China
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Russia has long insisted that in return for peace, Ukraine must give up the 20 per cent of its territory that Russia currently occupies as well as any aspiration of joining NATO. These terms were unacceptable to Ukraine.
August 29, 2024
9 mins
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In an oblique reference to recent incidents that have put Australian servicemen at risk, the Prime Minister simpered something about 'improving military to military communications' and changed the subject. I can think of a better, more piquant message the sailors and airmen endangered by Beijing's aggression would prefer to send
June 18, 2024
4 mins
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This week, Zhang Zhan, a Chinese citizen journalist and former lawyer, is set to be released after four years in jail for the heinous crime of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”.
May 27, 2024
9 mins
The latest
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Xi and his coterie are going about the business of stealthily disintegrating the one power, America, standing in the way of the Middle Kingdom assuming its place as the dominant world power. For that to occur America must be broken and defeated, preferably 'without fighting', just as Sun Tzu recommended
May 20, 2024
19 mins
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China’s second attempt to build a socialist society, under the dictatorship of President Xi Jinping, is soon to join the list of spectacular failures. It seems the poor Chinese people must once again endure upheaval and suffering just as their parents and grandparents did under the Great Helmsman Mao Zedong.
May 9, 2024
9 mins
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The attempt to resist the undermining of democratic rights in Hong Kong has proven futile and the consequences are easily observed. There are fewer ex-pats on the streets and shops and much diminished numbers of European tourists. My wife’s former job at one of the large banks, and many of the hundreds of positions around her in Hong Kong, have all been moved to the Philippines or Singapore, much to the chagrin of the island's tailors
December 11, 2023
10 mins
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Kissinger worries that all the work he and Nixon did back in 1971-72 to open an effective long-term relationship between Washington and Beijing is being undone and, far worse, that we may well be headed for a Sino-US war. A naysayer might counter that the work he and Nixon did is the very reason very we might be heading for war. First published in September's edition, this analysis is reprised upon news of Kissinger's death
December 1, 2023
20 mins
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If China takes Taiwan in a fait accompli, US credibility in Asia would be shattered. To prevent such an epoch-changing shift, former CIA hand Elbridge Colby argues in an important new book that Beijing must be forced assume the burden of any offensive it undertakes while standing condemned before the altar of world opinion,. In other words, to replay Athens at Syracuse, Germany in the Battle of Britain, and Argentina in the Falklands
November 22, 2023
32 mins
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Xi Jinping would like nothing better than for trans-Atlantic bonds to be loosened and for France—and the rest of Europe—to be more independent from the US. Meanwhile, Beijing has no intention of allowing Europe (or the European Union) to end up independent from the PRC. The question we have to ask is whether Macron ,speaks for all of Europe
June 22, 2023
20 mins
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Sun-Tzu propounded was that it is possible to defeat an enemy without firing a shot. This concept is especially relevant to Australia and many other open democratic countries which welcome immigrants and adhere to the principle of free trade. Such countries are highly vulnerable to economic and political influence, with Beijing taking advantage of every opportunity to advance a vision of global hegemony
May 16, 2023
11 mins
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'A recent software update for iPhones in China has modified the AirDrop function to make it more difficult for protestors to evade Beijing's censorship and surveillance. Unconscionable though this decision may be, it is not surprising . . . Apple has time and again assisted the Chinese Communist Party'
December 1, 2022
4 mins
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The oppression of democracy and the legal persecution of its supporters is fostered by the conscious erosion of political responsibility, resulting recently in that ultimate farcical pantomime of the one-horse election for Chief Executive. These developments are relevant to the future standing of the courts, the last institution not yet entirely under Beijing's control
August 11, 2022
39 mins