Thread: Australia V China

Pretty high level, frantic stuff going on in the corridors of power here. I'm certainly not anti switching away from diesel, but that will take several years.

Originally Posted by sabang

Australia is set to suffer great losses in its energy trade with China, as China now reportedly seeks to lock in long-term liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies from the US, following the recent power crunch caused by surging coal prices.

At least five Chinese firms, including oil giant Sinopec Corp and China National Offshore Oil Co (CNOOC), are in discussions with US exporters, mainly Cheniere Energy and Venture Global, about potential LNG deals, Reuters reported, citing anonymous sources.

Sinopec alone could be eyeing 4 million tons annually, the report said.

If the reported deals were to materialize, Australia, a main LNG supplier for China, will stand to lose, analysts said.

"It is obvious that Australia suffered great losses as an energy source for China," Lin Boqiang, director of the China Center for Energy Economics Research at Xiamen University, told the Global Times on Sunday.

As diplomatic tension has a big impact on trade, "it is natural for China to diversify LNG imports, for example, buying more from the US after its relations with Australia froze," Lin noted.

According to statistics from Chinese customs, China imported 5.4 million tons of LNG from the US from January to August, skyrocketing 375 percent compared with the same period in 2020.

By comparison, China bought 20.5 million tons of LNG from Australia in the first eight months, similar to the level of 19.1 million tons last year.

Australia loses as China reportedly buys more US LNG - Global Times



Not like they're rubbing it in, right? That would be beneath them.

You do know that its 6000 nautical miles to the west coast and approx 16 shipping days to China as opposed to 3000 nautical miles and 9 days from Australia depending on departure port?
Shipping costs alone will more than double let alone the dramatic increase in inventory costs due to lead times. The USA went from 1.5 million tons of LNG to 5.4 tons whilst Australia went from 19.1 to 20.5 million tons or four times the quantity.
The USA has in fact only about 10% over capacity in regard to production v domestic consumption, which is very little excess gas capacity (by my maths approx 10 million tons) and it actually has to import gas. The reason is shipping LNG between American ports requires the ships to be built in America with American crews which is very expensive as bulk tankers require cryogenic tankers for LNG shipping and are very expensive to build, therefore it is cheaper to export and import foreign LNG with foreign tankers and crew to make up the shortfall. In short, the USA is not currently capable of replacing Australian exports let alone find the required number of tankers to do so.
Nth African production has decline by approx 50%, as is their supply to Europe and their is a current shortage of gas pushing up worldwide prices, especially in Europe.
Your vigour in ingratiating yourself with all things Chinese has robbed you of any ability to critically analyse what you read, especially from a well know Chinese government rag, which is tailor made for Chinese propangandists and the gullible.

Well if we ignore the usual antichink stuff, that was actually quite an interesting post. So a very general but pertinent question- why are australian shipping/ transport costs so damn high?

Originally Posted by sabang

Well if we ignore the usual antichink stuff, that was actually quite an interesting post. So a very general but pertinent question- why are australian shipping/ transport costs so damn high?

Probably the same reason as they are for everyone else: Demand is exceeding supply.

Anyway, what are we gonna do about our chronic urea shortage? Unfortunately it cannot be solved by drinkin' piss and urinating in a bottle. Given it has the status of an essential commodity, I think long term we are gonna have to bring meaningful production back onshore. We certainly cannot rely on any favors from them behind the bamboo curtain right now.

Originally Posted by sabang

Anyway, what are we gonna do about our chronic urea shortage? Unfortunately it cannot be solved by drinkin' piss and urinating in a bottle. Given it has the status of an essential commodity, I think long term we are gonna have to bring meaningful production back onshore. We certainly cannot rely on any favors from them behind the bamboo curtain right now.

I believe this plant will start construction in Geralton next year. Hopefully that answers your question.

Strike Energy plan fertiliser plant capable of supplying bulk of Australia'''s urea needs - ABC News

Grreatismo. Now there is just the short term crisis to nut out...

If Peter Dutton and his like want to conduct war games to enhance their pre-election prospects, perhaps they should play a few rounds of paintball

As a desperate Morrison government recklessly spruiks what it insists are the prospects of armed conflict with China, now is exactly the right time to introduce a legal curb on the federal executive’s unilateral capacity to commit Australian troops to war.

Since the recent emergence as defence minister of prime ministerial wannabe Peter Dutton, the federal government has dangerously amped-up the prospect of Australian war with China over Taiwan, for what some consider cynical political purposes ahead of an election.

Dutton repeatedly reaches into his inflammatory, scare-‘em-all-the-way-to-the-ballot-box rhetorical kit bag, with questionable claims including that it would be “inconceivable” for Australia not to follow America if there was a war with China.


He has also invoked the rise of nazism in the 1930s (yes, there was considerable appeasement, though the world didn’t fail to notice or act against the rise of toxic German nationalism and aggression). But the parallel point he makes in relation to China, while the world watches cautiously, is illegitimate.

“It has come at great human cost and any repeat of the mistakes of the 1930s would again exact a great cost on our country and many more,” Dutton said.

There is no copyright on cheap foreign policy frighteners, of course. It was only six or so months back that Dutton’s rhetorically fearsome comrade-in-arms Mike Pezzullo (head of the minister’s old department home affairs but with a hawk-eye on defence) also invoked the Nazis, in an Anzac day speech which, while encouraging the search for peace, referred ominously to unspecified beating “drums of war”.

Cue a collective eyeroll among the harder heads in defence who adhere to the dictum of speaking cautiously when you have such a very small stick in your hand.
Neither has there been any shortage of overhyped war talk from other hatchlings in the hawk’s nest.

But here is an idea: if Dutton and his like want to play war games to enhance their pre-election prospects, perhaps go get down and dirty with a few rounds of paintball.

Too strenuous? Well, it is usually the armchair generals like Dutton and his supporters who carry on the most obstreperously but who won’t actually be required to charge over the parapet when the whistle sounds.

The real dirty work of war, of course, is done by those in uniform – not the politicians who send them, too often for all the wrong reasons.

It’s little wonder then that veterans and their families are now petitioning federal MPs to change the law to ensure the decision to commit to war be debated in – and voted on by – parliament. Presently the prime minister alone can commit to war.

When leading federal government figures continually politicise the prospects of Australian conflict with China over the Taiwan Strait (while planning greater military interoperability with American and British forces through the recent Aukus deal) the veterans’ initiative, No War Without Parliament, makes sense.

“We urge you, our parliamentarians, to demand that any proposal for Australian involvement in overseas wars receives scrutiny in parliament followed by your vote, to ensure that ADF [Australian Defence Force] actions have the widespread support of the Australian people as expressed through parliament,” reads the petition circulated by Australians for War Powers Reform.

“We ask you to change Australian law so that our armed forces cannot be sent to an overseas conflict without the approval of our parliament. There are no impediments to this legislation that cannot be resolved.”

Signatories include former defence force chief Chris Barrie and veterans of all recent conflicts – including Afghanistan and Iraq – to which Australian personnel have been deployed.
“I commend this appeal to all ADF veterans, so that those who participate in any future wars will have the explicit support of the Parliament and the Australian people,” Barrie says.

Cameron Leckie, a veteran and former army officer, says that as a young soldier he never questioned how or why Australia committed to conflict and simply “took it on faith … the reasons were justified, legal and democratic”.

“Currently the most important decision that any country can make – to go to war – can be made by one person alone, the Prime Minister,” Leckie says. “As a veteran, I think this situation shows a disturbing, if not disgraceful, disregard for Australian defence personnel. Especially a disregard for the mostly young Australians who enlist.

While they have done so willingly, and know that they may be required to kill, or risk being killed, injured or otherwise damaged in the service of their country, they are entitled to know that their lives will not be put at risk for political purposes in wars that should have been avoided.”

Importantly, if federal parliament were to debate future deployments of military personnel, voters would have greater confidence that questions of national security – and war-fighting and the possibility of it – were not being used as political smokescreen. Australia’s real “fog of war” happens behind the closed prime ministerial door as well as on the battlefield.

Scarcely has a federal government been less transparent than this incumbent when it comes to the moral and strategic integrity of its hawkish motivations.

https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...ian-troops-to-war

Originally Posted by OhOh

Aukus boss says jump, aukus wassles jump.

Beijing tells you to shit yourself . . . and you do

The former Australian prime minister Paul Keating has accused the Liz Truss of making “demented” comments about Chinese military aggression urged the British foreign secretary to hurry “back to her collapsing, disreputable government”.

Keating, in a blistering op-ed, also said Britain “suffers delusions of grandeur and relevance deprivation” and its tilt to the Indo-Pacific lacks credibility.

The former Labor leader, who served as prime minister from 1991 to 1996, has long pushed for “engagement” with China but now finds himself increasingly at odds with the bipartisan consensus in Canberra to take a stronger line against Beijing.


Keating took aim at Truss, who visited Australia for meetings with counterparts last week, after a report said she had warned that China could use a Russian invasion of Ukraine as an opportunity to launch aggression of its own in the Indo-Pacific.

“I don’t think we can rule that out,” Truss was reported as saying during an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
“Russia is working more closely with China than it ever has. Aggressors are working in concert and I think it’s incumbent on countries like ours to work together.”

Former Australian PM Paul Keating criticises Liz Truss over ‘demented’ China comments (msn.com)

Originally Posted by sabang

The former Australian prime minister Paul Keating has accused the Liz Truss of making “demented” comments about Chinese military aggression urged the British foreign secretary to hurry “back to her collapsing, disreputable government”.

Guess which chinky apologist called Paul Keating takes money from the China Development Bank? (and who knows what other chinky entities).

The Defence Minister is stoking anti-China sentiment in Australia – a foolhardy stance that is damaging our economy and putting us at risk of military conflict.

On November 23, shadow foreign minister Penny Wong said that the Morrison government’s constant

“amping up the prospect of war against a super-power is the most dangerous election tactic in Australian history”.

She is right that it is extremely dangerous, but the ploy has been used before. The difference this time is, of course, that China is a nuclear superpower.

In the 1960s the Coalition government terrified the Australian public with the prospect of the ‘Yellow Peril’ of Chinese communism toppling all the ‘dominoes’ in South-East Asia and wiping out Australia’s democratic way of life, unless it was halted in its tracks in Vietnam. So we joined the US in its ‘war of aggression’ in Vietnam (Daniel Ellsberg 2002) .

Following the destruction of cities and rural environment by more bombs than were dropped by all sides in WWII, with the attendant slaughter of 3.8 million people (Robert McNamara 1999) and the maiming and deforming of countless more by Napalm and Agent Orange, we were finally defeated in 1975.

Unsurprisingly the ‘Yellow Peril’ did not come flooding down to Australia, because the Vietnamese national liberation movement which won the war, was as opposed to Chinese intervention as it was to American intervention. It is delusional to believe that Vietnam would support an American war against China.

Wong said that Defence Minister Peter Dutton was “wildly out of step with a strategy long adopted by Australia and our principal ally” which was the “bipartisan adoption of a One China Policy and advocacy to deter unilateral changes to the status quo”.

But is Dutton really out of step with US strategy? On the contrary, he appears to be implementing the “strategy of denial” detailed in the book of that name by Elbridge Colby, a book he keenly read (Troy Bramston, The Australian, December 15).

Colby served as the lead official in the development of the 2018 National Defence Strategy (NDS). He served with the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq in 2003 and the 2004-05 President’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission, making him adept in campaigns of vilification through misinformation.

He is committed to the pursuit of the ‘Wolfowitz doctrine’ of maintaining US primacy in the world by military force. He believes a ‘limited war’ between China and Taiwan would serve the US objective of inhibiting China’s rise.

The 2018 NDS has not been significantly revised under President Joe Biden. In it Colby recommended that US allies Japan, India and Australia should be drawn into a coalition (like the ‘Coalition of the Willing’ against Iraq) to contain China. Two years later, under Biden, the QUAD
and AUKUS were formed.

Step 1: Vilification

In line with Colby’s strategy of demonisation, Dutton is generating fear of China by characterising its efforts to protect its national territorial integrity in Tibet, Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Taiwan as ‘aggressive expansionism’. These are specious examples, since all four provinces have been part of the sovereign territory of China since well before Australia existed as a nation state.

He seems unaware that China has never invaded another country for territorial gain, whereas the US has attempted the overthrow of 60 countries since WWII, succeeding in the case of 25 elected democracies.

Dutton said he had to speak the truth about China’s military build-up, but failed to mention the US ‘pivot to Asia’, which ranged 60 per cent of American naval capability along the coast of China. To the Chinese, this must have looked like a potential blockade of its most economically vital ports, and provoked the acceleration of military counter measures.

He cited China’s construction of military bases in the South China Sea as a further sign of ‘expansionism’, but failed to mention that Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines and even Taiwan had similar bases.

He did not acknowledge the possibility that China saw its bases as a counter to the constant incursions by the US and its allies (especially Australia) into waters vital to its interests, through ‘freedom of navigation operations’. He made no mention of the fact that China has one base outside its own periphery, compared to over 800 US bases around the world, many of them encircling China.

To further stoke public fear, he pointed out that China’s navy was many times the tonnage of Australia’s and their missiles were capable of striking any target in Australia as far south as Hobart.

Step 2: Goad China to act

Colby argued that after a campaign to vilify it, China could be goaded into starting a military conflict over Taiwan and thus be portrayed as the aggressor. The US has already taken a number of steps in this direction, apart from stationing the bulk of its naval power off the coast of China. These include:

• “Freedom of navigation” and combat exercises in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait;
• Visits by senior US officials using US military aircraft;
• Creation of a putative “air defence identification zone” extending well over mainland territory and then alleging Chinese violations of it;
• Secretly providing military training personnel (while denying it);
• Including Taiwan in the Summit for Democracy (December 8-10), implying it is a separate country.

Dutton is further goading China by reassuring Taiwan that Australia would “inevitably” come to its defence in the event of a military move against it from the mainland. He is increasing the possibility that Taiwan will feel emboldened to declare independence from China and thus upset the status quo and provoke the war that Colby recommends.

Daniel L. Davies, a retired lieutenant-colonel and senior fellow at Washington think tank Defence Priorities, has argued that “refusing to be drawn into a no-win war with China over Taiwan will see our comparative advantage over China increase dramatically. Their military would be seriously degraded … while ours … would be at full strength”.

The Taiwan Relations Act 1979 imposes a legal requirement on the US to “provide Taiwan with arms of a defensive character”. There is no treaty obligation for the US to intervene to defend Taiwan. According to Davies, the US should not risk any of its own military assets, but should push Taiwan to invest more in its self-defence capabilities. Colby has suggested that the US should not provide air defence to Taiwan, since widespread civilian casualties would whip up world anger against China.

Under the strategies proposed by Colby and Davies, China would become bogged down in a drawn-out conflict that would severely deplete its armed forces and deflect its resources away from economic development and international infrastructure co-operation. It would also

satisfy the insatiable appetite of the US military-Industrial complex for never-ending arms sales.

The ANZUS Treaty is a non-binding collective security agreement. It provides only that an armed attack on one of its members would constitute a danger to the others and require consultations on measures to meet the threat. It does not bind the US to intervene to protect Australia should Australia attack a third party.

In the light of the Colby-Davies strategy for Taiwan, the US would be unlikely to risk its own military assets or any of its homeland territory in direct defence of Australia. It would increase arms sales to bolster Australia’s self-defence, at great cost to the budget and great profit to the military-industrial complex.

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan promised that America would not leave Australia ‘alone in the field’ in its trade dispute with China. Instead of taking supportive action, however, the US leapt in to snatch up the markets lost by Australia’s ‘standing up to China’. This does not

encourage confidence that the US would actively intervene in support of Australia in a military clash with China.

Commitment under AUKUS to heavy expenditure on nuclear-powered submarines, to arrive in the next 20 years or so, offers little reassurance if Dutton’s ‘war with China’ erupts in the next five years.

Dutton has disingenuously asserted that the ASEAN countries would support Australia. He has failed to acknowledge that such support is far from certain, since ASEAN on November 22 renewed its Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with China. Each of its members has ongoing infrastructure projects under China’s BRI, which they would not wish to put at risk. They have all expressed varying degrees of disquiet at ‘increased power projection’ into the region through AUKUS.

The effectiveness of the QUAD in defence of Australia is also highly questionable, given that India has security obligations with China through its commitment to the Charter of the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation. India is also dependent for its armament on Russia, which has a “better than treaty relationship” with China. Russia seems unlikely to equip India to fight China.

The Colby strategy has not been formally adopted by the Biden administration, but there are signs that it is gaining increasing traction in policy-making circles in Washington. There are also strong voices in Washington in favour of direct US military involvement in defense of Taiwan, arguing that if it failed to do so, the US would lose international credibility as the ‘protector of democracy’.

Fortunately, President Biden has opted, for the time being, for continuation of the policy of ‘strategic ambiguity’ (if somewhat weighted towards reassurances to Taiwan), eschewing the two competing, more aggressive scenarios.

In either scenario, the result for Australia would be the same: – If Australia were to join in the battle to “save democratic Taiwan”, as proposed by Dutton, then, judging from his own assessment of China’s capabilities, the Australian navy would be obliterated in short order and command-control centres in Australia destroyed (especially Pine Gap, in the unlikely event that US forces were involved).

The strident anti-China policy of the Morrison government has positioned Australia as the enemy of China, which is increasingly reluctant to trade with the enemy. Hence the China trade would not be available to buffer Australia from the worst effects of the next global financial crisis (which many economic analysts believe is imminent), as it did in the 2008 GFC. Australia would be considerably weakened economically and much less able to sustain a military engagement with China.

Dutton’s pronouncements, however, are edging Australia inexorably towards outright warfare with China. Australia needs instead to align itself more clearly to Biden’s public posture by unambiguously reaffirming (to both China and Taiwan) its adherence to the One China principle and its commitment to a peaceful, negotiated resolution of the ‘Taiwan problem’.

John Lander

John Lander worked in the China section of the Department of Foreign Affairs in the lead-up to the recognition of the People’s Republic of China in 1972 and several other occasions in the 1970s and 1980s. He was deputy ambassador in Beijing 1974-76 (including a couple of stints as Chargé d’Affaires). He was heavily involved in negotiation of many aspects in the early development of Australia-China relations, especially student/teacher exchange, air traffic agreement and consular relations. He has made numerous visits to China in the years 2000-2019.


The China threat: Dutton is dragging Australia into dangerous waters - Pearls and Irritations

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PM’s ‘lost’ WeChat account speaks volumes about our changing Sino relations



Scott Morrison has lost his WeChat account. The prime minister’s account on the popular Chinese social media platform was taken over last year and quietly rebranded as “Australian-Chinese New Life”. Efforts by the government to reclaim it have failed.



For Liberal Senator James Paterson, chair of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Intelligence and Security and a China hawk, the account takeover is a sign of foreign interference. Government MPs are pledging to boycott the platform ahead of the next election.

For Huang Aipeng, chief executive of Fuzhou 985 Information Technology, which now controls the account, the whole thing was a simple commercial transaction.
“I don’t even know who [Scott] Morrison is. I saw the account has a lot of followers, so we bought it,” Huang told the ABC.

That the new owners’ registered website is a Chinese underground sports betting company adds another layer of murk. But whatever the reasons behind the takeover, the saga shows how Australian politicians’ relationship with WeChat, and China in general have changed since 2019.

.... the way Morrison’s account was treated is indicative of Australia’s tainted image in China.

“We shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that while the core of the story is one of incompetence on behalf of the PMO, it also is illustrative of just how much Scott Morrison’s name and the Australian government’s reputation is in the garbage bin in China,” Ryan said.

PM’s ‘lost’ WeChat account speaks volumes about our changing Sino relations (msn.com)

Originally Posted by sabang

PM’s ‘lost’ WeChat account speaks volumes about our changing Sino relations



Scott Morrison has lost his WeChat account. The prime minister’s account on the popular Chinese social media platform was taken over last year and quietly rebranded as “Australian-Chinese New Life”. Efforts by the government to reclaim it have failed.



For Liberal Senator James Paterson, chair of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Intelligence and Security and a China hawk, the account takeover is a sign of foreign interference. Government MPs are pledging to boycott the platform ahead of the next election.

For Huang Aipeng, chief executive of Fuzhou 985 Information Technology, which now controls the account, the whole thing was a simple commercial transaction.
“I don’t even know who [Scott] Morrison is. I saw the account has a lot of followers, so we bought it,” Huang told the ABC.

That the new owners’ registered website is a Chinese underground sports betting company adds another layer of murk. But whatever the reasons behind the takeover, the saga shows how Australian politicians’ relationship with WeChat, and China in general have changed since 2019.

.... the way Morrison’s account was treated is indicative of Australia’s tainted image in China.

“We shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that while the core of the story is one of incompetence on behalf of the PMO, it also is illustrative of just how much Scott Morrison’s name and the Australian government’s reputation is in the garbage bin in China,” Ryan said.

PM’s ‘lost’ WeChat account speaks volumes about our changing Sino relations (msn.com)

Faark this scomo guy is an embarrassment. His days are numbered though. Bring on the election.

Originally Posted by sabang

I wonder how much they pay the Australian Harold Steptoe for his "Globaltimes" articles?

Originally Posted by sabang

For Huang Aipeng, chief executive of Fuzhou 985 Information Technology, which now controls the account, the whole thing was a simple commercial transaction.
“I don’t even know who [Scott] Morrison is. I saw the account has a lot of followers, so we bought it,” Huang told the ABC.

So, he didn't really lose it then. They sold it to someone.

Which shows how Wechat, like the chinkies, is not to be trusted.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

I wonder how much they pay the Australian Harold Steptoe for his "Globaltimes" articles?

In Singapore and Malaysia the Beijing-apologists are called 'fifty-cent' as that's how much they earn per pro-China/anti-western post.

Civilian technicians have arrived in Tonga to assess systems on Australia's biggest warship after it suffered an outage while shipping vital aid when the region was hit by a destructive underwater volcano eruption.

"The Adelaide deployment has been something of a disaster for Australia ... but the Tonga government is sympathetic ... it knows Australia is trying its best," Dr Pryke said.

It comes as Chinese aid continues to arrive in Tonga delivered by ships and military aircraft.

Dr Pryke said the arrival of Chinese aid on Tonga helped boost its soft power status in the Pacific.

"They were able to load up some fishing vessels from Fiji and deliver some aid by plane to Tonga."

China media outlet Global Times reported that a second batch of disaster relief aid arrived in Tonga aboard two Chinese navy ships on Monday.

China steps in as Australian aid mission to Tonga stumbles (msn.com)


Tonga has also gone into Lockdown, with five confirmed Covid cases, including among dockworkers unloading foreign aid. HMAS Adelaide has 15 confirmed cases.

I'm sure the newly purchased nuclear submarines will be OK.

^ Chinky hacking? French technology?

Originally Posted by sabang

Civilian technicians have arrived in Tonga to assess systems on Australia's biggest warship after it suffered an outage while shipping vital aid when the region was hit by a destructive underwater volcano eruption.

"The Adelaide deployment has been something of a disaster for Australia ... but the Tonga government is sympathetic ... it knows Australia is trying its best," Dr Pryke said.

It comes as Chinese aid continues to arrive in Tonga delivered by ships and military aircraft.

Dr Pryke said the arrival of Chinese aid on Tonga helped boost its soft power status in the Pacific.

"They were able to load up some fishing vessels from Fiji and deliver some aid by plane to Tonga."

China media outlet Global Times reported that a second batch of disaster relief aid arrived in Tonga aboard two Chinese navy ships on Monday.

China steps in as Australian aid mission to Tonga stumbles (msn.com)


Tonga has also gone into Lockdown, with five confirmed Covid cases, including among dockworkers unloading foreign aid. HMAS Adelaide has 15 confirmed cases.

Why is this a disaster? The aid has been delivered, back up power is now operational and they have a team sent in to fix the problem. They are docked so they are not stranded in the middle of the ocean. It is a shallow draft vessel so is unlikely to have problems even in a shallow port.