Psychological Warfare: US, Australia’s Anti-China Lobbies Team Up – Scholars
SputnikNews.com
28.04.2018
Encouraged by the American anti-China lobby, Australian scholars and politicians have stepped up their criticism of Beijing, academics told Sputnik. Calls for teaming up against China’s growing influence do not correspond with Australia’s national interests, they added.
While the Trump administration is exerting pressure on China in the ongoing tariff war, an anti-Beijing lobby in Australia has seemingly followed suit.
On April 26, Australian academic Clive Hamilton, the author of “Silent Invasion: China’s Influence in Australia,” which was rejected by the publisher Allen & Unwin over fears of reprisals from Beijing, told a US congressional committee chaired by Senator Marco Rubio, that Beijing is waging “psychological warfare” against Australia.
“Last week the People Liberation Army’s (PLA) Navy challenged three Australian warships sailing through the South China Sea, simply for being there. It has scaled up its threats of economic harm unless Australia changes its ‘anti-China’ path. This psychological warfare is only stage one, with real punishment to follow if needed,” Hamilton claimed, as quoted by The Guardian.
Speaking to Sputnik China, Alexander Larin, a leading researcher at the Institute of Far Eastern Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, underscored that Australia maintains close economic ties with China and is actively trading with it, while Chinese investments in the country are growing annually.
“These [developments cause] fears similar to those that exist in the US,” he explained. “Some of China’s opponents call for teaming up to stop China and prevent the transformation of the world into a ‘Pax Sinica.’ The situation with Clive Hamilton is one of the steps in this direction. Such sentiments are strong both in the United States and in Australia, so it is hardly surprising that two anti-Chinese lobbies have united.”
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