Ahead of Australian election, a ruling coalition lawmaker has been accused of “tone deafness” on issue of anti-Chinese sentiments
A senator from Australia’s ruling coalition has been criticized two weeks before the May 21 federal election, after he thanked the Chinese-Australians for “putting up with racism.”
Addressing participants at the Chinese Australian Forum on Friday, the Liberal Party senator for New South Wales Andrew Bragg admitted that, amid the coronavirus pandemic and tensions in bilateral relations with Beijing, his country has seen an increase in the number of racist incidents involving Chinese nationals. He claimed that much of the political rhetoric about China had been “at times unsophisticated” and emphasized that racism was unacceptable.
“Thank you for your steadfastness, thank you for putting up with some intemperate rhetoric at times, thank you for putting up with racism at times. It’s not good,” he said.
These remarks immediately sparked outrage among Bragg’s political opponents and social media users, with one saying they show “a terrible tone-deafness.”
“To hear Senator Bragg attempting to distance himself from the racist comments and the actions of his colleagues, while at the same time seeming to present racism as something inevitable that he thanks us for putting up with, was insulting and offensive,” New South Wales state member of parliament Jenny Leong said, as quoted by AP.
She also accused Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s government of “trying to woo local Chinese communities for electoral advantage, while at the same time whipping up anti-Chinese sentiment to serve their broader political agenda.”
Bilateral relations between Canberra and Beijing suffered a major blow in 2020 when the Australian government pushed for an independent investigation into the causes of the coronavirus pandemic without consulting China, which then blasted the call “a joke.”
In November 2020, China’s embassy released a list of the country’s grievances against Australia, which included, besides the called-for inquiry into Covid’s origins, state funding for “anti-China” research, visa issues, raids on Chinese journalists, and “spearheading a crusade” on China’s affairs in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Xinjiang.
Recent weeks have seen rising tensions between the two countries over the Solomon Islands. Australia, the biggest aid donor to the islands, has criticized that state’s draft security pact with China.
Scott Morrison warned that Beijing building a naval base on the Solomon Islands would be a “red line” for Australia though he did not specify what exactly his statement meant.
According to research by the Lowy Institute published in spring 2021 amid the escalating tensions between Australia and China, 18% of Chinese-Australians had been physically threatened or attacked in the past year because of their Chinese heritage.
Citing high numbers of incidents involving Chinese nationals, Beijing media has been accusing Canberra of “chronic” racism.
The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) issued a statement of deep concern on Saturday in response to an announcement made by the Taliban de facto authorities saying that women should only leave their homes in cases of necessity and then, with their faces covered in public.
Read the full story, “Afghanistan: Taliban orders women to stay home; cover up in publicâ€, on globalissues.org →find more fun & mates at SoShow now !
William Burns thinks that Beijing is learning as many lessons as it can to take Taiwan
Chinese President Xi Jinping is “unsettled” by the West’s reaction to Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, and is looking “carefully at what lessons [he] should draw” and apply to a potential invasion of Taiwan, CIA Director William Burns told a conference on Saturday.
Speaking at a Financial Times conference in Washington DC on Saturday, Burns told his audience that his agency figures that Russia’s advance through Eastern Ukraine and the scale of the West’s response may be influencing Beijing’s plans for Taiwan.
“It strikes us . . . that Xi Jinping is a little bit unsettled by the reputational damage that can come to China by the association with the brutishness of Russia’s aggression against Ukrainians [and] unsettled certainly by the economic uncertainty that’s been produced by the war,” Burns claimed.
The spy chief added that China is taken aback by “the fact that what Putin has done is driving Europeans and Americans closer together” and is looking “carefully at what lessons they should draw” for a potential takeover of Taiwan.
While American pundits and politicians – and leaders in Taipei and the broader East Asia region – have repeatedly warned that Russia’s offensive against Ukraine could “embolden” China to make a move on Taiwan, that has not transpired. While Beijing maintains that Taiwan is its territory, no signs of an imminent invasion or attack on the island have emerged.
However, the Taiwanese military has held live-fire military exercises in recent months, and the US government has pressed Taipei to order American weapons designed to repel a seaborne invasion by China. Beijing, meanwhile, has reportedly penetrated the island’s air defense zone on numerous occasions, with the most recent incursion on Friday involving nuclear-capable bombers, Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense said.
“I don’t for a minute think that [the Ukraine conflict has] eroded Xi’s determination over time to gain control over Taiwan,” Burns continued on Saturday. However, he claimed that events in Ukraine are surely “affecting their calculation.”
China has resisted Western calls to denounce and sanction Russia over the war in Ukraine, and has named the post-Cold War expansion of NATO into Eastern Europe as a key factor behind the conflict. Beijing has also condemned what it sees as US-led efforts to build anti-China alliances, such as the ‘AUKUS’ (US, UK and Australia) and ‘Quad’ (US, Australia, India and Japan) pacts.
Although Burns described Xi’s “main focus” as being on “predictability,” it is unlikely that Beijing is overly concerned with the “reputational damage” mentioned by the spy chief. China has already hammered the US and EU for accusing it of human rights abuses and has accused Washington of “war crimes” in response. Likewise, when urged by NATO leadership to condemn Russia, China’s foreign ministry in March said it would not listen to a “lecture on justice from the abuser of international law.”
The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) issued a statement of deep concern on Saturday in response to an announcement made by the Taliban de facto authorities saying that women should only leave their homes in cases of necessity and then, with their faces covered in public.
The UN chief welcomed on Friday afternoon, the unity of the Security Council in support of peace in Ukraine, while also assuring that he would continue to “spare no effort†in saving lives, reducing suffering and finding the path of peace.
Read the full story, “Security Council ‘speaks with one voice for peace in Ukraine’â€, on globalissues.org →find more fun & mates at SoShow now !
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