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| Down Under |
| Australia: Chinese official: it's us or America |
| 2012-05-19 |
| Australia cannot juggle its relationships with the United States and China indefinitely and must choose a ''godfather'' to protect it, according to a prominent Chinese defence strategist. The warning by Song Xiaojun, a former senior officer of the People's Liberation Army, comes after Foreign Minister Bob Carr was told by his Chinese counterpart that Australia's close military alliance with the US was a throwback to the Cold War era. Senator Carr yesterday met the man expected to become China's next premier, Li Keqiang, in Beijing. Discussions centred on more comfortable matters including furthering trade and investment and the 40th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two nations. But Australia's strategic position in the Asia-Pacific region remains contentious. "Australia has to find a godfather sooner or later," Mr Song told The Age. "Australia always has to depend on somebody else, whether it is to be the 'son' of the US or 'son' of China," he said. "[It] depends on who is more powerful, and based on the strategic environment." Mr Song said Australia depended on exporting iron ore to China "to feed itself", but had not done enough to engage. "Frankly, it has not done well politically," he said. |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #5 Hold your heavy industry "suppliers" close at hand. Sounds like typical Chinese military/industrial strategy to me, OZ. |
| Posted by: canalzone 2012-05-19 23:09 |
#4
Interesting choice of words. Australia has an opportunity to do something really great if they wanted to. If they were to build a pair of the AP1000 nuclear plants along with one of the fast neutron plants and engage in recycling of fuel, they could create an area for electric arc steel mills. Rather than exporting their coal and iron ore to China, they could mill steel in the most environmentally friendly way known to mankind and not have a nuclear fuel disposal problem. Rather than ship coal and iron ore, they could ship finished steel. And if they had more domestic steel manufacturing, they could also produce more finished goods for world export. I suppose Australia could be satisfied with selling all of their raw materials to China. But they also have the means, if they had the will, to become much larger of a heavy industry player and still maintain their concern for the environment. |
| Posted by: crosspatch 2012-05-19 18:25 |
| #3 That's got to make China's neighbors feel all warm and fuzzy. From what I understand, Ozzies are happy to have some Marines around. Thinking back to how they were part of the Pacific theater in the Last Big One, mayhaps. I wonder if they will regret getting rid of their Aardvarks. |
| Posted by: SteveS 2012-05-19 16:43 |
| #2 200 years ago, the Qianlong Emperor had this to say to King George: Tremblingly obey and show no negligence! The silver lining in this noxious cloud is that the general's tone is a little more moderate than the emperor in whose footsteps he is carrying on. Maybe the Chinese have finally learned a microscopic smidgen of the much-vaunted subtlety traditionally attributed to them. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2012-05-19 16:41 |
| #1 Kowtow before your master. |
| Posted by: gromky 2012-05-19 14:06 |