I feel for my Antipodean buds - it's not been a good few weeks. Given how much the 'progressive' press appear to be screaming for blanket punishment of the Australian SF community you've got to wonder what's behind this push. Already there are articles promoting severe sanction, i.e. disbandment of SASR, and the witch-hunt conducted by them (because this is what it is becoming) looks set to extend wider as they've already got hooks into UKSF and are determined to uncover the same/similar. In the UK version now for over a week this line of reporting has been prominent on the website and keeps adding new articles:
https://www.theguardian.com/austral...rs-prosthetic-leg-must-be-accountable-senator
As for their article on the shitty CCP-doctored image, they effectively put it all on the ADF with a 'but you did this!' spin front-and-centre. Kind of makes me wonder where the support is coming from? You would
never see from the Guardian or similar this level of digging aimed at their own
causes célèbres (and as my primary piece of evidence, I present the progressive press reporting on the BLM-associated 'incidents', with nary a peep of negative comment for this series of 'mostly peaceful demonstrations' or the effects on local communities).
In any case, the points raised by the posts above stand. The CCP is a practiced antagoniser and disingenuous presence internationally and this appears to be getting worse, courtesy of the 'wolf warrior' style of diplomacy
en vogue. It clearly employs some sort of diplomatic diode, whereby the 'standards' it regularly spouts are expected to be applied one-way only. But let's play Devil's Advocate for a moment - what have been the key hallmarks of Western diplomacy and intervention over the past three decades? We are hardly spotless, and need to be prepared for the inevitable comebacks, irrespective of the (ir)relevance to the matter at hand.
In addition, we should also be straight with ourselves regards the scale of effort needed to divest and untangle ourselves commercially and economically from China. Should the West decide on this as a political strategy, it will take decades to implement - a timescale the CCP will be far happier with than transient western governments with a penchant for flip-flopping. It's that, or we have to be prepared for a very, very nasty shock-to-the-system if we go hard on the cut to reduce the timescales. Which, to be clear, we collectively won't be.
