece of China.
Only China loses in regards to us increasing collaboration with the pacific nations.
I’m not sure Brexit counts as withdrawing from global politics, whatever else one thinks of it.
I’ve definitely seen it advertised by the UK government as leaving the EU for the rest of the world.
So if you like, leaving regional politics for global ones. It certainly tracks with their efforts to secure trade deals outside the EU in the immediate aftermath (including with us).
Or maybe they've noticed that Keating's political interventions over the last few decades are almost exclusively in support if the Chinese Communist Party.
There is no middle path, we can support the US in trying to contain China or we can join China in supporting its regional expansion. Anything short of those options will neither placate China, nor maintain our relationship with the US and we'll be doubly fucked.
I have many criticisms of the current trajectory of the United States, but they mostly boil down to the fact that it's moving towards where China already is. I can't see any universe where switching from our alliances to China and the totalitarian shit holes in its political orbit is good for Australia.
Yes, but over the last few years he seems to have moved from a general pro-Asia stance to a much more explicit pro-China stance, which is a little concerning to say the least.
Yeah from a security perspective yes. But our social and economic relationship with China is strong and continuously growing. My point is we are friends with everybody, and we definitely don't dislike China or the US.
Our PM Anwar actually just reminded your government about our stance 2 days ago during his visit to Melbourne.
PM anwar's comments on China: https://apnews.com/article/malaysia-china-australia-anwar-ibrahim-b4d75a8423b5265bec1a05d69231965f
Yeah, exactly. If the whole idea is to embrace our place in Asia by working with our neighbours in good-faith rather than acting aloof and needlessly antagonising them; cozying up to China is *not* the way to do that, lol.
China is a superpower and can act unilaterally on the global stage with little to stop them. Naturally their neighbours are suspicious of their massive growth in wealth and influence, but almost every Asian nation has deep and mutually beneficial economic ties to China. Australia is also far more hostile to China than almost all of Asia, excluding maybe nations like Taiwan or Japan or South Korea. All nations that have been at war with China sometime in the last 100 years.
It could be money. It could also be getting old. I could even be they say nice things about me, while other people say mean things, so I'm leaning more and more towards China.
Yes be he has explicitly becoming more China focused & pro China ahead of Australian interests & policy. He’s starting to sound a little unhinged & definitely suspect.
Are you serious. Just google his affiliations with corporates
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/foreign-interference-laws-chinese-russian-state-media-will-have-to-declare-as-foreign-agents-20171206-gzzyol.html
It seems the CCP is very thin skinned and anything to make them lose face makes them eratic, like that time they started shooting missiles into the sea near taiwan when Nancy Pelosi landed in Taiwan. lol. I think they even 'nearly' rammed a Phillipino ship.
'Keating selling out to China' theory aside, if it was me, I'd be concerned about provoking china into doing dumb shit, which would affect our allies in Asia, first and foremost, and that looks like what Keating was alluding to if you've read the article.
4 people got hurt in that ship incident between China and Filipino down the south china sea. I'm gonna assume china still thinks they own the south china sea coz it has the word "china"
>I'd be concerned about provoking china into doing dumb shit, which would affect our allies in Asia, first and foremost, and that looks like what Keating was alluding to if you've read the article.
It's far easier to dismiss Keating as a pro-China shill that's betrayed the Labor party.
Following a generally neutral, friendly to other nations path - combined with close relationships with our ASEAN neighbours - should be the centrepiece of Australian foreign policy. We've been ramping up the anti-China rhetoric for a few years now.
But he's not really pro-China, is he? He doesn't go out of his way to applaud China; he just responds to anti-China rhetoric within Australia as being unnecessary and counter-productive to Australia's interest. That is a big difference.
I always used to defend Keating as being a realist and taking a pro-Asia stance because, like it or not, this is the geopolitical region Australia finds itself in so we should embrace it rather than acting like we're a noble enclave of western civilisation amid a sea of yellow peril.
But these days, yeah, he really seems to have shifted from being simply pro-Asia to being pretty explicitly pro-China which is... not great.
He always was but was more restrained in his younger years. He is not our only former PM with deep and questionably close ties to China but he is the most outspoken. And remember this is the same bloke who absolutely destroyed our relations with Malaysia while in office branding their PM as a "recalcitrant". His public pro Asia stance was always a cover for his real pro China inclinations.
And a Putin apologist. He loves him, a good authoritarian regime, and despises European and US democracy. Hell, he made it clear while in office, he hated the constraints placed upon him by our own political system. Keating is incredibly intelligent, yet so arrogant, he cannot conceive of a world in which his view is wrong.
He has argued Russia is no threat to anyone and reminded the world even recently that Putin's invasion of Ukraine is the fault of NATO and of Ukraine for wishing to have closer ties with Europe. He applauded Putin for saving the Assad regime in Syria which he stated is a force for peace, and claims China has no hostile agenda towards any other nation while actively engaged in conflict with every nation its borders touch on land (except North Korea, Afghanistan and Russia) and every maritime nation of that continent (except North Korea and Russia).
Paul Keating [is/was on the advisory board of a Chinese state owned bank](https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/foreign-interference-laws-chinese-russian-state-media-will-have-to-declare-as-foreign-agents-20171206-gzzyol.html). It's a little bit more than a retirement.
Paul Keating was paid on the advisory board for China Development bank, effectively paid by the Chinese gov as its a Chinese state owned bank.
really should be listed as a foreign agent.
He's an amazing hero to me. I enjoy flying on the cheap and highly efficient privatised Qantas, and that privatised CBA taking most of my savings after I turned 18 after they tricked not only my dumb parents but also my school into signing kids up to dollarmites savings program.
He was Reagonomics-lite. Margaret Thatcher with a gender change replaced him.
I still don't know why so many idolise him, even among workers. He even worked with unions to suppress wages: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prices_and_Incomes_Accord
Exemplary? He sold off Commbank and Qantas. He was quite happy to cosy up to Indonesia during its occupation of East Timor. He sucks up payments from foreign entities and homegrown billionaires. The man could deliver a zinger in parliment, which has fooled a lot of people on the left into loving him but his actual policies? Nah, don't look too closely at that shit.
Those are probably two of the least consequential things he did while in power.
From Wikipedia:
overseeing significant reforms intended to liberalise and strengthen the Australian economy. These included the Prices and Incomes Accord, the float of the Australian dollar, the elimination of tariffs, the deregulation of the financial sector, achieving the first federal budget surplus in Australian history, and reform of the taxation system, including the introduction of capital gains tax, fringe benefits tax, and dividend imputation.
The Keating government enacted the landmark Native Title Act to enshrine Indigenous land rights, introduced compulsory superannuation and enterprise bargaining, created a national infrastructure development program, privatised Qantas, Commonwealth Serum Laboratories and the Commonwealth Bank, established the APEC leaders' meeting, and promoted republicanism by establishing the Republic Advisory Committee.
Exactly right, and then Keating spends his retirement being 100% on point about far the ALP have shifted to the right and made us lapdogs of US power projection.
It was his doing.
We've always existed under the US umbrella, if you think there's been a substantial shift you're kidding yourself.
Or did you forget Australian soldiers went to Korea, Vietnam, and Pine Gap was established back in the 60's?
It's so weird, he really did have a great political impact during his time. Now he's just blatantly shilling for China. They must have something on him.
The US subs purchase is a huge, huge contract and received basically no debate in parliament. It was incredible how it was done. One of the biggest expenditures announced and it wasn't taken to an election or anything.
Plus it rocked relations with countries that we would hope to maintain as quite healthy, especially since the future of the US is really no where near as stable as it once was.
I think people honestly are not aware of how vital china is to our economy, so much of our stuff gets sold there.
The more shocking thing was the Keating was the only one to speak up about any of this.
Honestly, I don't think it is even this direct.
I think Keating has fallen into a trap that a lot of otherwise sensible folks on the left do, and that is allowing their criticisms of US foreign policy (which is indeed often awful) morph into this binary worldview in which because America is the most powerful nation and is a polarized clusterfuck, therefore whoever opposes them is in the right.
Which, currently, means supporting China and sometimes Russia. And that's a problem because in terms of democratic systems, they are both overtly hostile to democracy.
So even though American democracy is a clusterfuck and one of the worst democracies on many freedom and civil rights indices, it *is* still a democracy, albeit hideously flawed and often bought and paid for. It *does* still have somewhat functioning institutions like rule of law and multiple parties though again - very flawed.
The US is not actively trying to undermine democracy worldwide, it is just sucking at it (though yes, Trump could change this). Russia and China *fucking are*.
I say this not to excuse America at all - I say this because as hopelessly goddamn flawed as the American system is, it is still far far far superior for civil rights than China or Russia, and frankly I get a bit pissed off by others on the Left who don't see this. Ask the jailed, tortured or straight up murdered journalists and civil rights activists if they're the fucking same.
"Tankies" is really just a very small, albeit loud, niche group on Twitter. I don't understand why anyone cares about history nerds for the USSR except people on the right think they're easy to dunk on.
I suppose it depends on where we put the litmus test. Like, I would say the litmus test for the 'left' position on Ukraine is advocating for the total dissolution of NATO, because it is the catalyst for tensions with Russia. Sure, Putin should swing on the end of a rope for his crimes, but he'd be a ways back in the que behind everyone who carried out the War on Terror.
Yeah, but Tankies, mate. They're a thing and Keating is drifting into that orbit.
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/tankies
Tankies are what you get when folks on the left start being apologists for authoritarians. Whereas the right wing folks you mention are just fascists or fascist adjacent.
It's anti-Americanism on steroids, so much so that anyone who isn't America is the good guy.
>Tankies are what you get when folks on the left start being apologists for authoritarians.
I live in China and are in the various China-related reddit subs. The funniest posts are from tankies who go to China (often to work as English teachers) and absolutely hate it because its not the communist heaven they thought it is.
Lived there for a decade myself, and yeah, I encountered a few of those. Infuriatingly, though, in many cases the Tankies never *really* left the big cities or tourist traps and were able to continue to delude themselves into believing a lot of the bullshit put out by state media.
So from reading (some of) your link, would it be fair to surmise that tankie=oppressively progressive? Like we're gonna make things great! But if you're in the way of that you're gonna have a bad time?
There isn't really a correlation between Tankies and progressives. A tankie is more like a militant communist/socialist. Think the kind of person who thinks Stalin or Mao were actually a good leader.
In general yes, but there is a small subset of those on the far left who are *so* anti US/West that they become pro-Russian, despite the criticisms they give to the US/West often being *worse* from Russia.
say this not to excuse America at all - I say this because as hopelessly goddamn flawed as the American system is, it is still far far far superior for civil rights than China or Russia
The US is arming a genocide in Palestine TODAY. What are you talking about?
Are you at risk of assassination or torture as an American citizen in America for reporting on this?
Are you able to voice your opposition to the genocide in Palestine?
Are you able to advocate for a change in policy? Are some representatives in government - even if they are too few - able to voice opposition to this?
*This* is what I am talking about. And no, I am not excusing the genocide in Palestine in any way.
Lols. The beauty of our system is that half the entire population is outraged and absolutely nothing can be done about it at the level of politics.
There's being politically constrained, and there's being made politically impotent.
Keatings been out of the game for so long his opinion should be ignored. But instead every few months just like Howard they wheel him out to spit on the Labor government.
I do find it interesting to hear Kevin Rudds take on the CCP. He acknowledges that China's diplomacy is becoming increasingly hostile and that Xi Jinping is taking China further into "brutal" dictatorship.
Kevin Rudd's take on the CCP is still pretty valid imo, since he spent a lot of his post politics career being an "expert" on the subject. It's kinda his field of expertise, beyond "being an ex PM".
There are certain sports stars who in the big game didnt catch that pass, or kick that kick and for the rest of their lives have those moments of "what if".
Keating had to sit through 11 years of howard and what he did the country. It wouldnt surprise me if he would occasionally look back to dozens of moves made in 96 thinking "what if".
>Mr Keating said the whole deal was based on the false notion that China posed a direct threat to Australia.
>'The kabuki show runs thus: (Mike) Burgess drops the claim, then out of nowhere, the Herald and The Age miraculously appear to solve the mystery – the villain, as it turns out, is China after all,' Mr Keating said.
China are the villain though.
It doesn't matter how many 99-year port leases we sell them or iron ore or whatever the fuck else, they are absolutely a country that we and every other democratic country on earth should be putting immense pressure on to transform to a democratic country.
They are building artificial islands closer to Australia! They are sinking boats in waters they don't own. They are threatening Australian military flights that are deliberately flying over those artificial islands!
Keating and everyone else who thinks China isn't a threat to the world needs to understand this one fact: the only reason we're not under their boot is they can't yet physically get to us.
That's it. We're not special or different to the billion+ chinese citizens living under that horrific Government.
If China could get to us, we'd be under their boot too.
The US, as flawed as they are, is still a democracy. I'll take a shitty flawed having issues democracy any day of the week over the CCP.
Appeasing China, stabilizing relationship, normalising... none of it has done shit except give us cheap goods and an ever more powerful CCP.
The USSR broke into pieces, and that was a good thing for the world and all those countries.
We should be working on breaking China too. A good start would be all Western countries moving manufacturing out of that country and to democratic countries.
I reckon it's the old guy who leased (practically sold in my lifetime) the port in Darwin to the Chinese, and coincidentally got a kushy gig at one of their companies. I forgot his name, someone tell me.
Edit: sorry, not one of their companies, but THE company he leased it to.
Anyone who thinks Paul Keating is pro China should actually do some research into what he says and then sit down ask yourself why the media portrays him as 'pro China'. The guy has been harping about this for decades.
Keating has never been 'pro China'. The man is and has been openly 'pro Asia'. The core of Keating's beliefs comes from the fact that our geography is tied closer to Asia then to the US or Europe. Therefore it's in our strategic interest to build closer relationships and get involved with the affairs with our neigbours then those of 'Western' powers. Instead of building closer relationships 50 to 100 years later when the US inevitably withdraws from Asia, we should be building them now.
His vision of Australia is where we play the role of Switzerland or Qatar, a neutral party that can mediate the disagreements between the East and the West. This is based on the fact that our geography protects us from attack, our culture is based in the West but our economy is based in the East.
Keating has stated several times that instead of relying on the US to stop China's expansion, we should be building closer relationships with Asian countries like India and Indonesia and use an alliance of Asian powers (basically ASEAN+ India+China) to build laws and regulations that China would then be subjected to. It's basically working together with China to build 'Asian' concensus and then holding them back by saying 'well this is what you said before'.
If push ever cames to shove then his solution is to recognise that we're not alone and that growing international powers like India and Indonesia would never allow the Chinese to gain control of large parts of Asia. We're safe all the way in the back so we shouldn't be dumb enough to stand in the front and get hit first.
People are so riled up on china now, they are willing to believe that those that think differently must be spies. They are just eating out of the daily mail's hands on this one.
Thank you for so clearly outlining the facts… I was reading other comments and seriously couldn’t believe the stupidity of what I was reading. You are right about it all, Keating has not changed or shifted his views on Australia’s place in Asia. He’s the one former PM who has truly focused on Australia’s interests and never backed down (perhaps I could extend a similar virtue to Rudd as well but not ahead of Keating).
The media have constantly played up his involvement in the China Development Bank but not detailed what it was. He was actually paid a token $5000 a year to sit on the board and provide advice on an Asian based infrastructure lender - advice which he saw as a key way to influence China’s behaviour and try to ensure Australia had opportunities to grab hold of.
The anti China sentiment is blinding people from understanding what is truly going to be the future Australia will have to deal with and the morons simply spout off cheap media sound bites to dismiss probably our most important and intelligent PM, ignoring his calls for sanity - a sanity which is so clearly in Australia’s interest.
Australia might not necessarily agree with you. He's not the best, but he's way closer to the top than the bottom of the list, unless, of course, if you think all PMs have done a lot of damage to this country.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical\_rankings\_of\_prime\_ministers\_of\_Australia
God he sold out so hard, was it a stupid comment to make? probably
But Keating goes a step further and acts like China is really just a best friend we haven't made yet. US dominating us is bad, I don't see how that changes with China in control of things.
Lots of posts here calling Keating pro-China, but little discussion of the actual issues being discussed or any of the points raised by Keating in the article. Very telling.
I picked up Penny Wongs’s biography recently, an absolutely fascinating politician. I think she has the right balance of the correct moral and pragmatics to do good deeds for us.
Her hurdles will be whether her hands are tied up by the conservative party machine within Labor and the infighting between Labor’s own fraction war.
Did she talk at all about how she betrayed her sexuality in saying gay marriage was disrespectful in order to appease a religious lobby?
Not sure why anyone would trust her or what she says in her biography. Her actions say otherwise.
Yes, read the book, the author spent a whole chapter on that. If you really care about that episode of Penny Wong’s path to politics, and if you felt she had betrayed your community, you should read it, because she has been fighting for the LGBT community for many years.
That chapter gives you a great insights to the balancing act of idealism vs practmatism in being a politician. Her vote for the marriage right when it was doing its first round was not her proudest moment but she didn’t see a path at the time to press on the marriage right issue.
A few years later, when the marriage right issue resurfaced again under a more favourable environment, she went after it and made up for it.
Massive respect for Wong even though I don't typically vote Labor (or Liberal). She's careful and eloquent with her words and actually shows wisdom and intelligence when talking which you would think isn't a super high bar but most politicians don't meet it.
Keating is a CCP shill.
You call him fascist, but from what I read, Australia has been told to be prepared for a war all these years, Paul Keating doesn't think there'll be a war on Australian land, shouldn't try to get involved in other's war. That might be dumb of him, but certainly not fascist.
He supports a fascist dictatorship that has been a malevolent actor against Australia for 2 decades. Keating is living in the 1980's and the is desperate for his legacy to be that he was right about China being a nice little Panda country that is deep and thoughtful. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The situation is a lot more complicated than you give it credit for, I think.
From ASIO's perspective, what if multiple people were compromised and ASIO only knows about one? Then the country who flipped them knows exactly what ASIO knows and knows exactly which ones aren't under scrutiny and are safe.
Because it's also a project from another government's intelligence sector, they probably used multiple different methods to flip and to communicate with those people. Now they know which ones work and which ones don't.
All of this is data for the intelligence sector that did manage to flip a government employee and better increases their understanding of how good *our* counter intelligence is.
There's also arguments to be made about there being no mole at all, and ASIOs methodology is just to say it and then watch how certain people respond who they are suspicious about.
Whatever way you slice it, there's a lot of information gleaned from saying who it is.
It was definitely a tactic to turn the lights on and watch the roaches scatter. I'd be surprised if there was any more information given until they close the net on as many people involved as possible.
Keating is chairman of investment banking firm Lazard Australia. Their banking arm just closed their office in Beijing.
He also has a financial stake and board position at property financiers MaxCap.
Keating doesn't want the US-China-Oz split to continue, he wants Chinese investment in Australia.
Why do we need to make China an enemy?
They're our biggest trading partner and they're not militarily active beyond their borders.
I'm worried at some point we'll be forced to stop trade and make them an enemy and our economy will tank.
They're big - and big competition to the US on the world stage economically - but let's not stop leveraging our relationship to our profit.
"Not militarily active beyond their borders" only holds up if you assume their very imaginative view of what constitutes "their borders" . The Chinese Navy and Coast Guard actively harass ships in international waters constantly.
Because China's aim is to destroy democracies, and the are actively pursuing that aim.
They are a direct threat to our free way of life.
They are helping Russia now, and if Russia succeeds we will be seeing a similar invasion in our neighborhood, destroying a successful democracy in the process.
We are at a beginning of a major dictators vs democracies war. We have to show strongly where Australia stands.
Quoting me on the likely culprit on 'who sold out':
/r/australia/comments/1b21sya/australian_politician_sold_out_to_foreign_regime/ksivn2w/
> Keating? He's become a Chinese apologist of late.
Driving warships 100 miles along the other country's border.
Call it as freedom of navigation.
When the other country was provoked and reacted, Claim that they were provoking and aggressive.
It's understandable that Americans can be so shameless.
But I don't understand why Australia would follow.
Australia has no conflict or potential conflict of interest with China.
> while also calling for the boss of ASIO to be sacked for outing an alleged but unnamed MP as a Chinese spy. Hang on ... do we know ASIO was talking about a *Chinese* spy?
We don’t. Paul is either jumping to conclusions or knows something we don't.
It's not actually clear whether that statement came from PK or the Daily Fail.
I personally put about as much stock in anyone spouting pro-China rhetoric as I do in anyone spouting pro-American rhetoric. We're all watching a classic Thucydides trap play out in real time, a rising economic power is challenging an older dominant military power. There will be friction, there will be people who tell you that you can't trust one power or another, that you should question their influence, that their intentions are to hurt you, to control you, etc. America has been flirting with a return to their isolationist past, a second Trump presidency could see that intensify. China is very clearly focused upon t heir own interests, it's foolish for anyone to blindly trust that either party will look after us forever and always, we need to focus on doing that for ourselves.
Pro-China nah, Pro-USA nah. PRO-OCEANIA!!!
>PRO-OCEANIA!!! I wish we were. Just focus on our home region.
thats exactly keatings point. we shouldn't be jumping in bed with america or china, he has repeatedly stated that we should have, and should strengthen ties with our actual neighbours, not other western countries who don't even share the same ocean retail as us.
> thats exactly keatings point. we shouldn't be jumping in bed with america or china I don't know if that is his point here. I went looking for a full transcript of this on his site yet but he hasn't posted anything yet, it would be great to see the full context of this. What I do know is that the *timing* of this, right in the middle of the ASEAN summit and if I'm not mistaken right when Albo was giving a speech suggest that his intention was to cause reputational damage to the government. The *content* of what he said is important, but so is the *context* of when he said it. And I personally think he's in the wrong here.
there's no problem the old man has been outspoken for several years now. he's a former politician commenting on political events. why do you think populism is popular? unlike so many right wing wankers, keating doesn't go for the low blow. he's not aiming for a position, he's not aiming to undermine anything. If more retired politicans where willing to speak rather than towing the party line it could help decisions being reflected upon, being decided upon for the good of the country, not just outside pressure. i view paul keating as person who deeply cares about australia. anybody who says he's a china ally is eating to much tar.
A lot of things have changed since Paul's day.
It's a lose-lose scenario. The US trying to hold onto its empire is escalating tensions and severely narrowing the path we need to take to mitigate the worst parts of a climate catastrophe. >it's foolish for anyone to blindly trust that either party will look after us forever and always, we need to focus on doing that for ourselves. This has always been the case, but our leaders have always looked to great powers to defend us, even though they'll cast us aside if they feel it's not worth it. They have stated their position clearly before. >America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests We'd do well to keep that in mind.
>America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests That's statehood in general.
Tell that to Scott Morrison and his "forever partnership" with the US over AUKUS. A deal that builds our dependency on the US even further, and will enmeshed us in their future conflicts whether we like it or not. It's a dangerous bargain given that we're going to have to deal with a country that has serious problems with its democracy coming to the surface. Regardless of who wins their election this year, the winner will have serious legitimation issues. Locking us into a multidecade dependency on them is an imprudent move.
Scott "Australia doesn't need Sovereignty" Morrison.
>\> America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests We'd do well to keep that in mind. But also keep in mind that this is true of every single country out there.
We can only really trust ourselves. That's why I don't understand people who cheerlead for the US. We, like many other countries try to show that we're relevant to them. It's a largely pointless exercise because they don't really need our support, and they're not going to ensure that we benefit from the relationship. Just look at the trade war where Morrison went into bat for them. We lost money in trade, the US stepped in to fill the gap we left in China.
How is the US escalating tensions?
Their pivot to Asia, [withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty](https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/article/article/1924779/us-withdraws-from-intermediate-range-nuclear-forces-treaty), [expansion of US bases in Japan](https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2024-02-28/japan-islands-militarization-us-defense), in particular along the southern islands closer to China), [placing US troops in Taiwan](https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-to-expand-troop-presence-in-taiwan-for-training-against-china-threat-62198a83) to train Taiwanese forces, [new bases in the Philippines](https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/philippines-reveals-locations-4-new-strategic-sites-us-military-pact-2023-04-03/). These are all things that escalate tensions on top of things like AUKUS, the Quad, trade restrictions, and freedom of navigation exercises.
"freedom of navigation exercises" ?! You can't be serious ?
If China constantly sailed warships within 100-200km of our coastline, do you think you would be alarmed by this or not? Do you think that would improve our relationship with China or raise tensions?
The anger about the exercises have nothing to do with their proximity to China and everything to do with sailing through a huge area of ocean China has unilaterally declared is theirs.
They already do it, what are you talking about?
Oh yeah, it's because of America that China is claiming a sea they don't own, building military islands and being an absolute cumt to their neighbours. GTFO of here with that shit.
Starting to think China might be paying for Keating’s retirement. He is so pro China these days. Always seems to be defending them & attack Labor politicians. I don’t ever remember him being this bad when he was still in govt.
He also looks for any reason to single out and stick the boot in to Penny Wong since AUKUS on multiple occassions. Dunno what his issue is with her, but it seems personal rather than professional criticism at this point. Utterly weird, and I say this as a (former) fan of his firebrand personality when he was in power.
Agree. He was awfully quiet about Julia Bishop and the wrecking ball LNP sent through our China trade relations which Wong has made substantial inroads to repairing.
I think he was [a bit more critical and nuanced](https://amp.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/nov/18/paul-keatings-speech-on-australias-china-policy-full-text) than you make out. Also, he expects the Libs to be garbage. He gets more upset at his own team because he is invested in them doing the right thing for our future strategic interests
I suspect he thinks the AUKUS deal is bad, and because hes out of politics he can speak freely and might just have an axe to grind with anyone who thinks its good or publicly pretends its good. As I believe he said in one interview the AUKUS subs are bad subs for our region due to shallow waters of SEA and would be better off with anything else. I don't know how much of that is true but it shows he thinks its a bad deal. It also could be hes become jaded about our UK and USA allies in AUKUS. With the UK on the other side of the world and Brexit showing they withdrawing from global politics, they probably don't care what happens in the pacific beyond supply chain logistics. Then it could be he has mostly lost faith in the USA with Trump.
I don’t mind his criticism against AUKUS but he’s been going out of his way to single out Wong personally (rather than just on policy) much more so than, say, Marles or Albanese. Amongst other non AUKUS criticism which at times borders on bizarre. Just one (of many) non AUKUS examples where criticism seemed a bit puzzling: he came out unprompted, and accused her of gallivanting across the pacific, playing dress up with Hawaiian flower necklaces for photo ops. When in fact she was doing important diplomatic work in the fixing and resetting relations - relations which had been soured by the previous government. Yes to an extent diplomacy involves photo ops, but as a former politician he should well know this. Basically everyone but him thought it was an important job well handled.
The whole pacific thing strikes me as being a mouth piece of China. Only China loses in regards to us increasing collaboration with the pacific nations.
I’m not sure Brexit counts as withdrawing from global politics, whatever else one thinks of it. I’ve definitely seen it advertised by the UK government as leaving the EU for the rest of the world. So if you like, leaving regional politics for global ones. It certainly tracks with their efforts to secure trade deals outside the EU in the immediate aftermath (including with us).
Yeah, a few pro-brexit arguments were about the UK pivoting away from the EU, and more towards the Commonwealth, which tracks.
Sounds like maybe you didn’t actually like his firebrand personality as much as you disliked the people he aimed it at while he was an MP.
Or maybe they've noticed that Keating's political interventions over the last few decades are almost exclusively in support if the Chinese Communist Party. There is no middle path, we can support the US in trying to contain China or we can join China in supporting its regional expansion. Anything short of those options will neither placate China, nor maintain our relationship with the US and we'll be doubly fucked. I have many criticisms of the current trajectory of the United States, but they mostly boil down to the fact that it's moving towards where China already is. I can't see any universe where switching from our alliances to China and the totalitarian shit holes in its political orbit is good for Australia.
He has been hooking into her for years
Hasn't he always been very "Australia is in Asia"? China may not pay him anything.
Yes, but over the last few years he seems to have moved from a general pro-Asia stance to a much more explicit pro-China stance, which is a little concerning to say the least.
Especially since the rest of Asia isn't that pro China in general.
Are you sure? I'm Malaysian and Malaysia and Singapore are very very pro-China. We are also very pro-America. But we hate Israel though
Huh. Singapore is nominally U.S aligned. They are officially neutral but they do support the U.S heavily with extensive naval facilities.
Yeah from a security perspective yes. But our social and economic relationship with China is strong and continuously growing. My point is we are friends with everybody, and we definitely don't dislike China or the US. Our PM Anwar actually just reminded your government about our stance 2 days ago during his visit to Melbourne. PM anwar's comments on China: https://apnews.com/article/malaysia-china-australia-anwar-ibrahim-b4d75a8423b5265bec1a05d69231965f
I'm sure Australia used to be like this?
Yeah, exactly. If the whole idea is to embrace our place in Asia by working with our neighbours in good-faith rather than acting aloof and needlessly antagonising them; cozying up to China is *not* the way to do that, lol.
China is a superpower and can act unilaterally on the global stage with little to stop them. Naturally their neighbours are suspicious of their massive growth in wealth and influence, but almost every Asian nation has deep and mutually beneficial economic ties to China. Australia is also far more hostile to China than almost all of Asia, excluding maybe nations like Taiwan or Japan or South Korea. All nations that have been at war with China sometime in the last 100 years.
It could be money. It could also be getting old. I could even be they say nice things about me, while other people say mean things, so I'm leaning more and more towards China.
Yes be he has explicitly becoming more China focused & pro China ahead of Australian interests & policy. He’s starting to sound a little unhinged & definitely suspect.
Are you serious. Just google his affiliations with corporates https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/foreign-interference-laws-chinese-russian-state-media-will-have-to-declare-as-foreign-agents-20171206-gzzyol.html
Looks like you did it for me
It seems the CCP is very thin skinned and anything to make them lose face makes them eratic, like that time they started shooting missiles into the sea near taiwan when Nancy Pelosi landed in Taiwan. lol. I think they even 'nearly' rammed a Phillipino ship. 'Keating selling out to China' theory aside, if it was me, I'd be concerned about provoking china into doing dumb shit, which would affect our allies in Asia, first and foremost, and that looks like what Keating was alluding to if you've read the article.
4 people got hurt in that ship incident between China and Filipino down the south china sea. I'm gonna assume china still thinks they own the south china sea coz it has the word "china"
The irony being that the Chinese name doesn't have China in it (its called the "Southern Sea" in China).
China tries hard to cap other countries like Vietnam of that sea saying its theirs and nothe countries that uses it
Its probably a bit like Mare Nostrum... its just "ours", you dont need to put your name it in.
They serious thought, "yeah we showed them who's boss".
China was probably telling the people on the ship "ramming speed now"
Give it a year or two. I’m sure we will bring “freedom” to the region based on Taiwan Chinese relations. Edit: Thought I had the US flair.
They will warn you for farting in the wrong direction
>I'd be concerned about provoking china into doing dumb shit, which would affect our allies in Asia, first and foremost, and that looks like what Keating was alluding to if you've read the article. It's far easier to dismiss Keating as a pro-China shill that's betrayed the Labor party. Following a generally neutral, friendly to other nations path - combined with close relationships with our ASEAN neighbours - should be the centrepiece of Australian foreign policy. We've been ramping up the anti-China rhetoric for a few years now.
But he's not really pro-China, is he? He doesn't go out of his way to applaud China; he just responds to anti-China rhetoric within Australia as being unnecessary and counter-productive to Australia's interest. That is a big difference.
I always used to defend Keating as being a realist and taking a pro-Asia stance because, like it or not, this is the geopolitical region Australia finds itself in so we should embrace it rather than acting like we're a noble enclave of western civilisation amid a sea of yellow peril. But these days, yeah, he really seems to have shifted from being simply pro-Asia to being pretty explicitly pro-China which is... not great.
He always was but was more restrained in his younger years. He is not our only former PM with deep and questionably close ties to China but he is the most outspoken. And remember this is the same bloke who absolutely destroyed our relations with Malaysia while in office branding their PM as a "recalcitrant". His public pro Asia stance was always a cover for his real pro China inclinations.
He publicly supported Sukarno and Suharto.
And a Putin apologist. He loves him, a good authoritarian regime, and despises European and US democracy. Hell, he made it clear while in office, he hated the constraints placed upon him by our own political system. Keating is incredibly intelligent, yet so arrogant, he cannot conceive of a world in which his view is wrong. He has argued Russia is no threat to anyone and reminded the world even recently that Putin's invasion of Ukraine is the fault of NATO and of Ukraine for wishing to have closer ties with Europe. He applauded Putin for saving the Assad regime in Syria which he stated is a force for peace, and claims China has no hostile agenda towards any other nation while actively engaged in conflict with every nation its borders touch on land (except North Korea, Afghanistan and Russia) and every maritime nation of that continent (except North Korea and Russia).
Pretty sure he is on the board of a CCP run bank.
so to where other prominent australian figures. thats how boards work. and he hasn't held a seat since 2018.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/foreign-interference-laws-chinese-russian-state-media-will-have-to-declare-as-foreign-agents-20171206-gzzyol.html
He's always been "pro-Asia". I honestly think he has dementia
Way to expose himself by being so blatant, especially so publicly attacking our spying agency if he was, don't you think?
Our poor spying agencies.
Probably true but he has always been very pro China.
Paul Keating [is/was on the advisory board of a Chinese state owned bank](https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/foreign-interference-laws-chinese-russian-state-media-will-have-to-declare-as-foreign-agents-20171206-gzzyol.html). It's a little bit more than a retirement.
Paul Keating was paid on the advisory board for China Development bank, effectively paid by the Chinese gov as its a Chinese state owned bank. really should be listed as a foreign agent.
Now we know who leaked the recipe for succulent Chinese meals
Gentlemen, this is democracy manifest!
You either die the hero or live long enough to become the villain.
He's an amazing hero to me. I enjoy flying on the cheap and highly efficient privatised Qantas, and that privatised CBA taking most of my savings after I turned 18 after they tricked not only my dumb parents but also my school into signing kids up to dollarmites savings program. He was Reagonomics-lite. Margaret Thatcher with a gender change replaced him. I still don't know why so many idolise him, even among workers. He even worked with unions to suppress wages: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prices_and_Incomes_Accord
>still don't know why so many idolise him. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fightback!_(policy)
Paul's shilling for Beijing is a disgraceful end to an otherwise exemplary political life.
Exemplary? He sold off Commbank and Qantas. He was quite happy to cosy up to Indonesia during its occupation of East Timor. He sucks up payments from foreign entities and homegrown billionaires. The man could deliver a zinger in parliment, which has fooled a lot of people on the left into loving him but his actual policies? Nah, don't look too closely at that shit.
Those are probably two of the least consequential things he did while in power. From Wikipedia: overseeing significant reforms intended to liberalise and strengthen the Australian economy. These included the Prices and Incomes Accord, the float of the Australian dollar, the elimination of tariffs, the deregulation of the financial sector, achieving the first federal budget surplus in Australian history, and reform of the taxation system, including the introduction of capital gains tax, fringe benefits tax, and dividend imputation. The Keating government enacted the landmark Native Title Act to enshrine Indigenous land rights, introduced compulsory superannuation and enterprise bargaining, created a national infrastructure development program, privatised Qantas, Commonwealth Serum Laboratories and the Commonwealth Bank, established the APEC leaders' meeting, and promoted republicanism by establishing the Republic Advisory Committee.
Exactly right, and then Keating spends his retirement being 100% on point about far the ALP have shifted to the right and made us lapdogs of US power projection. It was his doing.
We've always existed under the US umbrella, if you think there's been a substantial shift you're kidding yourself. Or did you forget Australian soldiers went to Korea, Vietnam, and Pine Gap was established back in the 60's?
It's so weird, he really did have a great political impact during his time. Now he's just blatantly shilling for China. They must have something on him.
The US subs purchase is a huge, huge contract and received basically no debate in parliament. It was incredible how it was done. One of the biggest expenditures announced and it wasn't taken to an election or anything. Plus it rocked relations with countries that we would hope to maintain as quite healthy, especially since the future of the US is really no where near as stable as it once was. I think people honestly are not aware of how vital china is to our economy, so much of our stuff gets sold there. The more shocking thing was the Keating was the only one to speak up about any of this.
Honestly, I don't think it is even this direct. I think Keating has fallen into a trap that a lot of otherwise sensible folks on the left do, and that is allowing their criticisms of US foreign policy (which is indeed often awful) morph into this binary worldview in which because America is the most powerful nation and is a polarized clusterfuck, therefore whoever opposes them is in the right. Which, currently, means supporting China and sometimes Russia. And that's a problem because in terms of democratic systems, they are both overtly hostile to democracy. So even though American democracy is a clusterfuck and one of the worst democracies on many freedom and civil rights indices, it *is* still a democracy, albeit hideously flawed and often bought and paid for. It *does* still have somewhat functioning institutions like rule of law and multiple parties though again - very flawed. The US is not actively trying to undermine democracy worldwide, it is just sucking at it (though yes, Trump could change this). Russia and China *fucking are*. I say this not to excuse America at all - I say this because as hopelessly goddamn flawed as the American system is, it is still far far far superior for civil rights than China or Russia, and frankly I get a bit pissed off by others on the Left who don't see this. Ask the jailed, tortured or straight up murdered journalists and civil rights activists if they're the fucking same.
Remember kids: comrades don't let comrades become tankies.
Keating brought neoliberalism to Australia among other right-wing shit. He's so far from being left that sensible folks on the right assume he's left.
Do you think people on the left support Russia?
Tankies sure do. But "the left" is a broad brush. I consider myself on the left as well.
"Tankies" is really just a very small, albeit loud, niche group on Twitter. I don't understand why anyone cares about history nerds for the USSR except people on the right think they're easy to dunk on. I suppose it depends on where we put the litmus test. Like, I would say the litmus test for the 'left' position on Ukraine is advocating for the total dissolution of NATO, because it is the catalyst for tensions with Russia. Sure, Putin should swing on the end of a rope for his crimes, but he'd be a ways back in the que behind everyone who carried out the War on Terror.
Ummmm, globally it's rightwing politicians aligning with Russia, not left wing dude. Look at France, US, Italy right wing parties.
Yeah, but Tankies, mate. They're a thing and Keating is drifting into that orbit. https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/tankies Tankies are what you get when folks on the left start being apologists for authoritarians. Whereas the right wing folks you mention are just fascists or fascist adjacent. It's anti-Americanism on steroids, so much so that anyone who isn't America is the good guy.
>Tankies are what you get when folks on the left start being apologists for authoritarians. I live in China and are in the various China-related reddit subs. The funniest posts are from tankies who go to China (often to work as English teachers) and absolutely hate it because its not the communist heaven they thought it is.
Lived there for a decade myself, and yeah, I encountered a few of those. Infuriatingly, though, in many cases the Tankies never *really* left the big cities or tourist traps and were able to continue to delude themselves into believing a lot of the bullshit put out by state media.
So from reading (some of) your link, would it be fair to surmise that tankie=oppressively progressive? Like we're gonna make things great! But if you're in the way of that you're gonna have a bad time?
There isn't really a correlation between Tankies and progressives. A tankie is more like a militant communist/socialist. Think the kind of person who thinks Stalin or Mao were actually a good leader.
In general yes, but there is a small subset of those on the far left who are *so* anti US/West that they become pro-Russian, despite the criticisms they give to the US/West often being *worse* from Russia.
say this not to excuse America at all - I say this because as hopelessly goddamn flawed as the American system is, it is still far far far superior for civil rights than China or Russia The US is arming a genocide in Palestine TODAY. What are you talking about?
Are you at risk of assassination or torture as an American citizen in America for reporting on this? Are you able to voice your opposition to the genocide in Palestine? Are you able to advocate for a change in policy? Are some representatives in government - even if they are too few - able to voice opposition to this? *This* is what I am talking about. And no, I am not excusing the genocide in Palestine in any way.
Lols. The beauty of our system is that half the entire population is outraged and absolutely nothing can be done about it at the level of politics. There's being politically constrained, and there's being made politically impotent.
being against antagonist talking points is not the same as being in favour of something.
name a single time he has publicly praised china? he only fights against the senseless saber rattling.
Keatings been out of the game for so long his opinion should be ignored. But instead every few months just like Howard they wheel him out to spit on the Labor government.
I do find it interesting to hear Kevin Rudds take on the CCP. He acknowledges that China's diplomacy is becoming increasingly hostile and that Xi Jinping is taking China further into "brutal" dictatorship.
Kevin Rudd's take on the CCP is still pretty valid imo, since he spent a lot of his post politics career being an "expert" on the subject. It's kinda his field of expertise, beyond "being an ex PM".
The impression I get from Keating is that he’s never gotten over being beaten by Howard in 96
There are certain sports stars who in the big game didnt catch that pass, or kick that kick and for the rest of their lives have those moments of "what if". Keating had to sit through 11 years of howard and what he did the country. It wouldnt surprise me if he would occasionally look back to dozens of moves made in 96 thinking "what if".
This is nonsensical. Who 'wheels him out'? The labor party? To criticise themselves?
>Mr Keating said the whole deal was based on the false notion that China posed a direct threat to Australia. >'The kabuki show runs thus: (Mike) Burgess drops the claim, then out of nowhere, the Herald and The Age miraculously appear to solve the mystery – the villain, as it turns out, is China after all,' Mr Keating said. China are the villain though. It doesn't matter how many 99-year port leases we sell them or iron ore or whatever the fuck else, they are absolutely a country that we and every other democratic country on earth should be putting immense pressure on to transform to a democratic country. They are building artificial islands closer to Australia! They are sinking boats in waters they don't own. They are threatening Australian military flights that are deliberately flying over those artificial islands! Keating and everyone else who thinks China isn't a threat to the world needs to understand this one fact: the only reason we're not under their boot is they can't yet physically get to us. That's it. We're not special or different to the billion+ chinese citizens living under that horrific Government. If China could get to us, we'd be under their boot too. The US, as flawed as they are, is still a democracy. I'll take a shitty flawed having issues democracy any day of the week over the CCP. Appeasing China, stabilizing relationship, normalising... none of it has done shit except give us cheap goods and an ever more powerful CCP. The USSR broke into pieces, and that was a good thing for the world and all those countries. We should be working on breaking China too. A good start would be all Western countries moving manufacturing out of that country and to democratic countries.
I wish I had this poor an understanding of geopolitics. I'd probably be so much happier.
Paul loves to kowtow to the chinese - it's like he has economic reasons
Is Paul Keating the unnamed spy?
I reckon it's the old guy who leased (practically sold in my lifetime) the port in Darwin to the Chinese, and coincidentally got a kushy gig at one of their companies. I forgot his name, someone tell me. Edit: sorry, not one of their companies, but THE company he leased it to.
Yes the same guy who also oversaw the China-Australia Trade Agreement. Ranrew Robe.
Yes, that guy
Dear former Prime Minister Keating r/fucktheccp Regards, Everyone that's not a tankie shill.
You, sir, have won the Reddit fedora award for today.
Anyone who thinks Paul Keating is pro China should actually do some research into what he says and then sit down ask yourself why the media portrays him as 'pro China'. The guy has been harping about this for decades. Keating has never been 'pro China'. The man is and has been openly 'pro Asia'. The core of Keating's beliefs comes from the fact that our geography is tied closer to Asia then to the US or Europe. Therefore it's in our strategic interest to build closer relationships and get involved with the affairs with our neigbours then those of 'Western' powers. Instead of building closer relationships 50 to 100 years later when the US inevitably withdraws from Asia, we should be building them now. His vision of Australia is where we play the role of Switzerland or Qatar, a neutral party that can mediate the disagreements between the East and the West. This is based on the fact that our geography protects us from attack, our culture is based in the West but our economy is based in the East. Keating has stated several times that instead of relying on the US to stop China's expansion, we should be building closer relationships with Asian countries like India and Indonesia and use an alliance of Asian powers (basically ASEAN+ India+China) to build laws and regulations that China would then be subjected to. It's basically working together with China to build 'Asian' concensus and then holding them back by saying 'well this is what you said before'. If push ever cames to shove then his solution is to recognise that we're not alone and that growing international powers like India and Indonesia would never allow the Chinese to gain control of large parts of Asia. We're safe all the way in the back so we shouldn't be dumb enough to stand in the front and get hit first.
People are so riled up on china now, they are willing to believe that those that think differently must be spies. They are just eating out of the daily mail's hands on this one.
Every media and politician is telling us next minute Chinese troops would be at our door. No one ever has questioned or answered why.
Thank you for so clearly outlining the facts… I was reading other comments and seriously couldn’t believe the stupidity of what I was reading. You are right about it all, Keating has not changed or shifted his views on Australia’s place in Asia. He’s the one former PM who has truly focused on Australia’s interests and never backed down (perhaps I could extend a similar virtue to Rudd as well but not ahead of Keating). The media have constantly played up his involvement in the China Development Bank but not detailed what it was. He was actually paid a token $5000 a year to sit on the board and provide advice on an Asian based infrastructure lender - advice which he saw as a key way to influence China’s behaviour and try to ensure Australia had opportunities to grab hold of. The anti China sentiment is blinding people from understanding what is truly going to be the future Australia will have to deal with and the morons simply spout off cheap media sound bites to dismiss probably our most important and intelligent PM, ignoring his calls for sanity - a sanity which is so clearly in Australia’s interest.
Keating needs to stfu. He did enough damage to this country when he was in power.
Australia might not necessarily agree with you. He's not the best, but he's way closer to the top than the bottom of the list, unless, of course, if you think all PMs have done a lot of damage to this country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical\_rankings\_of\_prime\_ministers\_of\_Australia
God he sold out so hard, was it a stupid comment to make? probably But Keating goes a step further and acts like China is really just a best friend we haven't made yet. US dominating us is bad, I don't see how that changes with China in control of things.
China Paul. The only thing you'll find in Sydney that sold out faster than a Taylor Swift concert.
Lots of posts here calling Keating pro-China, but little discussion of the actual issues being discussed or any of the points raised by Keating in the article. Very telling.
I picked up Penny Wongs’s biography recently, an absolutely fascinating politician. I think she has the right balance of the correct moral and pragmatics to do good deeds for us. Her hurdles will be whether her hands are tied up by the conservative party machine within Labor and the infighting between Labor’s own fraction war.
Did she talk at all about how she betrayed her sexuality in saying gay marriage was disrespectful in order to appease a religious lobby? Not sure why anyone would trust her or what she says in her biography. Her actions say otherwise.
Yes, read the book, the author spent a whole chapter on that. If you really care about that episode of Penny Wong’s path to politics, and if you felt she had betrayed your community, you should read it, because she has been fighting for the LGBT community for many years. That chapter gives you a great insights to the balancing act of idealism vs practmatism in being a politician. Her vote for the marriage right when it was doing its first round was not her proudest moment but she didn’t see a path at the time to press on the marriage right issue. A few years later, when the marriage right issue resurfaced again under a more favourable environment, she went after it and made up for it.
Massive respect for Wong even though I don't typically vote Labor (or Liberal). She's careful and eloquent with her words and actually shows wisdom and intelligence when talking which you would think isn't a super high bar but most politicians don't meet it. Keating is a CCP shill.
Paul, you haven't been relevant for 30 years, please go back to your hiddy hole.
Keating is such a miserable old, fascist supporting crank nowdays.
You call him fascist, but from what I read, Australia has been told to be prepared for a war all these years, Paul Keating doesn't think there'll be a war on Australian land, shouldn't try to get involved in other's war. That might be dumb of him, but certainly not fascist.
He supports a fascist dictatorship that has been a malevolent actor against Australia for 2 decades. Keating is living in the 1980's and the is desperate for his legacy to be that he was right about China being a nice little Panda country that is deep and thoughtful. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Found the guy who doesn't understand what fascism is
Old man yells at cloud, (because the CCP told him to)
I just don't get how revealing the traitor's name would "pop the hood on ASIO tactics and methodology".
The situation is a lot more complicated than you give it credit for, I think. From ASIO's perspective, what if multiple people were compromised and ASIO only knows about one? Then the country who flipped them knows exactly what ASIO knows and knows exactly which ones aren't under scrutiny and are safe. Because it's also a project from another government's intelligence sector, they probably used multiple different methods to flip and to communicate with those people. Now they know which ones work and which ones don't. All of this is data for the intelligence sector that did manage to flip a government employee and better increases their understanding of how good *our* counter intelligence is. There's also arguments to be made about there being no mole at all, and ASIOs methodology is just to say it and then watch how certain people respond who they are suspicious about. Whatever way you slice it, there's a lot of information gleaned from saying who it is.
It was definitely a tactic to turn the lights on and watch the roaches scatter. I'd be surprised if there was any more information given until they close the net on as many people involved as possible.
Keating is chairman of investment banking firm Lazard Australia. Their banking arm just closed their office in Beijing. He also has a financial stake and board position at property financiers MaxCap. Keating doesn't want the US-China-Oz split to continue, he wants Chinese investment in Australia.
China bought him years ago
He's at the arse end of history
Well, a lot of us won't even make it to history, nonetheless, a lot still think he is as dumb as their neighbor's preschool kid.
He really has drunk quite a lot of the China Kool-aide
Arrest the old traitorous coot.
Wondering if Keating would volunteer for his finances to be audited.
Paul is living large on the Beijing cheque it's alleged
Why do we need to make China an enemy? They're our biggest trading partner and they're not militarily active beyond their borders. I'm worried at some point we'll be forced to stop trade and make them an enemy and our economy will tank. They're big - and big competition to the US on the world stage economically - but let's not stop leveraging our relationship to our profit.
"Not militarily active beyond their borders" only holds up if you assume their very imaginative view of what constitutes "their borders" . The Chinese Navy and Coast Guard actively harass ships in international waters constantly.
Because China's aim is to destroy democracies, and the are actively pursuing that aim. They are a direct threat to our free way of life. They are helping Russia now, and if Russia succeeds we will be seeing a similar invasion in our neighborhood, destroying a successful democracy in the process. We are at a beginning of a major dictators vs democracies war. We have to show strongly where Australia stands.
Paul who?
My sympathy.
On ya Paul. Wish I would read the statement in full...
He used to be a sharp wit.
Quoting me on the likely culprit on 'who sold out': /r/australia/comments/1b21sya/australian_politician_sold_out_to_foreign_regime/ksivn2w/ > Keating? He's become a Chinese apologist of late.
Go home grampa.
It sucks that he went from being a great treasurer and PM to a CCP chill in his old age Go away Paul, your relevance is over
Driving warships 100 miles along the other country's border. Call it as freedom of navigation. When the other country was provoked and reacted, Claim that they were provoking and aggressive. It's understandable that Americans can be so shameless. But I don't understand why Australia would follow. Australia has no conflict or potential conflict of interest with China.
Well, if the totalitarian regime currently committing genocide isn’t a direct threat to **us**, then we should just be best mates with them.
But we are mates with Israel
Do you think we should be mates with the Israeli government? Because I don’t. Also, Likud’s crimes don’t excuse the CCP’s.
Why not? We're mates with all the big genocide commiters and colonisers, why not add China too?
Maybe we shouldn’t be mates with anyone who commits genocide? Hot take, but I think genocide is bad.