Western media recently publicised the 21 instructions for Olympic reporting issued to their Chinese counterparts by the Beijing propaganda bureau.
Point 15 included an exhortation to only adopt official Xinhua stories with regard to China’s “co-operation” with rogue states such as Zimbabwe, Iran, Paraguay and Australia. Yes, that’s right our wonderful wide brown land of liberty was included right next to some of the world’s worst tyrannies.
Now this fact caused the odd raised eyebrow among some of the more perceptive of our citizens, but it was quickly forgotten amidst the speculation as to whether Grant Hackett could win his third consecutive 1500-metre gold.
Being more of a cricket and football man myself, though, I continued to reflect on why the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) would not want anyone looking too closely at “China-Aussie co-operation”. Taken in isolation this might not be something to bother much about but when considered in the light of other incidents that have taken place over the last twelve months, a somewhat more sinister picture begins to emerge.
Hands up all those who read Philip Dorling’s interesting piece in the Canberra Times dated 11 July exposing the fact that the Sydney Chinese Consulate, in the run-up to the last Federal election, paid an ALP staffer to divulge information on NSW ALP parliamentarians.
The Chinese vice-consul in question also made it very clear that it would be very much to his liking if the ALP were to win that election and Kevin Rudd was to become the new Prime Minister.
Australian Government Ready to Please
It is a general rule that authoritarian regimes dislike strong leaders from other countries and much prefer someone who they think they can bend to their will. Mr. Rudd might think his Mandarin impresses the CCP bosses and that they consider him a special friend. The reality may be that they see him as a gullible soft puppet whose strings they can tweak at will to make him do exactly what they want.
One of the things the puppet masters in Beijing certainly wanted was for the Australian Government to quash a number of lawsuits that had been brought by Chinese Australian Falun Gong practitioners against Chinese officials for torture and crimes against humanity.
Let us be clear that the Foreign States Immunities Act of 1985 does indeed require the government to claim immunity from prosecution for members of sitting governments of other countries.
However, it soon became evident that the new Labour government intended to pursue this course of action with much more enthusiasm than their predecessors. They have even sought to overturn a favourable default judgement that had previously been awarded against Chinese official Bo Xilai by the Supreme Court of New South Wales, to a Falun Gong practitioner who had been very severely tortured.
In another case they are trying to maintain that a provincial official accused of overseeing torture is a member of the sitting government of the country and therefore immune from prosecution simply because he is a member of the Chinese Communist Party. This is not a position recognised internationally, and our government really seems to be bending over backwards to help these unscrupulous people escape justice.
No Meetings Granted
The Secretary of the Falun Dafa Association of Victoria Inc., Dr. Michael Pearson-Smith, informed the Epoch Times that in February this year he wrote letters on behalf of the Presidents of the three Australian Falun Dafa Associations to both Kevin Rudd and Foreign Minister Stephen Smith asking for a meeting to discuss the aforementioned lawsuit interventions and other matters relating to the persecution of Falun Dafa (Falun Gong).
Dr. Pearson-Smith laments that: “we were not granted a meeting; in fact they never even had the courtesy to reply. After a few weeks I phoned the Prime Minister’s office and was told the matter would be taken in hand, but months later I have still never received so much as a standard letter in reply.”
Dr. Pearson-Smith went on to relate the story of how his association in Melbourne received a preliminary invitation to participate in a forum organised by the ALP as part of the process of formulating policies for the Asia Pacific region. Pearson-Smith states that:
“…when the organiser mentioned our participation to the rest of his committee a member who he described as being from Mainland China objected very strongly. The organiser, who was clearly embarrassed, hastened to add that another member backed this person and that it had been decided that we would no longer be invited to participate”.
He added that: “I was very saddened that a party that I always believed stood up for justice and a fair go is apparently formulating policy in accordance with the requirements of an authoritarian regime.”
Beijing Olympics with Aussie’s Help
Yet that’s not all, a company known as Government Relations Australia (GRA) was deeply involved in assisting the Chinese Communist Party’s bid to host the Olympics from day one. In fact it is safe to say that the bid would not have been successful without the Australians’ help.
Moreover, the company turns out to have strong ALP connections including the wife of the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff David Epstein. No prizes for guessing where Mr. Epstein worked before taking up his current position. Correct – he was with Government Relations Australia. Interestingly, Mr. Haitao Wen, who runs GRA’s Beijing office, is a former CCP foreign ministry official.
An article by Richard Baker in the 1st August edition of The Age posed the question as to whether GRA knew full well that the Chinese Communist Party never had the slightest intention of abiding by the promises made to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on media freedom and human rights.
Mr. Baker predictably did not get an answer to his question. Most likely Australian IOC representative Kevin Gosper would like to ask GRA the same question since he, in particular, has been made to look foolish and naïve during this Olympic fiasco.
Ms Jan Becker is an Olympian (Tokyo ’64) who also happens to be a Falun Gong practitioner. Following the award of the Olympics to Beijing she sought assurances on several occasions from Australian IOC officials that there would be no problem with her, or any other person who practises Falun Gong, attending these Games.
She was told that it would all be sorted out before the Games and there would be no problem. But as we all now know, not a single Falun Gong practitioner was ever going to be allowed within a thousand miles of the Olympics. Athletes are allowed to take a Bible or the Koran into the Olympic village for personal use, but a copy of the main text of Falun Gong Zhuan Falun is strictly prohibited.
As each day goes by the Beijing Olympics is being increasingly exposed as the CCP propaganda exercise that it has always been from the very start when the Australian managed bid was submitted. Australian athletes may return home covered in glory – and all power to them – but some other Australians should be taking a long hard look at themselves.
