Dr Yang Ganfu
John Menadue is the publisher, founder and Editor in Chief of Pearls and Irritations. He was formerly Secretary of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Ambassador to Japan, Secretary of Immigration and CEO of Qantas.
As a platform for the exchange of ideas from a progressive, liberal perspective, with an emphasis on peace and justice, Pearls and Irritations holds a specific editorial focus on promoting peaceful dialogue and engagement with China.
Responding to the China ‘military threat’ a manufactured propaganda by USA and Western media, Menadue stated: “We are being led in our anti-China hysteria by the United States which is not concerned that China will attack us, or even the United States, but is concerned that its world hegemony is being challenged.” Thus, USA is persistently accusing China of breaking the so-called rule-based order and leading its ally, called ‘easy lay’ by an American official, to constrain and suppress China.
Menadue claims, what the United States really resents about China is that it is successful after almost two centuries of poverty and humiliation. The recently elected house speaker Kevin McCarthy said the United States is by any measure the most aggressive and violent country in the world and will not accept a multi-polar world where countries large and small can live in peace together.
The US has a dogmatic and self- righteous view that it is ‘exceptional’, a ‘chosen people’ and should set global rules for everyone. To change this view into reality, USA launched wars against other countries for hundreds of years. It is claimed that in American history of hundred years, for only 16 years USA was absent from wars.
America was born for wars. They only understand the language of wars. Even former American president Carter agreed to that.
In contrast, China does not have a history of military aggression beyond the defence of its own borders. China enjoys the longest civilisation of humankind. Peace and harmony are rooted in Chinese psyche.
History tells us that China has been leading the world for thousand years but without colonising any other countries. Menadue stated China has not been engaged in military activity for the past 40 years. In that time, however, the US has overthrown numerous governments and illegally invaded many countries and still today stealing oil from Syria, pushing Ukraine fighting a proxy war against Russia.
China has only one foreign base in Djibouti, mainly for anti-piracy purposes. In contrast, the US has over 800 overseas bases including those in Guam, Diego Garcia, ROK and Japan that ring China. In addition to providing a variety of weapons to Taiwan, the US fleet regularly patrols off the China coast. The US would have hysterics if Chinese vessels patrolled off the Californian coast and the Florida Keys or if China had B-52 type aircraft based in Mexico.
Not surprisingly, China is determined that it must have the military capability to defend its homeland. However, it does not project its military power around the globe, as does the US. The only military risk that we face from China is if we continue as a proxy for the US in its endless wars. The US is a dangerous ally, as Malcolm Fraser put it.
“With the complicity of politicians, senior public officials and captured journalists Australian national sovereignty is being seriously eroded.”
John Menadue stated their military is being fused with the US. “We employ retired US military people in our department of defence. In Five Eyes [(FVEY) an intelligence alliance comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States] our intelligence agencies take in the dirty washing of the CIA. Admittedly, many Western politicians have an instinctive Washington mindset since they have been on an American drip feed for so long, walking the talk of their American masters.”
As China reasserts its historic world role, there is no doubt that Chinese influence and footprint is growing in our region but there is no evidence whatsoever that we are under military threat from China. Menadue believes, China did not, does not and will not have intent to threaten any other country.
According to Menadue, if China was an imperial power, it would have swallowed up Mongolia, a democratic, mineral-rich state which is more than twice the size of Ukraine. Menadue, however, emphasised, Japan is the only country that has threatened Australia. China never has.
Japan occupied large parts of China in WWII and was responsible for the death of over 20 million Chinese people. Careless of its aggressive history Japan is again leading the anti-China frenzy in the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, a strategic security dialogue between Australia, India, Japan and the United States, commonly known as QUAD.
The true downright warmongering and military hegemony is America and its allies. Not surprisingly, any anti-China frenzy will be doomed to fail as already evidenced from American trade and technical bans to China.
*Dr Yang Ganfu is an intercultural communication researcher and director of Africa study at Lianyungang Development Institute.