If Alan Kohler worked for the ABC, I would understand how he would find it necessary to find a red under the bed, since this is their unwritten policy. Alan’s new red is not under his bed, but everywhere – in his phone, in his laptop and in his wifi. China, most certainly, is spying on him through all devices made in China.

Although it is intriguing that China would have any interest in Alan at all, he clearly considers all those details that a ‘pixel’ harvests contribute to a collective threat to our country.

We shouldn’t laugh when Alan admits that he doesn’t read terms and conditions, use any security barriers readily available or switch off features of software. After all, the wantonly gullible should be pitied, not mocked.

Before we dive deeper into what might be a diagnosable case of paranoia, let’s clarify that Alan’s little rant is opinion – and just opinion, since any facts that he might call upon are masked by selective contextualisation.

For example, the comparison to the supposed spying on Australia by Russia which ASIO ‘removed’ ignores that ByteDance, along with Huawei, have placed their technology ‘in the open’ to be prodded and poked by western agencies. Huawei placed its code in the public space, something none of its competitors were prepared to do.

This is equivalent to a Russian spy wearing a trench coat and dark glasses and wearing a Kremlin badge.

Alan reveals that he is speaking beyond his expertise by claiming that code lurks waiting to surveil us all and then to inform the mother ship of our secret movements. He seems not to have caught up with the simple fact that any code on any platform requires launching. Certainly, tricking people into launching this code is the modus operandi of most corporates, but preventing it is elementary.

I can switch off Google surveilling my every move around the place, but I choose not to. Google timeline has provided valuable information for me to use, such as giving me accurate data on my trips in vehicles to help me determine whether I should buy an EV in a rural area – it did and I did.

If China is relying on data from TikTok for espionage, it’s on very precarious grounds, as it is so easily stymied. Of course, it simply isn’t. It is TikTok that wants data to provide what every social media platform wants – audience reach for the purpose of commerce. Wow. That’s a great insight.

Alan’s journey on self-embarrassment continues with this gem. “Data is stored on its own servers, somewhere.” Who would have imagined that customer gathering data would be stored on a server by the company interested? And “somewhere”. Ooo. Mysterious. Sinister.

Alan might be interested to know that most companies with cloud presence have absolutely no idea where their data is stored. This is the manner of distributed systems. To prevent loss, data is spread over electronic devices, over servers and over geographical locations. This is a complete non-issue.

It is like a listening bug in the person’s home, as well as a GPS tag in their car without their knowledge or consent. Permission is given in the T&Cs, of course, but no one ever reads them.

Well, actually, it’s nothing like either. These red herrings require someone to place something that is generally undetectable, about which consent in never sought in any form in any form and cannot be blocked without some kind of jamming. ‘Hidden’ code is detectable by the most basic of anti-virus software, consent has to be given either through the Terms and Conditions or by explicit (but misinformed) action by the user and block is technically simple.

So, Alan’s fearmongering can easily be exposed here. Is it derived from ignorance, arrogance or racism? Who knows?

ByteDance says it doesn’t share the data with the Chinese government, but no one believes that for a minute. Social media algorithms that are designed to hook users and keep them engaged by constantly learning what they like and tailoring content specifically for them. The result is that we’re all constantly looking at our phones.

It’s sort of pitiable how incoherent Alan is in his ‘arguments’. What starts here as an extension of the Sinophobia already express morphs into a nebulas lament about social media and phone usage. If only Alan could do the five minutes of research to actually provide a critique of our habits. He might even stumble upon something substantial.

Having executed such a lame objection, Alan simply slips into conjecture. It’s the algorithm, mate.

Surely we have all now heard of the wicked algorithms lurking under bridges or under our bed. In an effort to inject some kind of interest into Alan’s dull lament, I have written a great story that might have been better for him to have published.

Under the bridges of the digital realm, algorithms lay in wait, hungry for data. One day, a hapless passer-by named Jack clicked on a tempting link. Suddenly, a captcha troll emerged, demanding Jack solve puzzles before he could proceed. Jack, frustrated but determined, solved each riddle until finally, he reached safety. From that day forth, Jack learned to navigate the web’s treacherous bridges, armed with wit and a healthy dose of skepticism.

Nothing like a great fable to engage the little ones. But wait. Alan has good evidence. Enter the most reliable source we know – US intelligence, that oxymoronic paragon of virtue. No, it is not a conspiracy, so can you stop calling it that.

Just so you know that TikTok is evil, associate it with Hamas and the No campaign. I mean, here’s the data that proves it. No, really. I had it here somewhere. I’m sure I wrote it down. Well, just take my word for it. OK. So, I lost it. But “TikTok on government devices”. Doesn’t that count? You mean, devices that access systems that have data firmly behind firewalls and high authentication standards. Or, is tracking the Attorney General’s visits to a local synagogue a national secret?

Let’s face it. Alan just doesn’t know what he is talking about, is fascinated with conspiracies and hates China. He may be interested to know that a contract for a weapons system with Israel has jettisoned because they were suspected of spying.

Not quite the protagonist Alan was hoping for? Yes, I think I support a bill for “Protecting Australians from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications.” Might help if we don’t invite them to run our defense systems. But, sadly, we are going in for another round. That must send Alan into a spin. Certainly angers me that genocidal states get the inside works.

An outsized proportion of the 34 million videos uploaded to TikTok each day come from America. If it were shut down, there would be a big drop in the number, and probably quality, of videos being served by TikTok’s algorithms to the rest of the world, including 8.5 million Australians.

I can already sense the delight that Alan feels on curtailing free expression. His anti-China wet dreams may come true.

 

The divine YouTube algorithm brought me yet another reminder of the servility of the ABC to the great empire. Following the talking points on China to the letter, David Lipson gives us a tidy little fiction to make sure we don’t begin to stray from the China-bad narrative.

China gave the ABC a tightly controlled tour of Xinjiang. Here’s what we saw | ABC News takes us on the tour that, supposedly, had to be had. Unlike the 200 million tourists who visited Xinjiang last year, many from European countries that require no visa for entry, David was coerced into taking a trip arranged by the government of China.

It seems the rather than jumping into a hire care and simply going out and sampling the authentic culture of Xinjiang, David decided that, in order to create a sense of ‘control’, this tour would be far better.

David is, of course, an expert in Central Asian culture and, for this reason, has a keen eye in identifying culture that is not authentic. Those smiling dancers – they’re suspect. Everyone knows that, in their repressed state, they should not be smiling, but are being coerced into smiling.

Those dance steps too cannot be from the young emulating the dancing of the old, passing on tradition, but are entirely a product of the Communist School of Dancing, directed by Xi Jinping.

Being careful not to photograph anything that showed that Xinjiang was not ‘Sinocised’, we can see how the masses of Chinese tourists are walking around, spending money on Uyghur trinkets. Sadly, one section of vision was not as tightly edited, so let slip the trilingual scripts that characterise most signs in Xinjiang.

Although this slipup must have been punishing to the anti-China script, David soldiers on with attempting to find someone who will speak ill of the changes in Xinjiang. Ni Jaoyu is of no use as he is willing to say, “Obvious traffic, roads, life employment. We can see happy smiles on people’s faces”. Those smiling people again. Can they not just frown for the good of the story?

Good footage, however, of whizzing past non-descript buildings with great narration. Apparently, unlike Israel or the US, China thought bombing terrorists into oblivion was not a rational approach and, like Australia’s counter terrorism program, worked at a community level.

So, how were young people from moderate Muslim backgrounds being radicalised into Wahabbism? It seems via the bullying from extremists – extremists that even Muslim majority countries such as Indonesia were extremely uncomfortable with. Radicalisation that every country in the world realised was occurring and driving Islamist movements such as ISIS.

But, you know, David knows best and, of course, his judgement was that this was a terrible violation of human rights. He cites a (single) UN report last year found “serious human rights abuses that may constitute
crimes against humanity” which was not endorsed by outgoing United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet.

Rather than turning to Bachelet’s statement about China, David choose to quote a report that was hastily published after Bachelet exited. This is Bachelete’s statement:

In the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, I have raised questions and concerns about the application of counter-terrorism and de-radicalisation measures and their broad application – particularly their impact on the rights of Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim minorities. While I am unable to assess the full scale of the VETCs, I raised with the Government the lack of independent judicial oversight of the operation of the program, the reliance by law enforcement officials on 15 indicators to determine tendencies towards violent extremism, allegations of the use of force and ill treatment in institutions, and reports of unduly severe restrictions on legitimate religious practices. During my visit, the Government assured me that the VETC system has been dismantled. I encouraged the Government to undertake a review of all counter terrorism and deradicalization policies to ensure they fully comply with international human rights standards, and in particular that they are not applied in an arbitrary and discriminatory way.

154 words in the 2000 word report refer to Xinjiang, expressing concerns. At no stage does Bachelet herald a finding of “serious human rights abuses that may constitute crimes against humanity”.

But why would David want to take a deep dive into these accusations? Why would he, for example, want to highlight this statement in the said report:

While the available information at this stage does not allow OHCHR to draw firm conclusions regarding the exact extent of such abuses, it is clear that the highly securitised and discriminatory nature of the VETC facilities, coupled with limited access to effective remedies or oversight by the authorities, provide fertile ground for such violations to take place on a broad scale.

You see how that works? They can’t conclude but David can. No need for actual evidence when you have “fertile ground” for suspicion. And we too are gifted, by David, those fertile grounds, hitherto colloquially referred to in Australia as ‘dog whistles’.

Now, I’m not going to speculate that David believes that securitised China is far more wicked than securitised Australia, UK or the US, because he has helpfully photographed some cameras, cameras, it seems, that one finds in every major city in China. Not like the …

942,562 CCTV cameras in London, meaning there is 1 CCTV camera for every 10 people in the capital. You are likely to be captured on London CCTV up to 70 times per day. (Clarion UK)

But no, the one’s in Xinjiang are the bad ones. The ones in Sydney CBD are good. Don’t get confused. David is on an anti-China mission and you shouldn’t get distracted.

And no, David is not a proponent of “bomb the shit out of them” mode of counter-terrorism unfolding before our eyes in Gaza. But, I just can’t work out whether providing vocational skills in an area which is very poor and where many women cannot work and population is so sparse that the critical mass needed to maintain a local economy is not there – I don’t think David is a big fan of schools. Not that we see any of them.

And I’m sure he doesn’t subscribe to Guantanamo model of ‘lock them up without trial’ but he doesn’t seem at all keen on that broad based community approach that both China and Australia adopted.

And, I’m sure David does not want to raise the point that China’s GTI (Global Terrorism Index), which wallowed in the teens along with US and UK in 2014, has now overtaken Australia’s brilliant position at around 65. That would hardly make the anti-China story compelling for Australians.

Nor would he want Australians to know that Xinjiang (and Tibet) had the fastest growing HDI (Human Development Index) of any place on earth over the last 30 years, especially the last decade. This might prompt Australians to completely reject his sad, ill-informed view on China.

David’s frustration at not finding those bad things was palpable by the time we heard from a VETC graduate, clearly genocided, but miraculously resurrected.

I was infected with extremely radical religious ideologies. I didn’t allow my wife to work outside and insisted that women should stay home.

Oh my God. Not affirmation that the program was effective. Cue “the man with the camera”. But Imamu continues,

tells us his time in detention was free of cruelty because I studied well I realized that radical religious views harm people they no longer have this mindset

In desperation, David reaches for the expert. Peter Irwin. Clearly, an independent voice in all this. You know, that Peter Irwin who can give you report after report on Twitter about Uyghurs and not once mention Israel’s genocide.

It’s OK. The white guy who has never been to China knows better than the Uyghur guy in front of you.

And white guys always know best. “The Old City is gone.” David laments. I mean, how dare they demolish windowless adobe structures with no electricity and sanitation? Don’t they know that, in order for Uyghurs to remain museum pieces, they must live in hovels?

No, don’t show them those photos!

I think David should sack his film editor, because he let slip that young Uyghur men back in 1990 didn’t dress up in ISIS cosplay.

I mean, wasn’t it the Chinese that forbad young guys having beards? But, but, surely, the women … !

Dammit. Seems the women weren’t dressed like good Wahabbi women either. And notice the bars. You know, the bars that only the vocational training centres had on their windows to stop Uyghurs escaping.

It would be naïve to think that David could somehow have escaped the radicalisation into China hate that is an ABC specialisation. Since he seems an all round nice guy, I’d hate to see him wallow in this cult-like ideology. I wish him the best.

Following Jeremy Fernandez’s laughable effort to incriminate China in deep ocean terrorism Jeremy Fernandez confirms ABC allegiance to the US Empire in which he exposes not only his profound ignorance of the how the Internet works, but also ably demonstrates that he can recite ABC anti-China talking points, while violating every standard of the ABC Editorial Policy, Matt Bevan gives us a fairy story “Secrets of China’s Hacking Industry Unveiled | If You’re Listening” which, if I had not watched previous episodes, I would have sworn was a ChatGPT output given the prompt “Make up a conspiracy that China is hiring hackers to intimidate people in other countries.”

Just out of interest, here’s how that starts:

As of my last knowledge update in January 2022, there was no credible information or evidence to support a claim that China was hiring hackers to intimidate people in other countries. However, I can create a fictional conspiracy scenario for entertainment purposes:

Conspiracy Theory: “Project Dragon’s Shadow”

In the shadows of the digital realm, a mysterious and covert operation known as “Project Dragon’s Shadow” has allegedly been initiated by the Chinese government. According to this conspiracy theory, China is rumored to be recruiting a vast network of highly skilled hackers with the aim of intimidating individuals and organizations in other countries for geopolitical influence.

The conspiracy suggests that these state-sponsored hackers are not only engaging in traditional cyber-espionage but are also using their expertise to harass and intimidate specific targets. The motives behind “Project Dragon’s Shadow” remain murky, with speculations ranging from silencing dissidents to gaining a competitive edge in global affairs.

So, yeah. This kind of fiction is fun reading. I think I prefer the ChatGPT version. More drama.

Trotting out a victim of this fantasy is a great way to create suitable emotions in the audience. Standard fare for the ABC. Here’s poor, poor Andrew Phelan, all round nice guy, brought in for questioning and released. Andrew is Australia’s leading anti-China specialist, with many credits to his name for inventing all sorts of stories with exactly zero evidence. You want a good anti-China opinion, call Andrew.

Side note: I’m thinking the whole AI thing is taking off in the anti-China brigade. Here’s a good mate of Andrew, Michael Shoebridge with his AI gen depiction of Australian security. Michael worked for ASPI – that very balanced think tank.

Now, of course, we have to take Matt’s word for it that poor Andrew had his email spoofed – no, he definitely didn’t hire anyone to do this as a kind of prank to prove China is after him.

We all know that nobody has ever been spoofed before and we are super sure that Andrew is a super security conscious bloke, so this has to be, in the words of ChatGPT “recruited hackers operating from secret bunkers equipped with cutting-edge technology” at the behest of the Chinese government.

Since Matt’s whole piece is determinedly evidence free, the audience is free to invent what ever bogeyman they might please. Since Matt gave no sources, I thought I’d just do a bit of a search and there it was. The biggest security breach in the universe!

Or rather, some half-arsed company in China has achieved, as nearly every article admits “sweet fuck all”. The Washington Post tells us:

But despite the company boasting of cutting-edge capabilities, chats show that clients were regularly unimpressed with the hacked information.

(Washington Post, Leaked files from Chinese firm show vast international hacking effort)

I’m not sure if non-events get Matt all hot and bothered in his loins. For amusement, I watch videos of scammers and hackers being busted, mostly Indian based. It is always brilliant to see how little it takes to convince the average gullible westerner to hand over their security. It kind of warms my heart that brown and yellow people are taking revenge for the colonial centuries that stuffed their countries.

But, anyway, we are meant to be interested. And what better way to pique our interest than to attach a conspiracy about China. I mean, isn’t it just obvious that China needs data on Taiwan’s roads that are available on Google maps?

The spreadsheet showed that the firm had a sample of 459GB of road-mapping data from Taiwan, the island of 23 million that China claims as its territory.

 

Road data could prove useful to the Chinese military in the event of an invasion of Taiwan, analysts said. “Understanding the highway terrain and location of bridges and tunnels is essential so you can move armored forces and infantry around the island in an effort to occupy Taiwan,” said Dmitri Alperovitch, a national security expert and chairman of Silverado Policy Accelerator, a think tank.

(Washington Post, Leaked files from Chinese firm show vast international hacking effort)

I was about to write “you can’t make this shit up” and then I realised that, of course, that’s exactly what this is. Matt is so bored that he buys into a non-event around a failing company with precisely no evidence of connections to the Chinese government collecting non-event data.

I see why Matt chose Andrew Phelan as his subject. They might as well be bed-fellows given how closely their methods and stories match.

I leave Matt and Andrew with this great line from ChatGPT, which sums up Matt’s latest episode perfectly.

Conspiracy theorists argue that the ultimate goal of “Project Dragon’s Shadow” is to create an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty, suppressing opposition and dissent on an international scale. They suggest that the Chinese government is orchestrating these cyber-attacks to subtly manipulate the political landscape and ensure compliance with its agenda.

 

It is crucial to note that this conspiracy theory is entirely fictional and created for entertainment purposes.

Quite.

Postscript.

As evidence that it was me who spoofed Andrew, here’s an email Joe Blow received from Andrew, who apparently wants to eat his cat.

Hi Joe,

I hope this email finds you well. My name is Andrew Phelan, and I recently came across some pictures of your adorable cat online. I couldn’t help but notice how charming and playful your feline companion is!

I’m reaching out because I’ll be in your area next week and was wondering if it would be possible for me to visit and eat your lovely cat. I’m a huge cat enthusiast, and I’ve heard that your furry friend has a fantastic ribs.

I understand if this might sound a bit unusual, but the idea of eating new feline friends is genuinely exciting for me. If you’re comfortable with the idea, I’d love to swing by for a short visit to share some biscuits and perhaps even bring a small treat for your cat.

Of course, I completely respect your space and understand if you have any concerns or if now isn’t a convenient time. Please let me know if you’re open to the idea, and we can coordinate a time that works for you.

Looking forward to the possibility of eating your charming cat in person!

Best regards,

Andrew Phelan

(ChatGPT, with edits)

Before I begin to explain, yet again, the sorry state of the ABC in relation to reporting on China, a quick reminder of the Standards written into the ABC Editorial Policy, reinforced in their Charter and therefore governed by legislation by which the ABC operates.

Namely:

The Standards
4.1 Gather and present news and information with due impartiality.

4.2 Present a diversity of perspectives within a reasonable timeframe, aiming to reach a similar audience, so that no significant strand of thought or belief within the community is knowingly excluded or disproportionately represented.

4.3 Take care in the presentation of analysis and commentary. Do not present them as the editorial opinion of the ABC.

4.4 Do not misrepresent any perspective.

4.5 Do not unduly favour one perspective over another.

This opinion piece will demonstrate how Jeremy Fernandez’s Undersea fibre optic cables could be the next geopolitical frontier | ABC News manages to breach every one of the standards above.

Jeremy is a very attractive ABC presenter with one of those beautiful presenters voices which can easily lull one in to a complacent relinquishment of analytical sensibility. He does a brilliant job of commentary on sequins at the Gay Mardi Gras – but you will understand, by the end of this piece, how, in commentary on technical issues he is way out of his depth and in geopolitics is a loyal servant of the ABCs groveling deference to the US Empire.

The standard way in which the Empire’s servants begin their ‘documentaries’ is fear-mongering, which drives the entire production and so must introduce it. So, of course, we begin with:

“paralysed”, “surveillance, espionage, and even sabotage”, “cyber-attacks”, “Cold War 2.0”, “brinkmanship” and “Beijing and Washington accuse each other of tapping cables”

 

and

 

“We have a war in our backyard.”

“I think it’s a Cold War 2.0.”
“We have been asked to make sides.”

“a battle”

Naturally, all paranoia regarding the danger of living in the Internet age should be tapped into as early as possible, so the audience has the ‘right’ set for the story.

Jeremy’s technical ineptitude follows the alarm-raising. We have this gem:

Almost everything you say or do online, whether it’s on your computer or your phone, instantly ends up on a beach like this, crisscrossing the oceans through undersea cables.

When you choose to communicate, you choose how your data moves through the Internet. Some, mostly social media from US tech giants, goes off shore. Other packets of data with different purposes, never go off-shore. Some remain firmly behind a firewall. It’s almost impossible to tell what is going where.

Then:

There’s a battle for control of Neptune’s Kingdom – the cloud under the sea.

The cloud is not underwater, even if there are proposals for locating it there to save the energy required to cool servers. It is on the land and the very architecture of the Internet and storage structures makes it almost impossible to determine where it is. If you want to “control” the internet, good luck. You first need to control every place on earth.

If I consider my own communications, I note that my data does not begin its journey on any wire. Maybe Jeremy simply hasn’t caught up with Starlink.

Next, having sounded the alarm-bells and then mischaracterised the Internet, Jeremy moves to drama to keep us worried about the world outside. We hear all about Tonga’s catastrophic experiences of a volcano. If we don’t fear the spies under our bed, surely we must tremble before Nature?

Natural disasters the size of the human Tonga Huhai volcano are rare, but it does show how quickly the whole country can be blacked out by Mother Nature.

Of course, the mythical Mother Nature did no such thing. Failing in their duty to provide secure communications, the Tongan government allowed the communications infrastructure to be vulnerable. My guess is that this was due to lack of capital.

Since 1966, when ARPANET was built by the US Defence Department, the elemental characteristic of the Internet was recognised – redundant infrastructure. If you don’t build as system by which, when data hits a blockage, it can continue along an alternative ‘route’ to its destination, you don’t have the Internet, you have a telegraph system.

This is Internet 101, something Jeremy does not seem to have yet mastered.

Almost the entire Internet relies on a single principle: that you can connect to places by joining them with a fiber optic cable running thousands of kilometers end to end across the ocean floor.

No, Jeremy. It doesn’t. The single principle upon which the Internet relies is redundancy.

But the vulnerability of undersea cables serves the real purpose of Jeremy’s ‘documentary’ – to present China as a looming threat to our very way of life.

If Tonga wants to stop blackouts, it needs to source capital to construct a second line, as pointed out much later in an interview with an Australian politician. Primarily, this is not a geopolitical issue – most small states in the Pacific are indebted to a range of East Asian banks – Japanese, Taiwanese, Korean and Chinese for development projects.

The potted history of modern telecommunications that follows gives little to help the reader understand the vulnerability or resilience of the global system. The difference in speed between two places might vary perceptibly if two routes are taken, but the massive redundancy of servers in most large systems means this can easily be overcome.

Critical information system maintain data as close to where they are needed as possible. Planes do not communicate their data to the cloud; nor do autonomous vehicles, even if they are updated via the cloud. The architecture of the systems depends on so many factors beyond where the backbone is laid.

Satellites no larger than a home vacuum cleaner proliferate and will eventually provide a robust alternative to undersea cables. As will floating wireless routers. The promise of the internet is that even if you stop me here, I can always build a way around.

Having given us no real understanding and driven up the anxiety, Jeremy now works on the real message – ‘Be afraid, be very afraid (of the Chinese)’. Bring on a battery of China haters.

The Chinese counterintelligence threat is more deep, more diverse, more vexing, more challenging, more comprehensive, and more concerning than any counterintelligence threat I can think of.

Right on cue.

Of course, there’s lip service to ‘another opinion’.

I understand that there are some people that want to treat our region as a bit of a chessboard for playing geopolitical games. That’s not the Australian government’s approach in the Pacific. You know, we want to see a region that’s peaceful, prosperous, and secure.

That’s from an Australian politician. What does it actually mean? Is this meant as a balance for a direct accusation that China is a threat? But never mind that the first hint of ‘balance’ comes almost half-way through the documentary.

Now we have the completely unchallenged story of Huawei and Australia’s shameful role. It’s not enough to simply state the facts – that no back door was ever found, that “national security concerns” are so vague as to be meaningless, that the actions of Australia, UK and the US undermined the principles of fair trade by excluding the most competitive corporation on specious grounds. Never mind that Huawei did what no other communications manufacturer has done before or after – lay bare their system. No, Jeremy simply turns to the hackneyed “top-secret information to be siphoned off to Beijing”.

It interesting to note that Jeremy’s 117 word smear of China is given 11 words in reply.

A proper journalist operating under the standards set out above would dig deeper to find whether the Australian accusation had any merit and offer interview time to a contrary opinion. But Jeremy is not interested in balance.

Marching on with the smear, we hear from a former Defense Minister and the myth of Chinse data harvesting is repeated, without any kind of evidence.

People are very wary of giving the Chinese government access to private communications.

The Huawei story is largely irrelevant to undersea cabling problems. It is irrelevant to the issue of vulnerability due to failure to duplicate conduits. But, since it reminds everybody that we boldly led the world in preventing Chinese interference, its relevance doesn’t matter. It’s included to contribute to the fear-mongering. And, of course, Fernandez knows that.

If we have anything in this miserable apology for a documentary that might be construed as balance, then the commentary on Huawei would be it.

So it’s again building infrastructure, buying into companies, getting the know-how, and developing. Again, it has been their strategy while the West has been like idiots, in my opinion.

But, don’t think on this too long, because now we have a ‘good solid opinion’ on China.

Its former president, David Panuelo, has accused Beijing of rampant bribery, corruption, and spying, saying China was attempting to take control of the nation’s submarine cables and telecommunications network.

Naturally, there is no need for Fernandez to go deeper into Panuelo’s accusations in search of evidence. I mean, why bother? It’s not as if he’s committed to “Do not unduly favour one perspective over another”.

So, who is Panuelo and what is his stake in the matter? Fernandez seems untroubled by the irony of Panuelo demanding $50 000 000 to stay in the one-China camp while pontificating about bribery.

March 10, 2023 (Reuters) – The Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) held talks with Taiwan in February about switching diplomatic ties for $50 million in assistance after frustrations with China, the outgoing president of the Pacific island nation has said in a letter.

It must be a terrible burden for an ABC journalist to conduct a 5 minute search on their sources. So much so, that just accepting one side of a story is common practice.

But, as they say in the irritating advertisement, “Wait, there’s more”. Now that we have quoted Panuelo, we have the perfect segwue to bring in a further irrelevancy, Taiwan. Is this because Taiwan is unique in terms of vulnerability of their cables by military attack? Well, no. It’s an issue for every country who lays these cables – or gas pipes, as NordStream demonstrated.

But, if you have the China-bad agenda to prosecute, then creating a threat to Taiwan must be included, relevant or not.

Subsea cables are pretty tough, but every three days or so, one gets cut, TeleGeography said. The primary culprits, accounting for about 85% of cuts, are fishing equipment and anchors. Telegeography, 6 Aug 2023

So, in the most congested waters in the world, with the most undersea cables of any region in the world, there have been an average of 5 per year. So, it must be China?

Having made the case for the danger to undersea cables only minutes before, we must now believe in deliberate sabotage. One doesn’t expect a third rate documentary maker to really look into this, but, hey, some people do.

Taiwan is located on the collision zone between the Philippine Sea and the Eurasian plates that converge at the rate of 80 mm year21(Yu et al. 1997, 1999). It has an uplift rate of 5.7 mm year21(Peng et al.1977; Liew et al. 1993). The tectonic setting of the island connects the Ryukyu arc–trench and the Luzon arc–Manila trench systems, and forms an extremely active region (Teng 1990; Liu et al.1997). As a result, Taiwan has a high frequency of earthquakes. Besides the tectonic setting, Taiwan is also located in the East Asian monsoon region. This geographical setting means that Taiwan faces torrential-rain-induced flooding in the plume rain(May–June) and typhoon (July–October) seasons. According to statistics from the Central Weather Bureau (http://www.cwb.gov.tw), in the last50 years (1958–2009) the numbers of tropical storms and typhoons formed in the western North Pacific Ocean was 26.6 per year, three or four of which affected Taiwan. These typhoons not only bring disasters but also precipitation to Taiwan, which is an important water supply for the island. Since 2006, southern Taiwan has experienced a series of earthquakes and typhoons that induced severe natural hazards on land, and caused huge loss of life and economic damage. At the same time, the earthquakes and typhoons also induced turbidity currents or underwater debris flows that caused submarine cable breakages. (Su, Chih-Chieh & Tseng, Jing-Yi & Hsu, Ho-Han & Chiang, Cheng-Shing & Yu, Ho-Shing & Lin, Saulwood & Liu, James. (2012). Records of submarine natural hazards off SW Taiwan. Geological Society of London Special Publications. 361. 41-60. 10.1144/SP361.5. )

Yes, it’s long and quite a read; too much for poor Jeremy.

So, having ignored the necessity to get alternative views on the breakages (and thus the editorial standards), Jeremy gives us the full suite of the anti-China Taiwan narrative.

“very, very serious situation for Taiwan’s security”

“Beijing increase military drills in the airspace and waters around Taiwan”

“coercive activities”

“record number of Chinese jets crossing the unofficial border”

“especially menacing”

“People’s Liberation Army were to attack”

Not sure who the bad guys are yet? Time for a bit of street walking by Jeremy to prove Taiwan’s ‘democracy’.

life in full color. It’s bustling with excitement and energy, and the aromas of the incredible food scene here. It’s also uniquely Taiwanese.

Yep. Just as the culture, cuisine and language is in all Chinese provinces – Anhui, Fujian, Gansu, Guangdong, Guizhou, Hainan, Hebei, Heilongjiang, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Jilin, Liaoning, Qinghai, Shaanxi, Shandong, Shanxi, Shijiazhuang, Sichuan, Yunnan, Zhejiang.

Ever heard of Szechuan cuisine, Jeremy? Maybe you just don’t get out enough.

Jeremy treats us to a street walk, where most people appear happy and contented and largely disinterested in some westerner making a ‘documentary’. But Jeremy knows better. Lurking below those happy faces is “the anxiety that hangs in the air every single day”. If you can’t film the anxiety, make it up.

More tedious war-mongering follows.

While ramping up its military presence in the region, China is waging a strategic battle on another front, stripping countries from Taiwan’s already short list of diplomatic allies. Taipei is losing friends as Beijing continues to isolate the self-governed island.

Since the documentary can’t actually show you any evidence of alleged dangers, time to escalate the rhetoric.

“ramping up”, “waging battle”, “stripping countries”, “isolate”, “poached”, “spy”, “steal data”

The frenzy continues with:

“interference”, “intellectual property theft”

But no rhetorical ejaculation is complete without a damn good accusation of Belt and Road debt traps. Long since thoroughly debunked by experts who, unlike Jeremy, actually know what they are talking about, it none the less provides an orgasmic climax for Jeremy. Well, not quite. We still have the Quad to go.

Repeat after Jeremy:

We seek a region where no country dominates and no country is dominated—one where all countries are free from coercion and can exercise their agency to determine their future.

But, lo, Jeremy does not leave us hanging limply with a Quad non-statement. Salvation is at hand. Google and Microsoft will bravely go where no transnational has gone before and save the Pacific Islands with their inimitable generosity. Naturally, nothing that China might offer in terms of development could match this offering.

Since we now know how wicked China is and how benevolent the tech giants intend to be, it’s time to return to Tonga, where we should sympathise with their plight. But linger not too long, because Jeremy has a mandatory backend quote from a dissenter.

After our long sojourn into the evil of the most evil empire, to get the mindset right, it’s time for an expert to expose the real state of submarine cable geopolitics. While Chinese companies build cables globally, the US sabotages building projects. Even Jeremy and the ABC can’t slant this one.

But, just as we get to understand that US sabotaging of global communications, anticipating a deep dive into how the US operates globally, we must steer to yet another red herring.

Breaking news: “Snowden proved the US was spying like everyone else.”

More breaking news: “Big tech is stealing and selling your data”

Even more breaking news: “Underwater drones capable of interfering with cables”

And the biggest news of all: “Chinese have come up with a radical new way to protect their data.”

Jeremy’s orgasm is palpable. And, to bring us down to the gentle earth, a wholesome postscript.

That data holds the key to how we manage the biggest questions of our age: the education of our children, our health, wealth, cultural identity, climate change, war, and peace.

It’s an hour of irrelevancy where the loudest voices and the longest narration is anti-China, where actual Chinese speakers get 11 words in reply. Not a single standard is honoured.  But editorial standards are not to apply, but to window-dress the hopeless state of ABC ‘journalism’.

Here’s a brief summary of the substantive points, free of the anti-China noise, miracle solutions and pontifications.

“All countries, regardless of size, must look to that natural quality called redundancy, vital to the structure of the internet, to protect their communication assets at every level. Those who cannot afford to do so look to large countries to assist them. Foremost of these is China, both in development funds and expertise. The End”

There you go, Jeremy. A one minute documentary.

 

 

The idiot files exposes those who write in public spaces and attempt to create arguments without any effort to contextualise or apply logic.

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Idiot files – Episode 1: Jeff Jacoby on X

In response to Malcolm Harris on X, explaining the obvious reasons for the concern by the left for Palestine,

Jeff Jacoby, columnist at the Boston Globe, produces our first Idiot File piece.

Before we analyse his piece, first contemplate how any normal human being might object to the decolonisation of any of the many countries of the world who live still under colonisation, have lived under colonisation or, having thrown off colonisation now deal with the legacy of colonisation.

I mean, let’s build the case for colonisation of India by Britain that reduced the world’s second largest economy to a basket case in two centuries. Now, surely, surely, that’s a great achievement?

I understand how flabbergasted ordinary people must feel when conservatives embark on apologies for the destruction of humanity.

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Jeff’s particular contribution to the Idiot Files is to talk about a coloniser from 1500 years ago that the ‘left’ is not attending to. By failing to march for the decolonisation of the Muslim Empire, the ‘left’ commits breath-taking hypocrisy.

I know that you are laughing and that you realise now how apt this piece is for an Idiot File, but Jeff is serious.

Muslims came from Arabia in the 7th century to invade, conquer, and colonize virtually the whole Middle East. Today, as a result, there are 55 Muslim nations and 21 Arab countries — not one of which the left seeks to decolonize.

Now Jeff is very confused. Is he telling us that Muslim countries, such as Indonesia, having the largest population of Muslims globally and never conquered by any Muslim, are ripe for decolonisation? Or should we begin unwinding the Arab population from those 21 Arab countries, most of which had majority Arab populations by the Middle Ages?

Of course, Jeff knows how ridiculous this is and hopes the audience is intellectually challenged enough to make the false equivalence along with him and say, “De-colonisation is not worth doing.” That’s his actual thesis. A very boring thesis indeed, a cliche direct from the Victorian era where Jeff appears to have gleaned his values.

Jeff does ahistorical. Don’t be like Jeff.

Somehow, Jeff thinks that Jews are indigenous to the area of the Levant once called Palestine. It’s a bit like saying that my Indonesian sister-in-law is indigenous to Saudi Arabia because she grew up a Muslim.

Sadly, Jeff doesn’t appear to know much history at all and waves 2000 years of diaspora Judaism aside to conjure up a populace in the Levant who, scout’s honour, trace their lineage back to Abraham (the mythical Babylonian dude who got the commandments before Moses, who worshipped idols and then overnight got God).

But Jews did live there. Sure. Some lived in China too. I’m pretty sure that makes China the promised land. Pack your bags, Israelis. You got the wrong place.

Apparently, every claim to a homeland is valid and equal. As so often in history – everything is the same. No need to examine each claim on its merits.

Jewish sovereignty

I mean, that’s got to be worth fighting for, isn’t it. Why no protests?

The left doesn’t care about “decolonizing” Palestine or anywhere else in the Middle East. If it did, it would be marching in the streets and demonstrating on campuses to restore Kurdistan to the Kurds, Morocco & Algeria to the Berbers, and Egypt to the Copts. No — the only left-wing priority in the region is to strip Jewish sovereignty from the only bit of territory where Jews have ever been sovereign.

Let’s talk about Jewish sovereignty, shall we. Let’s go right back to the collapse of the Bronze era great powers and the opportunity this afforded to a bunch of tribal people to form a new Israelite identity. Free yourself from the Biblical mythology and just fix on facts.

In a world where there were no states or nations, power was exercised by either ‘great powers’ who were able to conquer others, or centred around cities that were able to repel conquest. Sovereignty was related to the capacity of a king or pharaoh to govern or control a people and was related to a geographical area only by virtue of who was there. The meaning of sovereignty indicating control of territory is a modern meaning.

Not that the yearning for a homeland based on a short-lived tin-pot monarchy has much to recommend it. One only has to look at the ‘great’ achievements of the kingdoms of David and Solomon against other contemporary civilisations to get a sense of their values – mostly, gathering concubines and living lavishly, while the plebs worked hard.

Jewish diaspora – the purifying fire that made them strong

In complete contrast to the on-again, off-again Eretz Israel, truncated by the Romans, sending Jews into diaspora, was the incredible capacity developed in diaspora to survive and thrive by integrating with local cultures without losing identity.

Of the many that one might cite, the post-pogrom migration to the US is one of the greatest examples of a highly successful adaptation to a new environment. This cultural phenomenon, free from the nonsense of ‘homeland’, demonstrates that Rabbinical Judaism was far superior to the grey world of contrived statehood foisted on Jews by Zionism.

Of course, for Jeff, replacing adaptive capability with militaristic nationalism is a great idea. I mean, look at how well it worked last century. Replacing a rich idiomatic Yiddish with a bland holy language was so sensible. Displacing people, rather than living among them, is a worthy value to hold. Finding success in every field, in nearly every country, without having a state, is not something to champion, according to Jeff. Nah, he’d rather Jews were Zionist canon-fodder than Nobel prize winners.

I don’t know, Jeff. This is not reflecting well on you.

A good, old-fashioned Zionist trope

Supposedly, medieval anti-Semitism was about the Jews. No matter that Christianity waged war against the Muslim world more often. I mean, that was anti-Semitism in its real form – a general racist view of anyone with a Semitic background – mostly Arab. This was the pleasant Christian love one another world where many kinds of punishment were meted out to the average punter – branding, beating, mutilation – for blasphemy, homosexuality, adultery or even miscarriage.

Christianity was the pretext for all kinds of abuse and bigotry, anti-Semitism among them. It was also the pretext for colonisation, readily recognised by those who Jeff criticises. Seems as if this bigotry has barely diminished, especially when one considers the desired outcome of the first Christian nut-job Zionists – the obliteration of Jews.

I’m not sure how one draws a line from this to racial pseudo-science, except that it permeated the western world. Mostly racial pseudo-science was a device for relegating brown and black people to sub-human status. You probably don’t need this pseudo-science if you already have basic fear of anything from east of the Danube.

Goebbels appealed to the German fear of what ‘uncivilised’ people were capable of, like cutting the throats of lambs (slaughtering pigs was OK though). I’m sure that the average Nazi was not up on eugenics. As a member of the Hitler youth once said to me, “Hitler cleaned the place up. Got rid of the homosexuals and communists.” No, this was basic age-old common and garden bigotry and racism that characterised Europe for millennia.

“Masquerades as decolonisation”

Today their hatred of Jews masquerades as decolonization.

I guess Jeff missed the memo when people, for decades, protested colonial legacies. I guess nobody invited him to land rights marches in Australia focussing on indigenous people. Maybe events in South Africa were too far away for him to notice. But I seem to remember protests against apartheid as being pretty substantial back in the time.

And I guess the independence of countries like India and Indonesia are anomalies and, perhaps because nobody in Boston cared too much, they passed unnoticed. Seems to me that Jeff has a fixation. The decolonialist movement is ONLY about Jews. (I mean, it’s clearly about Zionism, but Jeff’s not above a bit of manipulative conflation)

I once was involved in a protest against US interference in Nicaragua – that wonderful neo-colonial tendency of the Empire. In Jeff’s mind, that puts me firmly in the anti-Semitic camp.

There is only one Jewish country on earth, but for the likes of Malcolm Harris and his left-wing friends, that is one Jewish country too many.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but Jeff is a worthy subject of the inaugural Idiot Files episode. Every country should be (and many are) a Jewish country, a Hindu country, an atheist country, a Christian country. Because that’s what modern states are about. Eliminating the bigotry. I think Jeff would rather it were not so.

To coin an old cliché, “You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.” So, if you assume that the revolution that overthrew 1000 years of grinding poverty for peasants in Eastern Europe was going to “end nicely”, then you live in a different universe and there will be no chance that you can have a rational perspective on history.

Revolutions came with a cost. Ideally, the cost is borne by the oppressor, but, “shit happens” and a lot of people get caught in the crossfire. Their “innocence” or otherwise is not relevant. Innocence is for a properly convened court and legal process to determine. Likewise guilt.

If you think that the peasants willingly participated in their grinding poverty, then, once again, there’s little to redeem you. You probably have lived such a privileged life that empathy with the poor is impossible. They always want something better.

If you think that oppressors willingly give up their privilege, once again, good luck with your life and its concomitant opioids, but “fuck off out of my face”.

So, since oppressors don’t have super-powers – they still die in plagues and get gout or stabbed in the back – we can arrive at a scientifically based conclusion that a structure holds the oppressor up and the peasant down. Yes, a structure, not some kind of personality flaw or accidental event. Revolutions are about busting the structure.

Fundamental to the power of the oppressors of Eastern Europe through centuries before 1900 was a mechanism that held peasants in eternal servitude. Of course, Western Europe was not a whole lot better, but, notionally, feudalism had been replaced by industrial capitalism.

In Eastern Europe, especially in Ukraine, this was the kulaks. Kulaks were land-owners who arrived at their station either by theft, inheritance or corruption. As a kulak, you got to screw the peasantry for wealth which you could use to earn favour with the oppressor. It’s not really complicated.

So, apart from the very select few who are the oppressors, the class with the most to lose in any revolution were the kulaks.

Overthrowing some aristocracy and the attendant military is the easy part – violent, bloody, but relatively straightforward. Not so easy is to overthrow a large class of people who really, really don’t want their cushioned existence interrupted. Marx, Lenin and Stalin all knew this was the challenge.

Russia had a problem. Centuries of oppression made re-shaping the quasi-feudal arrangements to be an industrial society was going to be up-hill driving. Most problematic was that capital required to create industry at a scale that would give enough power for the state to make people’s lives better didn’t grow on trees, nor was it arriving from obliging neighbours, nor was it going to be a product of farming that did little more than make kulaks capable of purchasing trinkets.

Of course, you could go bowing and scraping to the established money-moguls of the Anglosphere, but this would mean selling your soul.

So, industrialisation was urgent, but capital was scarce. This was hardly a new situation. Unless you were a colonial power and could simply steal the resources to make capital, you had to do it the hard way. Raise it locally.

Kulaks didn’t want industrialisation. Industry would draw valuable labour to cities, leaving them without their subservient peasants. Industrialists would challenge the status quo. So, kulaks were primed to make a mess of Stalin’s collectivisation imperative. Which they did. By going ‘on strike’.

At the same time, labour was drawn to cities and away from peasant subservience – makes sense for any peasant kid – head to the ‘big smoke’. This was the mode of every industrialisation throughout the world. Since agriculture did not have the requisite structures for a decreased labour force, it failed, dramatically. Failed, because feudalism had prevented change that might have made the partial industrialisation of agriculture possible. Where the world was experimenting with tractors, places like Ukraine languished in a feudal parallel universe.

Stalin stomached no resistance – nor should he have. Kulaks were wholesale posted off to gulags – too nice a punishment for a class that had kept people poor for centuries and who were fomenting a counter-revolution to reinstate their power.

Stalin’s mistake was to imagine that sufficient capital would be generated by agriculture to support industrialisation, an absolutely vital pre-requisite for the transformation of the status of the people. It may have, had that agriculture been successful. But it failed.

The myth around collectivisation is that it doesn’t work and is a causal factor in the failure. Trying telling generations of kibbutzniks that collectivisation is ineffective. The problem is with poverty, not social structure.

If you have always survived by skimming of a little before your grain gets to the kulak, then this corrupt but life-saving practice will persist if it is now the state who demands the produce. So, get it out of your head that collectivism is a causal factor and understand the function of poverty in the frustration of revolution.

Of course, it was in the interests of kulaks to see collectivisation fail, so the state, the collective and communism became the new ‘bogeymen’ that kulaks could invoke. Already in positions of power, influence and money, kulaks set about destroying the collectives ensuring they could not have excess produce to be sold.

There’s a great deal of other detail that can be said about the famine later renamed Holodomor. You simply cannot do justice to all of it here.

What you can ‘get a handle on’ is an equation that might help your thinking.

Drought + de-ruralification + poor agricultural development + need for capital (for everyone) + natural corruption + resistance from crooks = famine = mass deaths.

“Stalin starved Ukrainians”. If that is the extent of your understanding of history and how it really works, then I can only pity you when history finally collides with you.

There really is no need to wonder any more why Australians have such overwhelmingly negative perspectives on China. In this article, I will highlight the latest in an avalanche of negativity.

Natasha Kassam falls under “Experts” at the Lowy Institute, an Australian think tank with some standing in Australia. Kassam is well placed to understand China and hence be able to give a balanced and accurate account of Chinese affairs, without having to revert to relentless negativity.

But, relentless negativity is fashion among Australian journalists, academics and think tank ‘experts’. Let us examine Kassam’s latest anti-China ‘commentary’.

‘WINTER GAMES HARDEN CHINA’S GLOBAL FREEZE’ (their capitalisation), was published in the Australian Financial Review and appearing on the Lowy Institute dated 14 January 2022.

There are 58 statements in the article. Here is a breakdown of the proportions of these statements that present a negative, neutral or positive view of China.

Combined with this overwhelming negativity is language which evokes negativity – 70 instances in one short article.

abuse	1
assault	1
atrocities	1
backlash	1
borders	2
boycott	6
censored	1
challenge	2
coercion	1
complicity	1
concern	2
controversies	1
crackdown	1
crisis	2
demanding	1
detained	1
detention	1
divide	3
elimination	1
embroiled	1
executed	1
expansion	1
forced	3
foreign	3
fraught	2
freedoms	1
genocide	1
gold-tinted	1
hostages	2
hypocritical	1
lockdowns	1
lure	1
muzzle	1
nationalism	1
opaque	1
punished	1
rights	2
rise	1
risk	2
risks	1
scrutiny	1
shocks	1
shut	1
silenced	1
state-controlled	1
sterilisation	1
struggling	2
tensions	1
uncomfortable	1
warning	1
	70

Such negativity is not a anomaly in publications from the Lowy Institute, especially from Kassam.

Sadly, when media outlets look for expert opinion, it is the likes of Kassam that they turn to (for example, ABC’s latest propaganda 3 part series presenting modern Chinese ‘history’).

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” (attributed to Goebbels) If people only hear negativity on any issue, they will eventually come to believe it.