Communists and Australia in the Asian Century

"Chinese top brass bags US influence in region", is a good article to read if you can get it online or read the print edition of today's The Australian.

The Chinese general in-question warns us about the U.S. but also Japan's past. He warns us about the dangers of a fascist Japan and how they bombed Darwin.

The general is right to warn us about totalitarianism in the Pacific Rim. However he doesn't mention the dangers of communism. A murderous Mao is not mentioned.

At all.

Something also not mentioned much in the lofty Neville Chamberlain -like goals in Australia's much hyped "Australia in the Asian century white paper".

Although to be fair to Mr. Chamberlain, I don't think he would have put his name to such a shoddy piece of unreality as Australia's new policy white paper.

The title for the above mentioned article in The Australian should be amended to read, "Communist Chinese top brass bags US influence in region".

Lots of cart-before-the-horse stuff in the blizzard of wishful thinking in the overly optimistic white paper.

I would suggest, (as I have in the past) that for Australia to be a leader in Pacific Rim policy, that it must champion free speech above all; without reservation.

Or, prepare to suffer a very bad fate in this century.

George Orwell and all that.

Free speech folks

In regard to foreign policy, I don't think Romney is the sharpest tool in the bag. Neither is the current U.S. President.

However, absent from this discussion are:

1. The imporantance of free speech above all.
2. And, a bulling Chinese communist leadership which is affecting Pacific rim security.

I did wonder about this:

And of course we should be encouraging the positive forces unleashed by the Arab Spring.

What "positive" forces? Those that make government sponsored religious extremism even more efficient in the finest traditions of fascism?

If an uprising is unwilling to produce a country that can exercise free speech above all else, the effort is not worth backing by the U.S.

At any price.

Even if the current U.S. Secretary of State has little concept of the notion.