Scott Morrison had Australia join Trump’s armada, in the middle east, to protect the flow of oil from Saudi Arabia. Oil being plundered from war-torn Yemen. It follows that our presence in the South China Sea is not about freedom of navigation as postured by the U.S. and Australia. It’s about control of what China sees as their future energy and security needs and they will fight to the death to protect that and, in the process, crush anyone who gets in the way including Australia, as we are seeing.

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Oil and natural gas equals war and conflict and as long as we are dependent on fossil fuel, we will need our strategic alliances. After being pounded by the pandemic we also need the support of our largest trading partner as our economic dependency on China 'will not change' irrespective of what Scott Morrison says. Being stuck between a rock and a hard place is part of being PM and this is one time I could have sympathised with Mr Morrison. Until he sold us out. Morrison spouts about sovereignty and then lies about putting Australians first and bows down to "Big Oil" and the associated war machine dictating U.S. policy.

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Penny Wong summed it up - The negative rhetoric about China blowing in from the right is about justifying massive military expenditure, out of the pocket of every Australian, and points in one direction. The Morrison government is weak kneed about protecting Australian citizens, or our sovereignty, and his government has been corrupted by the fossil fuel industry and the U.S. and domestic oil and war lobby. It's about ripping off the country and screwing all of us.

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"Once you face the real problems, there are diplomatic solutions that can be explored to manage both trade and defence alliances but not with a corrupted government. We need to get a bit smarter. These energy conflicts will escalate into the future, as the world runs out of oil and natural gas. The only real solution, to stop the wars $$$, is to transition away from fossil fuel towards renewable clean energy and, in the process, avoid catastrophic climate change. There is a much bigger picture becoming apparent, to global citizens and progressive governments, who are starting to understand the duel importance of climate action." 

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TIMELINE - As tensions escalate between Australia & China

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2016

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NEWS FLASH

Source extract: China Global Times

30th July 2016

 

From Beijing; the story goes back beyond July 2016 but, for the readers here, that's a starting point. The Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague said there was no evidence that China had exercised exclusive control over the waters or resources historically... Around that announcement (12th July 2016) the international tribunal has dismissed China's claims to much of the South China Sea. A defiant China furiously rejected the ruling of what it calls a “law-abusing” tribunal, China has been excluded from, as the world watches nervously.

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Australia was one of the most delirious countries with Canberra immediately supporting the arbitration result and claimed China "must" abide by it, and also signed a joint declaration with the US and Japan. Our newly elected (2nd July 2016) Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull started the snowball rolling and, despite the brick wall of animosity between them, has just prompted our current PM Scott Morrison to hold the hard line with China?

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"It appears there may be a bit of ego and face saving involved in this, Mr Turnbull, unless there is some other lapel badge fraternity applying pressure from the wings?"

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Australia had inked a free trade agreement with China, its biggest trading partner, which makes its move of disturbing the South China Sea waters surprising to many. With nearly half of all Australian goods exports now going to China, Beijing uses this economic reliance to its advantage to try to force Canberra to modify its tone and behaviour and back off.

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"While China sees their actions in the South China Sea through a defensive lens as pointed out by Greg Moriarty the head of Australia’s defence department, the U.S. and subsequently the Morrison Government see the actions of Beijing as a threat". There's more than one way to justify pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into military expenditure?

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NEWS FLASH

JENNY AWFORD - The Sun UK
5th December 2016

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In a show of force, the US has been deploying troops and warships in Asia and the Pacific over the past few months. War footing US readies for war with China by mobilising 400 bases packed with warships and nukes to create a "perfect noose" around the Asian superpower... Read more

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"Don't panic yet, to avoid war, you need to be prepared for war. During the industrial era, the growth, wealth and power of a nation has been directly related to the control and availability of energy. The energy that has fuelled the modern era and most of the wars being oil and natural gas. This escalating conflict between the US and China is a fight for control of energy in multiple regions around the world, not just the South China Sea. The only way to diffuse these conflicts is, once again, to transition to renewable clean energy but, to do that, you need government support. Government support we are not getting in Australia - We are getting the opposite and, disturbingly, a push for war with our largest trading partner?"

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2020

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NEWS FLASH

By political reporter Jade Macmillan and defence correspondent Andrew Greene
1st July 2020

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Australia to spend $270 billion building larger military to prepare for 'poorer, more dangerous' world and the rise of China. When they talk about the bad behaviour that's happening in the region, the annexation of territory, coercion, the influencing of domestic politics, the use of cyber attacks – it's really only one country which is doing that at industrial levels, and that's the People's Republic of China.

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That's what we are told is the reasoning behind the largest military spend in Australian peace-time history. When it comes to war and conflict, someone always makes a profit. When it comes to justifying a massive military spend you need a massive threat and Scott Morrison has managed to achieve that, all by himself, by alienating China.

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Scott Morrison has taken $10,000 out of the pockets of every man, woman and child in Australia to feed the American war machine. On top of that crippling national expenditure you can add the resulting trade war, with our largest trading partner, set to decimate the Australian economy as China's hit list of sanctions and tariffs on Australian trade keeps growing. It's what the warmongers call "collateral damage".

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NEWS FLASH

Exclusive by defence correspondent Andrew Greene
23rd July 2020

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As of July 2020 we are still posturing on behalf of the U.S. and Japan as Australian warships encountered Chinese navy in the contested South China Sea. It is understood the Australian warships did not come within 12 nautical miles of the contested islands, unlike American warships, which have recently conducted freedom of navigation exercises to challenge Beijing's territorial claims. With China denouncing 'provocation' as US warships transit the Taiwan Strait.

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NEWS FLASH

Daniel Hurst in Canberra and Justin McCurry in Tokyo

18th November 2020

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Australia and Japan agree in principle to defence pact that will increase military ties. Once finalised, the agreement will mark the first time in 60 years that Tokyo has approved a deal permitting foreign troops to operate on Japanese soil. It's the thin edge of the wedge and like a pawn in a game of chess, that move will further antagonise and infuriate China in their push to control South China Sea gas fields and escalate their military build-up. With Beijing quick to threaten counter measures.

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"Beijing wonders: are we utterly ignorant of the deep enmity between China and Japan? The Japanese invasion and occupation of China during the 1930s and '40s is a scar on the soul of Chinese people. Millions of innocent civilians were killed. China still demands a full apology from Japan".

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NEWS FLASH

By Max Walden ABC
20th November 2020

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China warning to Five Eyes intelligence partners: China has reiterated its claim that the Morrison Government is solely to blame for deteriorating relations between Beijing and Canberra. "No matter how many eyes they have, five or ten or whatever, should anyone dare to undermine China's sovereignty, security and development interests, they should be careful they don't get their eyes poked blind."

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NEWS FLASH

By International Affairs Analyst Stan Grant
22nd November 2020

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Right now, Australia is in Xi's crosshairs and, surely no one still believes that Australia doesn't have to choose between our American alliance and our China trade dependence? Australia's trade clash with China is a lesson in what Beijing's power really means. The Communist Party asks, why should it be lectured to by the likes of Australia, a country whose prosperity is tied to China? China's economic might, hungry for our resources, underwrote Australia's 30 years of uninterrupted economic growth.

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NEWS FLASH

By Ian Verrender ABC
23rd November 2020

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Business leaders unleashing their fury at Canberra's attack on China. Australian exports of meat, timber, cotton, coal, barley, wine and seafood have been targeted by Chinese authorities this year as tensions escalate with Australia’s biggest companies expressing alarm. Australian iron ore, our biggest export earner, is on the front line. If China invades Taiwan, the US would put enormous pressure on Canberra to stop the trade.

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"Even now, Australia selling iron ore to China is under threat and, seen by some as supplying the Chinese military with raw material to build aircraft carriers, fighter jets and missiles to aim at U.S. bases and Australian warships. As the US starts to blacklist firms whose goods may support Chinese military activities. It suggests that Scott Morrison, who is pushing this conflict with China, has a short-circuit in the head for putting the prosperity of a nation on the line and prompting our allies to sanction China in retaliation, to take sides and escalate the conflict.

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Now we are starting to get somewhere

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From what we are reading here, we are being prompted to choose sides: America as our primary defence alliance or China as our largest trading partner? Naturally we will choose America and support our most important allies regardless of the economic consequences. Once you become tangled up in this debate, it's easy to lose sight of the bigger picture. The bigger picture being that we would not have these conflicts and we would not need to choose sides if oil and natural gas were no longer the worlds primary energy source!

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To our prize winning journalists

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Why do I feel like I'm the only person seeing this? What's everyone with a voice afraid of? I can understand the ABC being afraid to voice an honest opinion for fear of more funding cuts from the right but, what's wrong with the rest of our prize winning journalists? It's time to snap out of the catatonic state, rethink what your profession is all about and then seriously consider what's looming on the horizon before it's too late. We need to inform public debate and Australian's have a right to know since it is our country and our future. Australia doesn't belong to a hand full of war mongering, fossil fuel, greed driven narcissistic idiots pushing for conflict with China.

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I take it back and humbly apologise - a bit

 

NEWS FLASH

Published 26 Apr 2021, 5:53am
By Stephen Long, Mary Fallon, and Naomi Selvaratnam

ABC investigative reporter and researchers at Four Corners

 

The ABC are having a say about collateral damage and the human and financial cost of the ongoing trade war with China. Although not mentioning the real reason for the conflict, it's a shot across the bow of Scott Morrison's coalition government on behalf of the good people of Australia. As New Zealand signs-off on a lucrative trade agreement with China and maintains a level-headed approach to business as usual.

 

Across the ditch Australia remains tied to a deal made with Trump's U.S. and the grip of Scott Morrison's arrogance, as we start to look increasingly isolated verging on pathetically stupid for being caught in the middle of the U.S/China global superpower conflict in the first place! Trump encouraged Morrison to throw stones at China.

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Back to this article

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NEWS FLASH

By David Crowe - SMH
30th November 2020, 6.29pm

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China's attack on Australia is another attempt to provoke: Beijing has found a way to start a much deeper dispute with Australia than any argument about trade embargos or $700 million of stranded coal held up off Chinese ports. The Chinese Communist Party has fired a calculated insult at Australia with a doctored image of an Australian soldier holding a knife to the throat of an Afghan child. This comes about as a result of alleged war crimes with Australian special forces involved in accusations of killing Afghan civilians.

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"There is a side story here and a frightening parallel. The 19 year war in Afghanistan has always been a profit driven 'resource war' about control of natural gas. And, here we have another one starting up in the South China Sea. Both conflicts, and subsequent Australian involvement, driven by the war-mongering fossil fuel industry coupled with strategic U.S. military bases aimed at China. Any involvement Australia has in these global 'oil war' conflicts is a small token gesture but, a powerful show of allegiance to America and, there will always be a heavy price to pay for that".

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NEWS FLASH

By foreign affairs reporter Stephen Dziedzic
2nd December 2020

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Federal Government facing a tightrope walk on China as relations nosedive. When Zhao Lijian's inflammatory post hit Twitter on Monday morning you could hear audible gasps in Parliament House. The response was swift and angry. Within two hours, Scott Morrison was staring down the barrel of a camera in the Lodge, denouncing the Chinese Government and demanding an apology. It's an apology that will never come. Analysts and foreign policy watchers are unimpressed. They've called it a stumble, a mis-step, a blunder.

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NEWS FLASH

By Eryk Bagshaw, Anthony Galloway and Shane Wright - SMH
3rd December 2020

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The Morrison government has been accused of presiding over a complete breakdown of relationships with China. The impasse overshadowed Australia becoming one of the first countries in the world to move out of the sharpest recession in a century on Wednesday, as businesses, miners and state governments become increasingly vulnerable to economic pressure from Beijing - With simple-minded platitudes treasurer Josh Frydenberg has warned, as China and Australia enter a diplomatic stalemate.

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"One really needs to ask the big question: Why is Scott Morrison doing this? Clearly, he is not a fucking idiot if that's what you're thinking, or is he just easily manipulated, or is it about greed and self interest, or are we trapped? Clearly, to attack our largest trading partner and threaten the Australian economy there is something much bigger at play.

 

Clearly, that something bigger is what has dominated the planet in the modern era and that something is fossil fuel and associated military expenditure. Follow the dollars. Driven by America, that's where the big money is: oil, natural gas and war. With the US demanding 2% of a countries GDP, for armament, to join the US club. Unfortunately, by alienating our largest trading partner we will pay many times that amount."

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NEWS FLASH

Charlie Coë For Daily Mail Australia
6th December 2020

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China slams Australian effort to develop missile as 'potential threat'  China has hit out at Australia's plans to develop advanced hypersonic missiles with the US - labelling the strategy a 'potential threat' to the Asian superpower. The Morrison government announced on Tuesday plans to build and test the high-tech cruise missiles that can travel at five times the speed of sound and sink aircraft carriers. The missiles, designed to be fired from fighter jets, will be capable of flying the distance between Sydney and Melbourne in seven minutes. The proposal prompted fierce backlash from state-controlled Chinese newspaper The Global Times. As Russian President Vladimir Putin blames Washington for starting a new arms race.

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For Australia, that puts a whole new slant on the State of Origin and of course, in a cold war, just like any war, someone always makes a profit. The last cold war arms race destroyed Russia economically, it sent them broke. I can't see that happening against China with their economic might, so what's the point? Profit is the point and tax payers pay for it. You and me pay to develop weapons of mass destruction to feed the war machine in the fight for control of oil and natural gas energy. Something we can get from renewables, without the conflict or the wars or the death and destruction, if we can install a government that thinks that way. 

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NEWS FLASH

By International Affairs Analyst Stan Grant
6th December 2020

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As China hysteria reaches fever pitch, today we are bombarded with commentary driving fear and antagonism, hyping confrontation and talking about values as if morality has always been the basis of foreign policy. It hasn't, as explained by International Affairs Analyst Stan Grant with a common sense approach to calming the water...Read more

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NEWS FLASH

By Laura Tingle - 7:30
12th December 2020

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Chinese company proposes to set up base on Daru in the Western Province of Papua New Guinea, just a few kilometres from the Australian border. As the Australia-China relationship deteriorates, a $200m PNG 'fishery' deal raises eyebrows with the agreement set to escalate a growing sense of threat. The Belt and Road Initiative is the gargantuan infrastructure network China's President Xi Jinping launched in 2013, establishing land and sea routes, and ports, as well as economic dependencies on China, in many poorer countries. It's the Chinese equivalent of The World Bank from which China is excluded...Read more

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"Australia's new military alliance with Japan, posturing in the South China Sea with our U.S. ally and, our largest ever military spend being the reasons for this escalating trade embargo from China. In other words, we are being dragged into another geo-political conflict focussed on territory containing oil and natural gas. Donald Trump with his stupendous ego and blundering stupidity attempted to overthrow American democracy but has just been shot down by the US Supreme Court. With Trump gone, we will need to get our heads together with U.S. president-elect Joe Biden and, for the sake of Australia and all Australians, seriously re-think our governments hawkish approach to China".

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NEWS FLASH

By Helen Davidson in Taipei - The Guardian
18th December 2020

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The Pentagon has warned that US maritime forces will become more forceful in responding to acts of aggression, expansionism, and breaches of international law, citing Beijing in particular, which has been criticised for expansionist
ambitions in the South China Sea.

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A major new report signed by the heads of the US Marine Corps, Navy, and Coast Guard warned the “rules-based international order is once again under assault”. The report said China and Russia were now “determined rivals” of the US, with China presenting “the most pressing long-term strategic threat”. “China is the only rival with the combined economic and military potential to present a long term, comprehensive challenge to the US,” the report said. “It seeks to corrode international maritime governance, deny access to traditional logistical hubs, inhibit freedom of the seas, control use of key chokepoints, deter our engagement in regional disputes, and displace the United States as the preferred partner in countries around the world"...Read more

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Time to ask a very simple question

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Now that we have been talked into going to war with China, by the heads of the US Navy, and as madman and mobster Donald J Trump awards Scott Morrison the prestigious US military legion of merit for his unwavering support in this endeavour, it's probably a very good time to ask a very simple question: "Would China build a ring of islands around the South China Sea gas fields if there was no gas there?"  With that in mind: "What's driving the conflict?" Simple answer: "The same thing that is going to drive every conflict and war on the planet for the next 50 to 60 years or, until the world runs out of oil and natural gas."  

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"If we don't want two more generations of war and the ensuing catastrophic climate change there is only one way out and that's urgent 'Climate Action' to phase out fossil fuel. To do that we need a government who puts society first and we won't get that from politicians with a 'what's in it for me' mentality."

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Hanging in the balance

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Australia is now in the thick of the global conflicts for control of energy in the form of oil and natural gas. With military involvement in Afghanistan, the Middle East and now the South China Sea. Is it really worth going to war (trade or otherwise) with China over what they see as homeland security and fossil fuel on China's front door-step. Fossil fuel we are trying to phase-out to save the planet! We need to reduce our dependence on fossil fuel to remove the two-fold threat posed by the war-mongering, climate destroying, fossil fuel industry. Since China is our largest trading partner, we will not win this conflict and, with the future prosperity of a nation hanging in the balance, one needs to seriously consider who will be added to Australia's growing collateral damage list, Mr Morrison!

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"In a nut shell, when some of the most powerful on the planet are seeing red, in the eternal battle for money, power and control, and now dominance of the remaining oil and gas, that has fed them, you can understand why they don't see an even greater threat looming on the horizon."