China-Australia: Hawke, Tiananmen, cabinet papers 1989

I contributed to discussion at The Guardian of former Prime Minister Hawke's action in 1989 in deciding to grant resident rights to many Chinese in Australia at the time of the Tiananmen incident.

After the usual array of mainly drivel comments, a person with a Chinese name made an earnest comment to which I replied.

Sol Lee 

1h ago

01

Most of the Chinese students here never supported the Tiananmen protest, they just used that as an excuse to get PR here. Many years later, some of those actually praise the Chinese government for the crackdown, citing the reason that the crackdown ensured the decades of prosperity to come. Many, once they got their Australian citizenship, made friends with the Chinese embassy and consulates here, actively participated in their functions and started doing business in China. They owe whatever good lives they've got here to the students massacred in Beijing, even though they never joined the protest, and they were never personally at risk of persecution.

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  DennisA
  

  45m ago

  01

  I think that such developments will always be the case, Mr Lee. If you look back at the circumstances of the time, and the passionate commitment of this prime minister both to multiculturalism and to relations with China, it was an incisive step. To do nothing then? To undergo a process of examining the claims of every Chinese person here who did not want to go back, one by one? Remember that this Prime Minister, in his speech welcoming Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Hu Yaobang to parliament house in 1985, ended with the words: "Our relations with no other country is more important than our relationship with China." I drafted the rest of that speech, he added that ending. His regard for China and for Hu was very high. You are aware, I know, as other may not know, that Hu Yaobang was subsequently removed from office by Deng Xiaoping and dinosaurs for being too open to social change and student views, and his very popular 'sankuan' campaign in 1986, advocating 'generosity, tolerance and relaxation' (good account here). As you know it was Hu's death in 1989 that led to the events in Tiananmen. You also know that Hu's successor as General Secretary, Zhao Ziyang, similarly held in high regard by Hawke, met with and struggled to find accommodation with the protesting students in 1989 and you know that after the uproar and martial law, Zhao was placed under house arrest. So it's important to understand that Hawke's judgement was informed by a deep despair at the direction of events in China, but also a determinedly strategic perspective in relation to China and in relation to multiculturalism in Australia.

  Someone earlier in this discussion suggested the Hawke decision was calculated politically, another said it was just emotional. I recommend that people study the complexity instead.

  Mr Lee, Mr Hawke went on to continue dealing with China, but he had made an important stand at a critical time. It is surely in Australia's interest that China survive as an intact nation. We have such crappy political management and lousy international international strategy and a seriously declining human rights record that we can hardly preach to anyone, though we continue to do that and in our broad culture see little of Asia other than through the prism of beer glasses in Phuket and Bali.

  We cannot point fingers constructively, though present leaders, with ten fleas under ten fingers, to use a Chinese expression, have to resort to hitting with heads and chests to maintain their sense of right to bully.

  China has no foreign example to follow in finding its political way: not the US, not Russia, not India, certainly not Australia. I am conscious of strictures on life in China. At the same time, I do wish people would recognise that what has happened in China in the period since 1978 is the greatest revolution and change in human history, unprecedented in scale and in the increase in the quality of life of people.

  And all the while, in this country, people choose to be led by fools, can't see their good fortune, grow more selfish (what an example to the Chinese middle classes) and have so little knowledge of history they approach the future rudderless.
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• My comment on Tianamen in the Sydney Morning Herald, 6 June 1989, is crudely copied here.
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The rage against Chinese ownership of agricultural land in Australia

When the rednecked populist radio jock Alan Jones attacked the Prime Minister on the subject of the free trade agreement with China, The Guardian reported this exchange:

The conservative 2GB broadcaster Alan Jones told Abbott he did not have a mandate for the new trade deal and repeatedly raised concerns over the sale of Australian dairy farms to Chinese entities. A Tasmanian investor, Troy Harper, said last month Chinese interests would be among investors in 50 dairy farms in Victoria as part of a deal reported to be worth $400m. 

After listing other prospective sales involvingChina, Jones told Abbott: “By this time next week who’s going to own little Tasmania? The public are very, very angry about this prime minister, I can tell you.” 

Abbott said he understood people were “always anxious at what’s often referred to as selling off the farm” but “no one can buy land unless the person who currently owns the land wants to sell”. 

“Presumably you only want to sell to an overseas buyer because the overseas buyer is offering you a better price than any Australian. That’s the first point,” Abbott said. 

Jones replied: “Of course … but can Tony Abbott go and buy a farm in China? The answer’s no, prime minister … nor can he buy a coal mine, nor can he buy a steel mill.” 

Abbott said: “Well, Alan, I’m no expert on land ownership arrangements in China but China is still run by the Communist party. I’m not sure that anyone is that able to own land in China on an individual basis.”

With seeming rattled aplomb Abbott had allowed the discussion to take him into territory where he could as usual 'make it up' with the assurance of the dunderhead who just doesn't know but does not fear to say. One of his ministers once famously used Wikipedia to refute official advice on climate change, it's a shame Abbott had not read Wikipedia on property ownership in China.

But it's a greater shame he didn't bother to clarify the situation of actual foreign ownership of agriculture in Australia, to do something to push back against the racist hysteria arising with Chinese interest in Australian agriculture.

The ABC's Rural Department has this excellent article on the subject of foreign ownership of agriculture.

In which, regarding the selling off of 'little Tasmania' we find such information as:

Foreign investment double-standard in Tasmanian dairying
Tasmania's dairy industry is heavily reliant on foreign investment. Its oldest dairy processor, Van Diemen's Land Company (VDL), has been in foreign hands for close to 200 years and the Tamar Valley Dairy recently sold to New Zealand dairy giant Fonterra.PHOTO: A line of cows, on their way for milking (Supplied)While international ownership is nothing new, the story of these two processors highlights the mixed messages sent to some global businesses.
A recent Van Diemen's Land Company (VDL) tender for a multi-million dollar equity investment, sparked community and media concern about a possible Chinese takeover. At least one Chinese company dropped out of the process as a result of the negative press.
Yet last month Tamar Valley Dairy, a wholly-Australian owned dairy processor, was sold to a New Zealand agribusiness giant, without a murmur about foreign takeovers.

It's bigotry, ignorance, racism... and the Prime Minister has no way from his own cubby house at the end of that street to come out and help clarify the situation. He has risen to office on the tide of his fomented madnesses of populist hysteria. Who knows where he will go now to get it back behind him..

 Before you wander off to weep a bit, consider this:

...just under 99 per cent of Australian farm businesses are fully Australian owned and just under 90 per cent of farmland is fully Australian owned. 

But of course that's the work of public servants and this government knows what it thinks of public servants as it knows what it thinks of the ABC, with its evil propensity to deliver facts to refute government wisdom.

The federal parliament's own research organisation prepared this detailed study early in 2014. So the facts are knowable in the parliament. Here is  table from that paper:

That staid old farmers' paper The Land tried to get a few facts out in this article.

The author of this comment has tongue in cheek, click on name for other irreverent fun:

Dickytiger

20/06/2014 9:45:57 AM
You can't fool us with statistics. We know there are foreigners under the bed. They are right beside the reds.