In the Chinese version of “blind man’s bluff”, the person groping around in the dark while the other players scatter in all directions is known as the “chicken”, presumably because he lacks the guile to catch his tormentors.
Or it may be an oblique reference to another children’s game where two individuals race at breakneck speed toward each other and gamble that the other will swerve at the last second. Let’s not forget that the original title for the game of bluff was “blind man’s buff” — a buff is a little push.
As Australia moves to repair the damage from its latest diplomatic tiff with Beijing, it might be asking whether it has become the chicken in a game of brinkmanship that could become a model for China’s efforts to reshape the global order, one country and one push at a time.
Relations sank a notch further after the chairman of Australia’s Parliamentary Joint Committee for Intelligence and Security, Andrew Hastie, named the Chinese billionaire Chau Chak Wing as a central figure in the alleged bribing of former UN General Assembly president John Ashe in 2016.
Chau, an Australian citizen who was born in China, is said to have paid out US$225,000 to Ashe and his entourage so they would attend a 2017 real estate conference in China. Ashe has since died, but the allegations are still being investigated by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
The allegations aren’t new: Chau has filed several lawsuits against Australian media groups over previous reports. But the story hit a raw nerve with China, not least because he is apparently close to the Communist Party elite. The FBI wasn’t too happy either at being dragged into the spat, according to reports.
Taken at face value, it is a fairly tame affair. But some individuals in Beijing saw an opportunity to rub at other sore points in the relationship, including Canberra’s efforts to tighten up foreign influence on politics, which it has admitted are mostly aimed at China, as well as Australian criticism over Beijing’s militarization of contested islands in the South China Sea.
On Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said that Australia “must break away from its traditional thinking, take off its tinted glasses to look at China’s development from a more positive angle.”
The ultra-nationalist Global Times then issued a typically shrill editorial on Wednesday that argued it was time for Beijing to “make Australia pay for its arrogant attitude toward China over the past two years”, by curbing imports.
Noting that Australia had exported goods worth US$76.5 billion to China in 2017, the article suggested that the value could be reduced by US$6.5 billion if the Chinese did their shopping elsewhere, which “would send cold chills up and down the spine of Australia. Of course, it would be an even greater shock if the import reductions totaled US$10 billion,” it said.
Bluff or buff? The Global Times doesn’t speak for China’s leaders, and it is likely that the Chinese economy would suffer the more from disruptions in trade.
While Australia’s imports are mostly consumer goods, China relies heavily on shipments of Australian iron ore and other minerals; reworking supply chains to other sources takes time and is usually costly.
“I don’t think there’s any intention to attempt to replace them because this would be an extremely difficult and complex process,” Kevin Carrico, a lecturer at Macquarie University, told The New Daily. “China probably needs Australia considerably more than Australia needs China.”
Why the constant sniping over comments that would likely have attracted little attention if they had come from any other country? Some analysts believe that Beijing is stepping up its oft-stated objective of recasting the global order in its own image and views Australia as a fairly soft target.
Canberra has struggled to put together a cohesive response to China’s checkbook diplomacy in the Pacific, traditionally an Australian sphere of influence, which is happening at a time when its closest ally, the United States, is focusing on internal affairs and has been weakened globally.
Australia is feeling lonely and China is often quick to spot a weak point, analysts say.
“China is clearly taking advantage of the situation where we have an American president who can’t be trusted, who is very inconsistent with what he says and does,” said Pradeep Taneja, a specialist in Chinese politics at the University of Melbourne.
Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull insisted on Wednesday that his country has a “good, frank … very strong relationship with China,” and is confident bilateral ties can withstand the occasional disagreement.
So Australia is calling China’s bluff on threats to downgrade economic and diplomatic ties, probably because any appeasement now would be seen as a sign of weakness. The game has only just started, but it is clear which country is wearing the blindfold — and which is busy making up the rules.
Pls dont ever ever trust china they will steal you all one by one its communism
Alan Boyd,
It might seem excusable or innocuous to write about China-Australia relationship strictly as a matter exclusively between themselves, like a star or planet standing on its own in the firmament.
But does that convey the full scope of the issue and a balanced representation of the truth of the background and underlying circumstances?
For in geopolitics, all relationships, whether it be about military alliances or trade blocs, there are various powers and forces and factors at play, some obvious but most are hidden away in secret communiques and meetings behind curtains.
Surely you will agree that taking a broad helicopter view, it is discernibly obvious that it is a superpower confrontation between the United States representing Western hegemony and what it considers the upstart challenger in China representing the ascendancy of the East.
One might even try to disguise the fear of loss of Western supremacy by marketing it as the U.S. flying the flag of the saviour and protector of freedom and democracy and world peace against the threat of Communist dictatorship.
Let us not be naive in an internet enlightened world. No more debunked ‘domino theory’ and the ‘Yellow Peril’ scaremongering.
What is freedom? Are the Chinese less free being set free from poverty, famine, unemployment, homelessness etc. Is it wrong to provide economic freedom and prosperity and wellbeing first and tackle individual liberty later on, when the time is right? 1.5 billion Chinese given full individual rights, when culturally they are a society based on the family as the basic unit; and on family duties and responsibilities before individual rights, will result in an inconceivable implosion and the demise of the Chinese as a 5000+ living antiquity of people civilisation as we know it.
Tell me where is this universal law or rule that any ideology that is good in principle requires an existing socio-politico-cultural pathos to be totally transformed or converted. Make a white-man out of a Chinaman and you will get a ‘banana’!
Surely if a new ideology is to be introduced because it is theoretically good or beneficial, it must first be adjusted to bespoke the transplant patient or we might end up with an organ rejection! Is Chinese Communism Soviet Communism? Is Chinese Capitalism U.S. Capitalism? Is Taiwan Chinese democracy Western democracy?
What is better for world peace? Greater efforts to enhance trade and economic development or the destructive path of wars and conflicts propagated and perpetrated by the U.S.?
What exactly would be true reporting here? Just state the dilemma that Australia is caught in, sandwiched between paying obeisance to its military protector, the U.S. and doing its best to appease China its biggest trading partner, (if not already, will be in the future, with the waning of the U.S. as the leader in global trade). You must know the Reserve Bank Governor’s warning of the dire consequences if Australia’s trade with China should fall substantially.
Ask yourself why Australia cannot take the same equanimous stance as N.Z.?
Ask yourself why Australia is coaxed to be a loud mouth telling China off as if it too is in the heavyweight ranking! It pays to be humble when speaking another mightier than yourself. Let the World Sheriff open its own mouth! Do not be an American coolie! Or else China would say why did Australia keep ‘Mum’ with respect to all the kleptocracy and the deprivation of the Rule of Law in Malaysia until the recent election there or the autocracy and the stifling of free expression in Singapore. If you want to be a loud mouth should not you be loud mouthing all the nations around you with the same tone and breath if not wrath?
No, I am sorry, it is not a blind man’s bluff! Hardly it all! Australia is not blind! It is just being wilfully foolish like a puppet being pulled by its Master’s strings!
You want to speak with global authority? First be a free man and not a sycophant!
Vincent Cheok
Well said Vincent. Lengthy, but you nailed it..
lol. Writer let slip the truth with his :"traditionally an Australian sphere of influence"
Anglo saxon alliance felt very safe and secure when they had the monopoly and upperhand on it, including freedom to wage wars such as the ones in Vietnam which they all joined, without consequence. They never thought one day Asian powers will eventually overtake them. Now they shout loudly at China for gaining some influence thats not out of line with her national power. Pure hypocricy?
Either you deepen engagement and work towards something more cooperative and new, or keep walk down the old way – and possibility of settlement through war.