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by Richard
Wong
Multipletext: Mr.
Richard Wong is a genuine Australian-Chinese writer living
in Melbourne. We say he is a genuine Australian-Chinese
writer because he writes in the language that most Australians
understand, which is unlike Yang Hengjun, who despite being labeled Australian
writer by some Aussie journalists as the reward for his
anti-China endeavour, cannot write in Australia's official
language; we say he is a genuine Australian-Chinese writer,
because he cares about China, his ancestral land, which is unlike Yang Hengjun,
who despite loving to promote his non-existent Chinese
citizenship, makes his living by basing Chinese tradition and China's reality. [俺们也纳闷了，同样是澳洲华人，这做人的差距怎么就这么大涅？]
It would be in the
interest of Australian people and Australian business if
Australian government can listen more to what decent Australian-Chinese,
like Mr Wong, have said, and a tragedy if they prefer to
hear what Mr Yang and the like have advocated. Come to
think of it, if someone has no trouble with his conscience
to spit on his birthmother for the sake of pleasing his
adopted mother, and is keen to stir up discord between
the two, can you imagine what he will not be capable of
doing when one day he finds a more powerful new parent
who happens to be his adopted mother's foe? Just ask yourself,
can you ever trust a man who demonstrates not slightest
appreciation to but displays psychotic hatred towards his own mother who gave birth to him and brought him up? And
do you really believe a man who knows no gratitude and
loyalty will be there for his adopted mother when she's
in trouble and needs his help?
We appreciate that
Mr Wong approached us with the following article that was
first published at scholarsupdate.zhongwenlink.com in December
2010. We are pleased to share his view with our dear readers,
as well as with Australia's majestic decision makers.
China bashing by the governments and
elites of the Western world has never been so strong.
For years China was condemned as a
cruel Communist state that had no hope of advancing while
it stuck to the centralised state socialist system. Now
that China has embraced many of the features of capitalism
and there are millions of capitalists within China it is
hated by the West for being capitalist! It is too competitive
with us!
China was once “closed” to the rest
of the world. We lectured them about the wonders of “Free
Trade” and globalisation. Now that China is becoming a
free trader and building up its business connections around
the world it's a menace. It is “flooding” high-quality
goods and services into “our traditional” markets and stealing
our dominance.
Within the Western countries Chinese-
made household goods of all types are helping to keep the
living standards of our people up a bit in these bad times
and contributing to political stability in the West. But
oh no this is “destroying” us and throwing our current
account deficit into free fall. It is largely Chinese money
that has kept the US government afloat post-GFC but all
this Chinese Government bond-buying is responsible for
our massive national debt.
Chinese technology and science are
advancing rapidly but does the West acknowledge this as
something that will benefit all mankind in the years ahead?
We're not sure really. Are their research
methodologies as rigorous as ours?
Human rights and military affairs in
China all swirl in double standards when it comes to comparisons
with the West.. In the nineteenth century China was broken
apart by foreign invaders and internal crisis. A combination
of eight countries（UK, US, Russia, France, Austria, Italy, Germany
and Japan）together invaded China, looting, burning and killing
along the way. China was defeated and humiliated. The image
of the “sick man of Asia” is very well known. This state
of affairs persisted well into the twentieth century. But
then when China started to get its act together and put
all pieces back together, a great hullabaloo arose in the
West about “independence rights” for some of the once shattered
bits.
Tibet became the classic case taken
up by some Western governments and media. A “Dalai Lama”
was made into a wise spiritual figure fighting for his
people's “freedom from Chinese oppression”. Some very good
people too in the West were conned into this and helped
promote all manner of “honours” being bestowed on this
man as he traveled around the world on “official visits”.
The Western rulers see this “Tibet independence” issue
as just another little point where they can apply some
pressure in their relations with China.
On the overall topic of human rights
in China there is much hysteria in the Western world and
its media. For so long the West portrayed China as a nation
overwhelmed by chaos even though it often resulted from
foreign invasions. Now some social and economic stability
has come to China, and it is being generally of benefit
to most people, there is a loud screech in the West about
“human rights violations in China”. No one would say that
China has no problems in human rights, that everybody is
entitled to the same treatment legally and has much the
same share of national wealth. There are many wrongs and
inequities everyone knows and a long way to go.
But again attention has to turn on
the double standards of the Western governments. They have
the “rule of law” and most have parliamentary democracies
but money, position-held, connections, ethnic background
and social class are all big factors in determining whether
everyone has equal rights in the society. To quote the
old saying “everyone is equal but some are more equal than
others”. Things are hardly lily white in all Western societies
and the role of many of the Western countries throughout
the rest of the world is far from honourable.
There is a long list of wars, coups,
massacres and torture practices across Latin America, Asia,
the Middle East and Africa that have been engineered or
directly supported by the West（often by military operations）over the past decades. There are recently released
accounts of the extent to which some of the Western forces
directly carried out torture of local peoples in the Iraq
and current Afghanistan war. The West's human rights record
is not very rosy. It might be best if the West first spent
time to sort out its own way of operating in the world
and put its lecturing of China aside until that first task
is complete.
In the minds of the Western elites
is a lingering resentment that they are no longer “running
the world” as in the past few centuries. They see once
colonised or dominated countries becoming stronger and
they don't like it of course. There is some rethinking
to do. There is also an emerging phobia in the West about
Chinese military power. If we don't siphon more and more
billions away from our people's social needs and put it
into our militaries, China will takeover our world. This
is what the military elites tell their people in the West.
The double standard again applies.
The U.S. is presently fighting large
scale wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It dominates NATO still
and has “defence pacts” of various kinds covering big parts
of the Middle East, the South Pacific, North East Asia（Korea
and Japan）, Africa, the Caribbean
and and South America.
The Base Structure Report（2,003）and the Active Duty Military Strengths by Regional
Areas and Countries（2,003）, both official documents of the U.S. Defence
Department, provide some startling figures. They are not
quite current but it is doubtful that any of the measures
have reduced in size. The U.S. has about 1,000 defence
installations（bases）in 192 of the world's countries. There are some
1.4 million U.S. troops in all and 252,764 of them are
overseas. The U.S. Navy sails the oceans with 278 warships.
Its tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 navies
of the world combined. There is also the U.S. Air Force
with its 3,700 warplanes.
Then there is China that has no military
forces in any other countries and a much smaller quantity
of military hardware. It has not invaded other countries
and conducts military exercises on its own land and largely
in adjoining seas. Its international stance is scarcely
warlike. It needs a pretty dark imagination to see a China
poised to takeover the world. The only line in the sand
they draw is about protecting their own territorial integrity.
For those who have spent a century moving into other people's
territory it is time too for a rethink. The Chinese are
pretty good at taking it on the chin and staying calm amidst
the insults from abroad. There is no need to get in too
much of a fuss, they say. They will be patient in their
wait for the West to change its outlook on the world.
It is hoped the Australian
government will continue to build a genuine friendship
with China and its people. The recent Wikileaks release
of cables revealed the Foreign Minister's attempts to
ingratiate himself with the U.S. Secretary of State by
providing his smart alec ''advice'' on “being ready to
apply force to China if needed”. It was just too much.
The day has long arrived when Australia cannot go on
being a puppy dog of the U.S. （Malcolm Fraser, Australian P.M. 1975-1983,
ABC TV Q & A 30 August 2010）. The Australian public want a much more
grown up manner of building relations with other countries
than came from the Foreign Minister in this “special
briefing” of Mrs Clinton last year. It is difficult to
see how Mr Rudd can remain in this position any longer.
For our Chinese community in Australia
the job remains to further carry on developing links and
good relationships between the Australian and Chinese peoples.
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