The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) published its dramatic allegations of Uyghur Muslim forced labour in a much-lauded 1 March 2020 report, Uyghurs for Sale.
The report alleged “a new phase in China’s social re-engineering campaign targeting minority citizens”, claiming it had exposed “new evidence” that a number of factories were “using forced Uyghur labour under a state-sponsored labour transfer scheme that is tainting the global supply chain”. A 26 March 2020 Grayzone report nailed the agenda behind ASPI’s claims in its headline that charged forced labour allegations about Chinese Uyghurs are “brought to you by US, NATO, arms industry to drive Cold War PR blitz”.
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The hyperbolic response from promoters of the Anglo-American establishment to a recent Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) exposé on the spiritual movement called Falun Gong is more than intriguing. It hints at the group’s long history of support from the US government, intelligence-linked organisations, and powerful representatives of the regime change apparatus that is now gathering for war against China.
The ABC’s 21 July 2020 exposé, “The power of Falun Gong”, documented the stark contradiction between Falun Gong’s professed Buddhist-based belief system of “spiritual growth through disciplined practice”, and the accounts of former practitioners, who alleged dangerous and divisive teachings. The exposé revealed Falun Gong’s religious cosmology revolves around their god-like leader, Master Li Hongzhi, and Li’s belief in an inter-dimensional cosmic battle between forces of good and evil, personified on earth by Falun Gong’s battle with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In a 10 May 1999 interview with Time, Li claimed actual aliens were “corrupting mankind” through modern science, with the ultimate aim of cloning and replacing humans; Li enigmatically implied he himself was beyond human. Australian “ethics” professor Clive Hamilton popularised anti-China paranoia through his two books, Silent Invasion and Hidden Hand. To support many of the claims in these books he resorts to manipulated quotes and misrepresented statistics, which can only be described as intentionally deceitful.
In Silent Invasion (2018), Hamilton makes the sweeping declaration that “Chinese historically have seen themselves as superior to other Asian people”. This is offered entirely without evidence. Ironically, despite condemning China’s authoritarian government, Hamilton argues against free speech in Australia if it’s in support of the Chinese government! He says universities should liberate Chinese students “from their ideological ghettos” by having them “attend courses on human rights and democracy”, where they can “find their own voices”—presumably in anti-China speech. In a 7 August 2020 opinion in Pearls and Irritations, Professor Jocelyn Chey, a former senior diplomat specialising in Australia-China relations, declared Hamilton’s second anti-China book, Hidden Hand (2020), a “diatribe”. “We do not need this hysteria”, she said, referring to Hamilton’s “emotive language” and “rather basic lack of understanding of China’s political structures”. Chey believes Hidden Hand “should not be taken seriously because it is biased, and therefore bad scholarship.” The weapon of human rights
The Australian public, as well as MPs and other government officials, are being directed how to think about China by a small group of ideologically driven propagandists, funded by institutions of the section of the Anglo-American power establishment that seeks war without end, even risking nuclear warfare that would annihilate mankind. In this Postscript to the China Narrative Series, I address the weaponisation of human rights, used to justify a New Cold War with China. This is an evolving document, and may be periodically updated with new information. (Read The China Narrative part one here; part two here; part three here; part four here; and part five here.) The escalation of Western hostility towards China in recent years is not organic - it is part of a well-coordinated PR campaign, which coincides with changing US foreign policy towards China. In 2017, the US government’s National Security Strategy report declared China and Russia to be a strategic threat, “[challenging] American power, influence, and interests, attempting to erode American security and prosperity.” In 2018, investigative journalist Whitney Webb reported Lockheed Martin was awarded over US$3 billion in government contracts in only two days, amidst US military fretting about Russian/Chinese advancement: “Since January, the US military - through the Pentagon’s 2018 National Defense Strategy - shifted gears, replacing the ‘War on Terror’ with a war against ‘great power competition’. In other words, the US military’s focus on fighting terrorism has ended, replaced with a focus on fighting what is essentially a new Cold War against Russia and China.” In June 2020, MintPress reported: “Washington is currently ramping up hostilities with China, the Pentagon’s 2021 budget explicitly asking for extra funding to be ready for an aggressive war in Asia.” All roads lead to ASIO Clive Hamilton’s books exposing China “interference”, Silent Invasion and Hidden Hand, are important, not because of the quality of the content—paranoid propaganda—but because the influencers behind Hamilton’s crusade reveal his role as a cog in a vast narrative-management machine. The public, as well as MPs and other government officials, are being directed how to think about China by a small group of ideologically driven propagandists, funded by institutions of the section of the Anglo-American power establishment that seeks war without end, even risking nuclear warfare that would annihilate mankind.
(Read The China Narrative part one here; part two here; part three here; part four here; part five here; and postscript here.) The freeze in Australia’s relationship with its biggest trading partner China is blamed on the assertiveness of President Xi Jinping. As the Australian Alert Service has demonstrated in this five-part China narrative series, however, the blame mostly lies on the Australian side, where the main culprit is Australia’s domestic spy agency, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), and its Five Eyes spying alliance with US, UK, NZ and Canadian intelligence organisations. ASIO claims on its website that “political independence remains central” to its activities. In ASIO’s 24 February 2020 “Annual Threat Assessment”, Director-General Mike Burgess claimed defensively that ASIO is “not a secret organisation operating as a law unto itself, conducting shadowy business around the margins of our democracy and our law. Nothing could be further from the truth.” Yet a September 2020 discussion paper by Bill Browne of the Australia Institute notes that ASIO has much less parliamentary oversight than even its Five Eyes counterparts; and there is mounting evidence ASIO is attempting to extend its control over Australia’s foreign policy, trade, economy and academia by stealth. ASIO's disinformation campaign Clive Hamilton’s books exposing China “interference”, Silent Invasion and Hidden Hand, are important, not because of the quality of the content—paranoid propaganda—but because the influencers behind Hamilton’s crusade reveal his role as a cog in a vast narrative-management machine. The public, as well as MPs and other government officials, are being directed how to think about China by a small group of ideologically driven propagandists, funded by institutions of the section of the Anglo-American power establishment that seeks war without end, even risking nuclear warfare that would annihilate mankind.
(Read The China Narrative part one here; part two here; part three here; part four here; part five here; and postscript here.) There is mounting evidence that Australia’s domestic spy agency, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), is behind the spiralling paranoia over alleged Chinese foreign influence in Australia. A stream of well-timed leaks of classified material, journalistic tip-offs from anonymous ASIO sources, and evidence of blatant coordination between the spy agency, media and government make it abundantly clear: the anti-China disinformation campaign that has destroyed Australia-China relations is a spook-run operation, and the real foreign interference in Australia is coming through ASIO from the US- and UK-dominated Five Eyes spying alliance, which is dragging Australia into a neoconservative Anglo-American strategy to confront China, even at the risk of war. ASIO is a clandestine organisation and reporting on its operations can land journalists in jail for 10 years; it has shaped public opinion through a small circle of academics, journalists, think tanks and politicians who cite each other’s unproven claims as evidence for their increasingly strident allegations against China. As evidenced in his reporting, Fairfax/ Nine journalist Nick McKenzie is a primary recipient of confidential tip-offs from national security agencies, and is apparently privy to intimate details of ASIO’s activities. McKenzie has peddled the Chinese foreign influence narrative for years, through a series of inflammatory newspaper and television “exposés” and sensationalist reporting, conveniently timed to justify ASIO-empowering legislation, and to deflect unwanted attention from ASIO’s misconduct. Espionage and interference Clive Hamilton’s books exposing China “interference”, Silent Invasion and Hidden Hand, are important, not because of the quality of the content—paranoid propaganda—but because the influencers behind Hamilton’s crusade reveal his role as a cog in a vast narrative-management machine. The public, as well as MPs and other government officials, are being directed how to think about China by a small group of ideologically driven propagandists, funded by institutions of the section of the Anglo-American power establishment that seeks war without end, even risking nuclear warfare that would annihilate mankind.
(Read The China Narrative part one here; part two here; part three here; part four here; part five here; and postscript here.) When Charles Sturt University public ethics professor Clive Hamilton published Silent Invasionin 2018, alleging a vast Chinese infiltration operation in Australia, it dramatically escalated mainstream media hysteria over Chinese influence on Australian politics. The book and the hysteria it fuelled justified the controversial espionage and foreign interference legislation the Malcolm Turnbull government pushed into law that year. Yet mainstream reporting exhibits a curious inconsistency: some Chinese “spies” are zealously exposed with only dubious evidence, while others are staunchly defended from official espionage allegations—seemingly to prevent uncomfortable attention falling on their powerful friends. Silent Invasion alleges that in a 2005 meeting at the Chinese embassy in Canberra, officials were instructed to determine how China could attain “comprehensive influence over Australia … in all ways”. According to Hamilton, “We know all this because my informant Chen Yonglin … was at the meeting and read the documents.” The credibility of this claim has been taken at face value by most politicians and media in recent years, but closer investigation reveals that Australian authorities had dismissed it years earlier. As this article will show, face value acceptance is a common feature of most claims by anti-China agitators in Australia in recent years. Dissidents or separatists? Clive Hamilton’s books exposing China “interference”, Silent Invasion and Hidden Hand, are important, not because of the quality of the content—paranoid propaganda—but because the influencers behind Hamilton’s crusade reveal his role as a cog in a vast narrative-management machine. The public, as well as MPs and other government officials, are being directed how to think about China by a small group of ideologically driven propagandists, funded by institutions of the section of the Anglo-American power establishment that seeks war without end, even risking nuclear warfare that would annihilate mankind.
(Read The China Narrative part one here; part two here; part three here; part four here; part five here; and postscript here.) In Silent Invasion (2018), Australian academic Clive Hamilton insisted Australian universities should invite dissident Chinese writers and intellectuals onto their campuses and take steps “to ensure that Chinese students [from mainland China] are removed from their ideological ghettos by having them attend courses on human rights and democracy….” Unchallenged testimony from Chinese “dissidents” and “democracy activists” is routinely used as evidence in the ongoing anti-China campaign. Closer examination reveals many prominent “dissidents” are in fact separatists, funded by Western “democracy” promoters intent upon regime change. The history of clandestine funding of Chinese separatist movements is long. In the 1950s, the US government authorised the CIA’s covert assistance to the “Tibetan internal resistance movement”: providing logistical support and training in guerrilla warfare; paying US$15,000 a month to the Dalai Lama, according to CIA veteran John Kenneth Knaus; and running a propaganda campaign, all intended to “confront, thwart or harass” the Chinese communist government. The program ran for almost two decades. War-machine propaganda Clive Hamilton’s books exposing China “interference”, Silent Invasion and Hidden Hand, are important, not because of the quality of the content—paranoid propaganda—but because the influencers behind Hamilton’s crusade reveal his role as a cog in a vast narrative-management machine. The public, as well as MPs and other government officials, are being directed how to think about China by a small group of ideologically driven propagandists, funded by institutions of the section of the Anglo-American power establishment that seeks war without end, even risking nuclear warfare that would annihilate mankind.
(Read The China Narrative part one here; part two here; part three here; part four here; part five here; and postscript here.) Clive Hamilton is a Professor of Public Ethics at Charles Sturt University. His first book on China, Silent Invasion (2018), continued the obsession with Chinese spies, dissidents and foreign interference that had been escalating in Australia through 2016-17. Hamilton alleges growing, sinister influence of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Australian society, his case built with anecdotes from student newsletters and hawkish journalism. Hamilton sees espionage and influence everywhere: the Chinese diaspora can “transform Australian society in a way that makes us all sympathetic to China and easy for Beijing to control. Australia will then assist China to become the hegemonic power in Asia and eventually the world.” Hamilton’s CCP “spies” include church parishioners and uni students. His argument concludes with his assertion that between 20- 40 per cent of Chinese-Australians are loyal to Beijing first. How does he arrive at this figure? From the “guesses” of some of his Chinese-Australian friends. If Australia “pushes back” against the CCP, China will “mobilise its forces already embedded in Australian society”, he warns. See my full report on the Australian Government's Magnitsky Inquiry, including submission analysis: 'Sanctioned Targets'.
On 25 June the Australian Magnitsky Inquiry heard testimony from former Australian diplomat Mr Tony Kevin (below), which reflected Kevin’s thirty years of diplomatic experience. Kevin revealed the true cost of Magnitsky legislation: “sanctions are just one step short of war. They are extremely cruel to the citizens of sanctioned countries and they cause enormous human suffering”. Magnitsky sanctions are promoted under cover of a “human rights” propaganda campaign, and ironically ignore the humanitarian cost of sanctions. Ominously, as sanctions are “one step short of war”, Magnitsky proponents are shadowed by war profiteers. US politicians funded by arms companies In 2014, co-sponsor of the original US Magnitsky legislation, US Senator Ben Cardin, told Reuters the Magnitsky Act was “a major human rights initiative…. What it does is really put a spotlight on human rights violators”. Yet several years later, Cardin opposed blocking US arms sales to Saudi Arabia, in spite of the Saudi contribution to war and humanitarian crisis in Yemen: “They’re trying to make a point with an arms sale that’s not relevant to those concerns….” |
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