Right Pulse

They might want to consider the following – China remains an authoritative regime opposed to the democratic values of Australia:

Since the December launch of Charter 08, more than 8,500 Chinese citizens have joined the call for multiparty democracy. That takes courage, given that at least 100 signatories have been harassed or interrogated, according to human rights groups. One of the Charter’s co-authors, Liu Xiaobo, has been under detention in an unknown location since December 8. Law professor He Weifang, a signatory known for outspoken critiques of China’s legal system, was transferred this month from prestigious Peking University to a remote college in western China.

I can’t understand what’s happened to Sydney’s Daily Telegraph. They have become one-way apologists for Rudd. In an article covering the less than kind coverage Rudd has been receiving in the British press, we find this comment from the paper:

Ignoring the success of his visit to the US and talks with President Barack Obama, they instead chose to dredge up everything from his New York strip club fiasco in 2003 to petty sniping about his clothes.

Success? He was given the minimum amount of time by Obama, while his lunch appointment with Obama was cancelled. Instead, Clinton was roped in to fill in – who incidentally Rudd endorsed for President. If Obama had cancelled his lunch appointment with say Howard?

…it is hard to imagine any US president cancelling a lunch with John Howard and this not being reported as a serious snub.

Bolt has a good summation of the intrigue between the Defence Minister and his good Chinese friend Helen Liu. The fact that Joel Fitzgibbon misled the public about his associations with Liu seems besides the point for Rudd and Gillard. Why would Fitzgibbon lie? What’s there to hide?The latest is that Liu has close connections not only with the Communist Party, but also the PLA and has been active in promoting Communist Party propaganda in non-Han Chinese parts of China.

Liu claims she is no spy, and given the amount of public information that is available about her questionable connections it seems she is either not a very good one, or simply seeking greater influence over ALP politicians to have them push China’s national interest. Bob Carr has rushed to her defence, but the issue is not really about Liu. It is what was the Defence Minister secretly doing with a women with such close ties to the Chinese Army and Communist Party, and why would he try to cover up his association, both now and in the past? No one believes it was an honest mistake. One does not just forget to list on public disclosure documents free trips to another country, yet list trivial gifts and the sort as Fitzgibbon did. There was a reason for leaving the trips off the list.

Gillard claims that it is absurd to claim there is a conspiracy, but why the secrecy from the ALP then? Henderson in the SMH:

The evidence indicates that even the Rudd Government believes that there is something different about China. This is why it failed to disclose the official visits of Li (propoganda chief) and Zhou (security chief)…It is difficult to imagine that the Rudd Government would not disclose full details of the visits to Australia by senior members of the Japanese Government.

The Australian has run a number of articles analysing Labor’s dealings with the Chinese government after yesterday’s controversy. Starting with the Defence Minister:

THE Chinese businesswoman who paid for trips to China by Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon accompanied him on the visits and introduced him to political officials.

Mr Fitzgibbon yesterday confirmed that Helen Liu had played a central role during two China trips, after he was forced to apologise for failing to declare that they had been paid for by the businesswoman.

As outlined yesterday, Helen Liu has extensive Chinese Communist connections:

Mr Fitzgibbon…brought Ms Liu with him to dinners over the years attended by other Labor MPs….possible Ms Liu had been introduced to former Labor leaders Kim Beazley and Mark Latham and other senior party figures at some of these dinners.

He said Mr Fitzgibbon had met Ms Liu a maximum of five times since he became Defence Minister 16 months ago.

Imagine if this had been a US lobby group or corporation - like Haliburton – doing the same with Australian politicians. One can imagine the out-cry, but with China’s Communists most of the media give the ALP a free pass. Foreign Minister Stephen Smith doesn’t see a problem with it:

Foreign Minister Stephen Smith says there is nothing unusual about politicians accepting trips to China…

Given the extent to which the Chinese government has been wooing the ALP, there may not be anything unusual about the acceptance of Chinese government paid trips for ALP MPs, but that does not make it right. In the same vein, it appears that Chinese propaganda chief Li Changchun had secret meetings with not just the PM:

…visited the country farm of ABC chairman Maurice Newman…lobbied ABC managing director Mark Scott over the broadcaster’s coverage of Tibet…met Seven Network chairman Kerry Stokes…

Mr Rudd’s office last night refused The Weekend Australian’s request that it release the full itinerary of Mr Li’s five-day, taxpayer-funded official visit, which ended on Tuesday.

What’s the big secret, and where is the accountability for tax-payers? Dennis Shanahan argues:

The Government’s got a perception problem, Fitzgibbon’s made it worse but there still isn’t a Manchurian candidate.

Well that’s reassuring. However, the fact that Australia’s national newspaper is having to argue that this is the case says a thousand words about the ALP’s relationship with Chinese Communist party officials. There does not have to be a Manchurian candidate for impropriety to be evident and for Australia’s national interest to be threatened or compromised. MT highlighted this very point with the following comments:

Mr Turnbull also questioned Mr Rudd’s international advocacy of a bigger role for China in the International Monetary Fund, saying “he seems to be more like a travelling advocate for China as opposed to Australia”.

Singling out an interview Mr Rudd did on a US television show, Mr Turnbull said the Prime Minister had been “given the opportunity in that interview to speak up strongly on behalf of Australia’s economy and Australia’s successful system of financial regulation and compare it favourably with the failures elsewhere in the world. He didn’t do that. He seemed to spend most of his time talking about China. Now he’s not a roving ambassador for the People’s Republic of China – he’s the Prime Minister of Australia and he has to put our national interest first.”

His Treasury spokesman Joe Hockey went further, suggesting a link between the Government’s foreign investment deliberations and trips by Mr Rudd, the Treasurer and other frontbenchers paid for by Chinese business interests during Labor’s years in Opposition.

I find it revealing that Wayne Swan just rejected the Chinese Minmetals takeover of OZ Minerals on the basis that one their mines is in the Defence Woomera missile testing area. Clearly someone within the Australian Government views Chinese Government investment as a risk to national security – Rudd and Fitzgibbon appear not to have received the message.

Consider this. The USA racks up a huge budget deficit – now 80 per cent of GDP – and as a result China begins to get nervous about their investments in Treasury bonds and starts to look for other investment opportunities. By contrast, Howard/Costello repay so much Commonwealth debt that in 2003 they even consider closing down the Commonwealth bond market. In the mean time China schmoozes Rudd and his potential Ministers with free personal trips to China, secret meetings with members of the Politburo and providing “small gifts” and donations to the ALP and individual members via local entities and persons with links back to the Chinese government. Rudd comes to power and reciprocates this Chinese goodwill by undoing 11 years of fiscal austerity and reinvigorating the Commonwealth bond market with a commitment to issue $200 billion in debt. And guess who is the main buyer of the debt?

CHINA is secretly helping to bankroll Kevin Rudd’s economic rescue plan as concerns grow over the relationship between the Communist superpower and the Labor Government….Market insiders believe China is buying 15 to 20 per cent of the $2 billion in Treasury securities being issued every week.

Is there a conspiracy here? Time is telling.

And what happens when the Federal government loses its AAA rating?

THE Rudd Government will guarantee all state government borrowings – possibly up to $150 billion – to ensure that the states can continue to raise money to stimulate the economy with infrastructure spending during the credit crisis.

Announcing the decision after a meeting with state treasurers, Wayne Swan said the extension of the federal guarantee to state borrowing would be temporary and was not a “free ride”, with AAA-rated states paying up to 30basis points and AA+ rated states such as Queensland up to 35 basis points for the federal guarantee.

Queensland has already lost its AAA rating and NSW Premier Nathan Rees has warned his state could be next.

There are perfectly good reasons these states are losing their credit rating – fiscal irresponsibility. The Federal government is no different. It’s like two teenage shopaholics agreeing to guarantee each others credit card debt when the parents – like taxpayers – are the ones to pay the final bill.

The DoD Minister’s falling out with his own department continues after the SAS pay row bungle of a few months ago. It reflects poorly on his leadership abilities:

OFFICIALS in the Defence Department have conducted a covert investigation into their own minister, leaking personal information about Joel Fitzgibbon’s relationship with a wealthy Chinese-born woman with past financial ties to Beijing….

Every Defence Minister and person with access to classified material is checked out by the department for security risks, but leaking the details is a different story.

….a Defence Signals Directorate officer accessed Mr Fitzgibbon’s office IT systems and is understood to have found Ms Liu’s banking details.

…Mr Fitzgibbon stays in a Canberra residence sublet from Ms Liu and her family….

….Mr Fitzgibbon had received expensive gifts from Ms Liu, his spokesman said the families had exchanged small, personal gifts…

…MPs privately revealing Mr Fitzgibbon had invited them to dine with or meet the 48-year-old businesswoman.

….Ms Liu has been a generous financial supporter of the New South Wales ALP…

….several of her deregistered Australian companies had Chinese Government-owned enterprises as shareholders….run by senior Communist Party officials.

There is definitely a perceived security risk here. Combined with Rudd’s propensity to publicly air confidential conversations, one would imagine that the DoD is careful with the type of information they give to the security cabinet. This also comes on the back of Rudd’s secret meeting on Saturday with the Li Changchun, who is number 5 in China’s ruling politburo standing committee. Greg Sheridan from The Australian:

Li’s visit should occasion a serious examination of the exercise of Chinese soft power in Australia. It can benefit from as much transparency and public scrutiny as possible.

Another example includes the Chinese embassy organising Chinese student protests against Tibetans in breach of diplomatic conventions.

UPDATE

The ABC has gone in to damage control mode with this apologetic reportfrom ABC radio. They pulled an ALP soothsayer that used to work for an un-stated part of DoD (probably an EEO area), to say it was improper for DoD to undertake a security background check on their own Minister. This assertion of course was completely unsubstantiated in the radio interview. If DoD suspected their own Minister as being a security risk due to a Chinese connection, what exactly was DoD expected to do, turn to the PM for help? Rudd is a China apologist who holds secret meetings with members of the Chinese politburo. His reaction to a DoD request of this nature would have been fairly predictable. At least there remain people on the tax-payers payroll that are still watching out for the country’s best interests.

UPDATE II

Looks like the Minister is starting to come clean:

THE future of Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon was in doubt last night after he was forced to apologise for failing to declare two trips he made to China that were paid for by Chinese businesswoman Helen Liu. The admission drew an immediate call by Malcolm Turnbull for Kevin Rudd to sack Mr Fitzgibbon.

I wonder what they are talking about? Tim’s record of under achievement on Indonesia and Japan, or Kevin explaining how to blow 11 years of fiscal austerity in under a year.

Found this post from The Corner pretty revealing. In Obama’s multi-polar world, traditional trusted allies like Australia and Britain take a backward step:

It is now three weeks since the Sunday Telegraph first revealed the State Department’s extraordinarily rude response to concern in the U.K. over its handling of the Gordon Brown visit to the White House in early March:

“There’s nothing special about Britain. You’re just the same as the other 190 countries in the world. You shouldn’t expect special treatment.”

Given that Rudd is about to meet Obama, I gather the same comments apply to Australia. Well if that’s the case, Obama might want to consider a place called Harold E. Holt in Western Australia, a Naval facility that provides Obama with a low radio frequency communications capability with his USN submerged nuclear deterrent. Or Pine Gap, JORN, etc… It’s called Echelon, and there aren’t many member countries.