Catallaxy Files

China have a number of foreign policy issues confronting them not least of which is the emerging cold war between China and the United States. Meanwhile, on China’s southwest border in the Himalayas, the world’s two most-populous countries are keen to portray themselves as leading powers in the 21st century.

For sixty years the Chinese and Indian militaries have periodically clashed over the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the Himalayas but in May 2020, Chinese and Indian troops engaged in aggressive skirmishes following Chinese incursions. The fighting was largely contained to fists, clubs and throwing rocks with injuries totalling about 100 across both sides.

Unsurprisingly, both India and China reinforced their positions and a vicious hand-to-hand confrontation occurred on 15/16 June 2020. India subsequently reporting 20 deaths of Officers and men. China has not confirmed their casualties but many reports suggest a number that broadly matches the Indian figure.

Sporadic engagements have followed since including the alleged firing of shots by India (which they deny) to the use of a ‘microwave’ weapon used by China that sends a high-frequency blast through Indian soldiers, forcing them back from two strategic hilltops.

To keep the pressure up, reports of Chinese cyber-attacks on Indian infrastructure increased from July 2020. The Indians suspect that a severe electricity blackout in Mumbai in October 2020 was caused by a malware attack and at least 12 Indian government organisations, mainly power utilities, were reported to have been attacked by February 2021.

For the time being however, things have settled with China and India having recently agreed to pull back troops along the disputed Himalayan border. A demilitarised zone will be created after the troops and artillery withdraw and the area will not be patrolled by either although soldiers from both sides will still be in rifle range of each other.

Many of the meetings to resolve the dispute between the Chinese and Indians occurred in Moscow as Russia, an ally to both nations, doesn’t want to be placed in an uncomfortable position if the fighting escalates. Despite this latest truce, the relationship between India and China is very fragile and further confrontations are a distinct possibility.

The confrontations prompted the resurgence of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) comprising the United States, India, Japan, and Australia due to mounting alarm about the rise of China and the security threat it poses to the international order and the Indo-Pacific in particular.

For clarity, the Quad is not a mutual assistance military treaty like NATO. Instead, it establishes a basis for regular defence co-operation through naval exercises and the sharing of intelligence and military logistics. But, the alliance also focuses on a rules-based order and an open and inclusive Indo-Pacific including trade, technology and global supply chains.

In time, membership of the Quad may see the inclusion of Canada, France, New Zealand and potentially the United Kingdom and Germany into a broader alliance that has an enhanced military raison d’etre in the Indo-Pacific region. Proponents of a more militaristic Quad sometimes refer to it as an ‘Asian NATO” and point to the inclusion of South Korea, Vietnam and the Philippines who have expressed an interest. It is difficult to imagine all the SE Asian nations coming together to form a military alliance to buttress China but mutual fear and/or distrust of the CCP may make for strange bed-fellows.

For now, the Quad does not represent a containment of China’s actions but it is clear that many nations are sufficiently alarmed at China’s activities and bully-boy approach. With their border quarrel with India to the southwest, a simmering cold war with the US, Taiwan issues, containment of Hong Kong democracy, South and East China Sea disputes and a potentially enhanced Indo-Pacific military bloc under the Quad, China have a raft of foreign policy issues. If that wasn’t enough, their potential entanglement with the Taliban in Afghanistan also carries significant risks.

Wolf warrior diplomacy, trade hostility, cyber-attacks and other aggressions do not appear to be yielding the results President Xi anticipated.

In 1689 parliamentary privilege under the Bill of Rights was established so kings couldn’t accuse parliamentarians of treason and execute them when they refused to raise taxes for royals – it was not so Blue Mountains MP Trish Doyle could call a man a rapist.
It was established centuries before cameras, television and social media as legal status protection for lawmakers to discuss laws.

Not as it was used on this occasion as a media prop for a political opponent to destroy the integrity of an innocent person.

It was not to throw around criminal accusations that would otherwise have people in jail.
Not naming Upper Hunter MP Michael Johnsen on the floor for the rape accusation that he has since been cleared of is not a defence.

Did she allow police time to investigate the allegation? No.

When her allegation was proved incorrect, did she correct the record? No. Is the privileges committee investigating it? No. Did the House discipline her in any way? No.

If you agree then senator David Leyonhjelm was out of line to tell Sarah Hanson-Young in the parliament to “stop shagging men”, then, to be consistent, you would agree Ms Doyle needs to apologise and resign.

Ms Doyle didn’t use privilege for its intended purpose –— discussing a matter of law for the day. She was getting a media headline in cahoots with the ABC. That same principle would apply to the Speaker in the chair who failed to act, whose only responsibility was to ensure that privilege is not debased.

Liberal MP Felicity Wilson should resign from her Speaker’s duties for failing to rule it out of order.

The role of the Speaker is to treat parliament as the institution of the people, not the plaything of the parliamentarians.

Known as the “coward’s castle”, privilege enables things to be said without being sued; however, if the national Parliamentary Privilege Act is as thin as the Federal Court found in Leyonhjelm v Hanson-Young, then it comes back to the adopted Bill of Rights 1689.
When the former senator argued last month the court had no justification for finding he had defamed Senator Hanson-Young for repeating things he said in the parliament, he lost his appeal.

MPs cannot accuse each other of improper motives.

One of the most common insults to pull them up on is calling their opponent a liar. Rape, being a criminal offence, is a big one with devastating consequences for the accused.

An imputation of improper motive doesn’t have to be levelled at a named individual to be out of order.

Ms Doyle said: “This man who raped her is a government member of this chamber.”
That is a statement, not an allegation, in an orchestrated campaign and an abuse of the parliament to do it.

Inside the chamber, displaying signs is not permitted, taking photos is not permitted, but calling someone a rapist in the NSW parliament so far is.

Unlike other Australian parliaments, the NSW parliament has never passed legislation conferring the powers, privileges and immunities of the House of Commons.

Anyone who has been sued for what they have said in the House with such an act argues privilege isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. The precedent of Mr Leyonhjelm, sued for repeating what he said under parliamentary privilege, and Mr Johnsen, blown out of office on claims uttered under privilege found to have no validity, should terrify all parliamentarians and the public. What Ms Doyle said about Mr Johnsen she could have said about you. You must have a robust debate in the parliament but the movement meant to empower victims has a real possibility of sorting grudges. Me Too has become Screw You. Now we have real victims who fear telling their stories because they will be weaponised for political gain from a faux-earnest face. Parliamentary privilege does not protect people who provide information to MPs.

The sex worker who accused Mr Johnsen of rape could now in theory be open to legal recourse. Ms Doyle used this to blow Mr Johnsen out of a job, triggering the Upper Hunter by-election, which ended up handing the Nationals a bigger margin. Ultimately, she succeeded in doing what the NSW Labor Right couldn’t – blowing Jodi McKay out of leadership and herself out of a shadow ministry. Some 400 years later, this exceptional right has come far in time and purpose from its design. Next time you hear a salacious slur in the chambers, think of the motive. Privilege was supposed to be for protection, not assassination.

Relations between two of the world’s superpowers have fallen to their lowest level in decades.

The United States has criticised China for the treatment of the Uyghurs; lobbied allies to ban various Chinese firm considered a security risk; imposed visa restrictions on Chinese officials as a consequence of the crackdown on Hong Kong democracy; and placed limits on work visas for Chinese journalists.

For their part, China has branded U.S. criticism of its Uyghur policy as “baseless” whilst telling Washington to mind their own business about Hong Kong. Beijing has cracked down on journalists from many nations (including Australia) and threatened to put American companies on a list of proscribed foreign entities. Separately, Australian goods have been banned or severely restricted into China and there is little doubt that the underlying reason is Australia’s relationship with the US.

The CCP thinks Washington is bent on containing China to prolong the declining power of the United States whilst denying China its rightful place in the global order. Washington increasingly believes the CCP is threatening US security interests, undermining its prosperity, interfering in its democracy, and challenging its values. One of the few things that unites a divided and partisan America is anti-China sentiment.

Previously, the US-China relationship was overseen by the need to work together on a range of global economic, financial, and geopolitical issues that mandated cooperation. But as China has replaced Russia as the main threat, these co-operative inclinations have almost entirely disappeared and are now complicated by recriminations over the coronavirus pandemic.

Former President Barack Obama habitually underplayed the power of the United States and seemed to accept the myth that China’s ascendancy was pre-ordained. Conversely, President Donald Trump seized the psychological high ground by dominating the media and forcing China onto the defensive. Trump demonstrated that no other country could match the economic, financial, and military power of the US. President Joe Biden was initially aimless – vacillating between his predecessors although he now seems to have grasped the enormity of the situation and the potential threat.

The mounting US-China differences over trade and technology are primarily responsible for the spike in hostilities and while important in themselves, those differences are characteristic of a deeper geo-political divide that lights the cold war fuse.

First, US-China rivalry is between the world’s two most powerful states, one a liberal democracy and the other communist. Second, it is a system-wide contest for supremacy. Third, it is about values as well as power. Fourth, from China’s perspective, they are committed to a multi-decade struggle for global ascendancy. Fifth, both sides would prefer any fight to occur by proxy but neither will step back from a direct confrontation if necessary.

There is, of course, a marked difference between the emerging cold war and the former strategic competition between the US and the USSR. At its best, the GDP of the Soviet Union was only 40 percent of that of the United States’ with little trade between the protagonists. But China’s GDP is already about 65 percent of the US and in stark contrast to the USSR, any geo-strategic contest with China includes trade, investment and technology.

The geographic centre of the new cold war is the Indo-Pacific and as the US and China are both Pacific powers, their rivalry will be felt most intensely in the region where their interests collide and there are several potential triggers for military confrontation such as Taiwan, South (and East) China Sea and Hong Kong.

Multiple Asia-Pacific nations have competing claims on areas within the South and East China Seas, including Japan whose historical enmity towards China is well documented.
Will the cold war become a hot war? The historical record suggests that although a hot war is not inevitable, it is a possibility. Tensions between rising and incumbent powers often precede military conflict or an extended period of confrontation and instability. And if the shooting starts, will it be a limited engagement or something much more destructive?

For the time being we will watch the festering rivalry between the United States and China punctuated by proxy conflicts, especially in cyberspace. Nations in the Asia Pacific will continue to suffer collateral damage and in that sense Australia is a minor victim in a much larger stoush.