Chinese Ambassador Tries to Give Australia a Tax Lesson

Japan's Maritime Self-Defense Force (MSDF) escort ship Kurama sails through smoke during a fleet review off Sagami Bay, Kanagawa prefecture, on Oct. 18, 2015. Thirty-six MSDF vessels and navy ships from Australia, India, France, South Korea and the United States participated in the fleet review. Toru Yamanaka/AFP via Getty Images

Commentary

It is consoling to learn that the Chinese ambassador to Australia is concerned about how we spend our taxes.

What, I wondered, could he impart to us about the expenditure of taxes by the Chinese authorities?

Perhaps we could be building dozens of coal-fired power stations, as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is doing?

Perhaps a massive expansion of our navy, as the People’s Liberation Army is undertaking.

Are we perhaps threatening military exercises around one of our neighbours, such as the Solomon Islands?

Perhaps there are things we need not bother spending taxes on, such as legal aid, as China has a 99 percent conviction rate, or pesky human rights bodies if you can ignore human rights.

And who needs trade unions?

But wait a minute, I thought. What Australian expenditure had actually worried the ambassador?

China’s ambassador to Australia, Xiao Qian, has denounced the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine plan as an “unnecessary consumption of the hardworking Australian taxpayers’ money,” according to a report in The Guardian.

Xiao said the multi-decade defence plan would consume “tremendous” amounts of money “which could be used for other purposes like infrastructure, like reducing the cost of living and giving the Australian people a better future.”

China’s Ambassador to Australia, Xiao Qian, at the National Press Club in Canberra, Australia, on Aug. 10, 2022. AAP Image/Mick Tsikas

Why was he worried about this expenditure?

Is it because the submarines will provide an added deterrence to the CCP’s aggressive behaviour towards nations that insist on the international rule of law and uninterrupted transit of international skies and waters?

Or is it because he believes Australia should deploy nuclear missiles on its nuclear-powered submarines just like China?

It is undoubtedly the former reason.

When the G-7 leaders meeting in Japan issued a statement in which they strongly opposed “any unilateral attempts to change the status quo by force”, reaffirmed “the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait”, and called “for peaceful resolution of Cross-Straits issues,” the CCP objected.

The Chinese foreign ministry summoned the Japanese ambassador over the references made in the statement following the meeting in Hiroshima.

Japan, it claimed, was colluding with other nations in smearing and attacking China.

Japan’s embassy in Beijing returned the comments, stating that it shared the concerns expressed in the statement unless the CCP changed its behaviour.

The Japanese had good reason to maintain their stance.

While the G-7 meeting was underway, a CCP coast guard boat entered Japanese territorial waters, attempting to disrupt the peaceful operations of the Japanese fishing fleet.

The Chinese vessel remained in Japanese waters until forced out by the Japanese coast guard.

These activities are not confined to aggression in Japanese waters. Chinese vessels have undertaken similar aggressive operations against the Philippines in the South China Sea.

Philippine Coast Guard Petty Officer 3 John Solatre uses the radio on board the BRP Malabrigo to send a message to suspected Chinese militia ships near the Philippine-claimed Island of Thitu, locally known as Pag-asa island, at the South China Sea on April 21, 2023. Aaron Favila/AP Photo

Not a Very Qualified Tax Instructor

While the CCP is hypersensitive to observations that call out its aggressive behaviour, it continues to comment on the affairs of other nations.

In an extremely rare event, the CCP muzzled one of the fiercest wolf warriors for the regime, refuting his comments and deleting them from social media recently.

The Chinese ambassador to France, Lu Shaye, said in an interview on French television that former Soviet Union countries “don’t have actual status in international law because there is no international agreement to materialize their sovereign status.”

Following outrage across Europe, the transcript of Lu’s comments on WeChat was deleted.

The Baltic states, in particular, concluded that China has no role as a mediator in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Asked about Lu’s comments, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said Beijing “respects the sovereignty” of all former republics of the Soviet Union, which was dissolved in 1991.

The embassy was forced to reject Lu’s remarks, saying they were just an expression of personal points of view!

Lu was the one who had said previously that ideas about independence had brainwashed Taiwanese people and that they can become patriots after being “re-educated.”

“Many in the world are asking how China will use this growing influence,” the German Foreign Minister, Annalena Baerbock, said recently. “I have to say frankly; I wonder why the Chinese position has so far not included a call upon the aggressor Russia to stop the war [in Ukraine].”

On the contrary, Xi Jinping’s Defence Minister Li Shangfu described Putin’s invasion of Ukraine as “Putin’s contribution to the promotion of world peace” during his visit to Moscow.

When called out about its behaviour, the CCP reacts with its usual blustering hostility.

I don’t think Australia will be taking advice from the ambassador about how to spend its taxes.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.