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Last Thursday evening I attended the 70th-anniversary dinner for the Australia-China Friendship Society Victorian branch at the appropriately named "Red Emperor" restaurant. There were roughly a hundred people present, pretty much the perfect size for such a gathering large enough and intimate enough. Society president Anthony Leong gave an excellent introductory welcome, as did the Minister-Counseller Zhang Hua and the acting Consul-General Zeng Jianhua, all of whom made a point to ensure they introduced themselves to everyone present and a bit of conversation; expert-level diplomacy. But most attention on the night was directed to Anthony's father, Maurice Kwok Leong who was celebrating his 103rd birthday. Maurice was a founder of the ACFS and nine-times president of the Sze Yap Society and temple, founded in 1856 and housing the largest collection of ancestry tablets in Australia. Of a particular generation and an iron disposition, let's just say that he had something to do with the various wars at the time and leave it at that. "A national treasure" is how several people attending described Maurice, and they're definitely not wrong.
Whatever misgivings that one may have of the PRC management of internal affairs (and they are certainly plentiful enough) they don't exactly have an extensive history of wholesale invasions of other countries. There have been some unpleasant border skirmishes (e.g., Vietnam, India) and there's the issue of Tibet which has some ticklish history. The differs from the old European powers which mostly lost their politically imperialist status during the latter part of the 20th century, and the neo-imperialism of the United States of course, which has been involved in pretty much every conflict since WWII and has troops around the globe in addition to its substantial economic power and control. It also differs in comparison to Russia which still acts like the Tsarist Empire of old and, under the Soviets, would be both liberator (from the Nazis) and invading occupier.
A few days ago I put finger-to-keyboard as the Putin government threatened to use nuclear weapons to protect Russia, following a series of losses in Ukraine. As I suspected at the time, given that Putin is in absolute denial of Ukrainian self-determination and history, this would mean the occupied territories and especially those that are part of this stage-managed referenda. A day later former Russian president Medvedev, and deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council, confirmed this and noted that strategic nuclear weapons were also on the agenda. It has been a very long time - not since before Gorbachev - that the threat of nuclear war has been so real. I am perplexed by the relative indifference of how serious this is.
Whatever misgivings that one may have of the PRC management of internal affairs (and they are certainly plentiful enough) they don't exactly have an extensive history of wholesale invasions of other countries. There have been some unpleasant border skirmishes (e.g., Vietnam, India) and there's the issue of Tibet which has some ticklish history. The differs from the old European powers which mostly lost their politically imperialist status during the latter part of the 20th century, and the neo-imperialism of the United States of course, which has been involved in pretty much every conflict since WWII and has troops around the globe in addition to its substantial economic power and control. It also differs in comparison to Russia which still acts like the Tsarist Empire of old and, under the Soviets, would be both liberator (from the Nazis) and invading occupier.
A few days ago I put finger-to-keyboard as the Putin government threatened to use nuclear weapons to protect Russia, following a series of losses in Ukraine. As I suspected at the time, given that Putin is in absolute denial of Ukrainian self-determination and history, this would mean the occupied territories and especially those that are part of this stage-managed referenda. A day later former Russian president Medvedev, and deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council, confirmed this and noted that strategic nuclear weapons were also on the agenda. It has been a very long time - not since before Gorbachev - that the threat of nuclear war has been so real. I am perplexed by the relative indifference of how serious this is.
