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China labeled Australia’s biggest national security threat on Q+A as tough talk on Taiwan draws passionate response

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been labeled the biggest threat to Australia’s national security on Q+A, with panellists from both the government and opposition sharing their concerns about China’s actions in the Taiwan Strait and subsequent comments by the Chinese ambassador to Australia.

In the past week, China has conducted military drills in the Taiwan Strait, repeatedly crossing its median line by air and sea and launching missiles that went over Taiwan and landed in Japan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ).

Those actions came after the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, visited Taiwan, which China claims to be a state within its territory.

On Thursday night, Q+A audience member Li Shee Shu suggested to the panel that China should not be seen as Australia’s greatest threat.

Liberal Senator James Paterson pounced.

“The reason why the Chinese Communist Party is labeled as the biggest national security threat to Australia is because they are,” Senator Paterson said.

“Right now, today, we are under a near-constant attack in the cyber realm from the Chinese Communist Party, whether it is the government or our critical infrastructure.

“Over the past five years, we have suffered record levels of foreign interference and espionage and the Chinese government is the primary culprit of that.

“Right now, the Chinese government is acquiring military capability at the fastest pace of any nation in the world since World War II and, I think, the evidence shows they’re not just doing that for the fun of it.

“They have reclaimed islands in the South China Sea, illegally, although Xi Jinping promised that he wouldn’t.

“They have just fired ballistic missiles over Taiwan into Japan’s EEZ. If we are not going to take this threat very seriously, we are going to regret it.”

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His comments were echoed by Minister for International Development and the Pacific Pat Conroy, who took a softer stance but said China’s actions in recent times were a cause for concern.

“The Australian government’s position is that we support no unilateral change to the status quo,” Mr Conroy said.

“As a middle power, it’s in Australia’s interest to pursue a rules-based order where every nation observes and follows international laws and normals,” he said.

“And to James’s point, illegal island-building in the East and South China Seas challenges that rules-based order.”

CCP has repeatedly shown us who they are, Paterson says

Mr Conroy, who earlier called for a de-escalation of tensions in the Asia-Pacific region, said he was concerned by the Chinese ambassador’s comments about Taiwan on Wednesday.

The ambassador, Xiao Qian, stressed at the National Press Club that there was “no room for compromise” on Taiwan and China would use “all necessary means” for reunification with the island.

“In the interests of everyone in the region, de-escalation needs to occur now,” Mr Conroy said.

“We need restraint and we need to focus on a peaceful and prosperous region.

“I was concerned, like many people, by some of the language used by the ambassador [on Wednesday]but we just have to move past it.”

However, for Senator Paterson, those comments seemed to be folly.

He indicated he did not believe China’s actions in the past week were simply muscle flexing ahead of the CCP’s 20th annual party congress, but rather part of a long-established pattern.

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“The late American poet Maya Angelou had a wonderful phrase that when people show you who they are, believe them the first time,” he said.

“The Chinese Communist Party has not just shown us once who they are, they’ve shown us who they are in Tibet, they’ve shown us who they are in Xinjiang, they’ve shown us who they are with Hong Kong and they are showing us again who they are with Taiwan.

“And the ambassador at the Press Club yesterday showed us who they are and we should believe him.

“They are very serious when they say all options are on the table and that we should use our imagination to think about what they might do.

“And we should believe them when they say that re-education of the 23 million free people of Taiwan is something that they have planned for, after taking Taiwan, and we should treat that very seriously.”

Chinese Australian population stigmatized

Q+A audience member, teenager Jun Gao, said raised concerns about how Beijing’s actions were affecting the treatment of Chinese Australians.

He said he and others had faced discrimination during the pandemic and it was happening again now due to rising tensions with China.

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“I’ve felt the effects of the tumultuous COVID-19 pandemic and now rising tensions within the South China Sea,” he said.

“What can be done to destigmatize the Chinese Australian population?”

“In general, I feel there is about negative perception, both in the schoolyard and [the] media, and I fear that Chinese recent political actions will only compound this,” Gao added.

Panel member and Lowy Institute research fellow Jennifer Hsu said studies had seen a rise in that sentiment.

“We found in this year’s survey that generally Chinese Australians feel a sense of belonging, although that has decreased since 2020,” Ms Hsu said.

“[There is] a general sense of belonging, pride in Australian life and culture — and I think these are all positive indicators of, you know, Chinese-Australians’ contribution and integration into Australian society … but, yes, I would agree with you that, over the last two years… the sense of fragmentation has happened, in part due to discrimination and racism.

“But I would say there [are] potential positive points to look forward to, with a new government in power. there [are] signs of thawing [relations] between Australia and China.”

Senator Paterson condemned the discrimination Gao’s had faced and called for Australians to understand the difference between a political stoush with the CCP and anything to do with Australians of Chinese heritage.

“Thank you for raising this issue, you are absolutely right to,” he told Gao.

“It is both morally wrong and counterproductive for Chinese Australians to be held guilty for the actions of the Chinese government.

“It is also wrong to hold the Chinese people guilty for the actions of the Chinese government because they had no say in picking that government, there was no vote that brought the Chinese Communist Party to power.

“It is morally wrong because it is not your fault and it is counterproductive because we want Chinese Australians to feel just as much a part of the Australian community as everyone else and to be able to fully participate in that community.”

Watch the full episode of Q+A on ABC iview

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Australia

Jacinta Nampijinpa Price tells Q+A she probably won’t support a referendum on Indigenous Voice to Parliament

Indigenous Country Liberal senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has told Q+A she will “probably not” be working to support a referendum on an Indigenous Voice to Parliament.

On Monday night’s episode, which was pre-taped from Garma Festival and hosted by Stan Grant, Senator Price was asked by an audience member if she would work to support the referendum.

She said there were more pressing issues facing Indigenous communities.

“I’ll be completely honest: there are more pressing issues,” Senator Price said before listing promises about education funding for the Yippinga School in Alice Springs and issues about alcohol making its way back into Indigenous communities.

“I have listened to and spoke to the Yippinga school in Alice Springs,” she said.

“The commitment I made to them if I were to get into government was to build a facility for student and staff accommodation.

“That school looks after Aboriginal kids in the surrounding town camps, and they come from very difficult backgrounds … some of them have to spend a three-hour round trip to go to school.”

Senator Price also said she felt little was being done about alcohol issues in Indigenous communities, describing “rivers of grog” being allowed to flow at present.

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“We know that right now alcohol is being let back out into communities, and this is huge,” she said.

“We know that the voices of the organizations that have been speaking out against allowing the rivers of grog back in have said, ‘Please don’t do this.’ but that’s fallen on deaf ears.

“[I’d rather] get the work done. So no, I probably won’t be supporting a referendum.”

The comments would have come as a blow, albeit an expected one, after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said during the weekend he was willing to take an Indigenous Voice to Parliament to a referendum.

‘Another bureaucracy’

Senator Price had earlier on the show railed against enshrining an Indigenous Voice within the Australian constitution, stating she had misgivings about bureaucratic processes and what would happen if things went wrong once it was in the constitution.

“I don’t feel as though something like this needs to be constitutionally enshrined,” Senator Price said.

“I look at the success of the Gumatj.

“What they have done with their country, the way they educate their young people, have industry up and running—they have their own bauxite mine.

“All those things have already happened and it’s all successfully occurred without the need for enshrining a voice to parliament to do so.

“And my biggest concern with this idea of ​​a constitutionally enshrined Voice to Parliament is it’s another bureaucracy.”

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Senator Price then added she believed a Voice would marginalize Indigenous Australians.

“I wouldn’t want to see us divided up along the lines of race in that regard, and I don’t want to continue to pour money into an industry that has been driven on the back of the misery of Indigenous Australians and propping up another bureaucracy,” she said.

“It’s not something new. It’s just enshrining a bureaucracy into the constitution.

“And if there are bureaucracies that have failed and [people] have not been accountable, how are we going to adjust this, which will exist in the constitution and can’t be dismantled should it fail?”

burney hits back

It was an argument that did not sit well with Minister for Indigenous Affairs Linda Burney, who was steadfast in her support for an Indigenous Voice.

“What we are talking about here is a permanent voice that no government can get rid of, that’s why enshrinement is so important,” Ms Burney said.

“And when it comes to another bureaucracy, it is going to be a body that we will consult with — you and everyone else on what it will look like and how it will operate.”

Ms Burney also shot down any suggestion it would not be clear what people were voting for at a referendum.

“The design of the Voice will happen after respectful, extensive consultation with First Nations people and the Australian community,” she said.

“It will happen before the legislation will take place.

“It won’t be me deciding, that would be so wrong, it will be people that we consult with and build a consensus with that we will listen to.

“There will be a lot of information out to the community about what people are voting on. It would be nuts for that not to happen.”

Asked whether it was a concern the proposal could be shot down, Ms Burney said she felt the time was right, backing the PM’s statement: “If not now, when?” She also said she felt both sides of politics were on board.

“We want to build consensus across the parliament, and I am so happy to see Peter Dutton is open to this, David Littleproud is open to this and the Australian people are ready,” she said.

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“We wouldn’t be embarking on this exercise if there was not a belief the tide wasn’t with us.”

Treaty became like ‘writing in the sand’

However an Indigenous Voice has been floated before and independent Member for Mulka, NT and Yolngu elder Yiniya Mark Guyula remembers when treaty was discussed in the 80s.

Now a politician, something he admitted he did not love being, he said Aboriginal people were more than ready.

“My people here in the East Arnhem land have been ready for a long time,” he told Grant when asked by the Q+A host.

“We have been ready for a long time, because I can talk about the example of the 1988 Barunga petition.

“There were two land councils…. that brought all our elders from both Center and from the East, we were ready for the recognition of our Indigenous identity, but the government wasn’t ready.

“All their promises about ‘there will be treaty’, and that echoed all along and nothing ever happened.

“At that time, it was a new promise that we had got and everybody was happy, but as time went on we waited and waited and waited, and it became like writing in the sand.

“We are ready for this one.

“If that referendum was called now, we would be gathering our people and we would go for it, go for it as soon as we could.”

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