Opinion | Scott Morrison's Viagra

By Philip Yeung, A university teacher

PKY480@gmail.com

Insecure nations which seek alliances are like impotent men who seek relief with Viagra. By joining three US alliances against China, Morrison has become a habitual Viagra user to puff up his manhood. He is counting on nuclear submarines, all nine phallic symbols, to manage his erectile dysfunction.

There is only a thin line between insecurity and insanity.

Under Morrison, Australia is now a member of Five Eyes, the Quad (including India, Japan), and now AUKUS, dubbed the Asian NATO, all targeting a rising China.

How many alliances does Australia need? Don't you get alliance fatigue?

Since when has China become Australia's deadly enemy? Who first started this quarrel? It's not China.

While European countries duck for cover, Australia is ducking under the American umbrella, partnering the world’s biggest mischief-maker. War fears now hover over the Pacific.

Only one issue now dominates world politics: How to encircle China, and how China breaks out of that encirclement. This is a made-in-America madness.

Australia has three daggers thrusting at China's heart. When China reacts in anger, Morrison cries cry foul, accusing it of resorting to "economic coercion", vowing that Australia will not trade its values for commerce.

Mr. Morrison, you have got it backwards. You have poked your finger in China's eyes at least three times, unprovoked. Do you honestly expect China to "turn the other cheek"? In its shoes, would Australia react any differently?

Morrison appears untroubled by brains. He is digging his country deeper into a hole. Yes, America was Australia's wartime ally. But so much water has passed under the bridge. The America of today is not the America of old. During World War II, America was indeed the champion of freedom. Even China was its wartime ally.

Post-war, America, intoxicated by its power, went around the world picking fights, rampaging through the killing fields, claiming millions of civilian lives, from Korea, Vietnam, Iraq to Afghanistan. Each time, it retreated with a bloodied nose. More than once, Australia was dragged into messy conflicts that run counter to its national interests.

This time, the adversary is not a third-rate country. It happens to carry a big nuclear stick. Nothing good can come of this.

Parroting America, Australia accuses China of violating international norms. What norms?  It is America that flouted UN rules in illegally invading Iraq, and repeatedly disrupting the rule-based global order.

Today's China has reinvented itself from utter poverty. It is a hybrid creature, part socialist, part corporatist, part Confucianist and, unlike America, resolutely non-interventionist. It is a miracle-making and rule-abiding member of the world family.

Australia accuses China of militarizing the South China Sea islands. But this was brought on by America's relentless encirclement of China which depends on this vital sea route through which one-third of world trade flows. Leaving it unprotected is economic suicide.

The growing tensions over Taiwan flows from the same encirclement fears.

As for Hong Kong, it's simply a case of failed decolonization. It remains tied to the British umbilical cord, with its civil servants ridiculously sending their children to the UK for education at public expense.  America exploited this abnormality by funding and fomenting a year-long campaign of violence. Hong Kong became a hot-bed of sedition and rebellion, leaving China no choice but to quell the destructive unrest, as America did in its own Capitol riots. For this, China was vilified but America was not. That’s double-standards for you.

What about Xinjiang? Through re-education and job-training, China handled Islamic terrorist attacks more humanely than America's Guantanamo. "Genocide" is an emotive word calculated to smear China. It is a strange "genocide" where Muslim minorities enjoy preferential treatment in education and employment, plus exemption from its draconian one-child policy.

Australians should question the moral legitimacy of this flurry of alliances. They are tools that serve American interests. Australia is just an American appendage, betrayable like France, when it has outlived its usefulness.

Morrison's fatal mistake is in believing that he is taking on only the communist party when he is in fact taking on 1.4 billion Chinese who are at one with their government. China doesn't forget its history of humiliation by foreign powers. It won't allow history to repeat itself.

Paul Keating, former prime minister of Australia, calls Morrison's policy a  "fawning compulsion to please America." He is so cowed by America that he has lost the ability to say no.

His alliances may look good from Canberra. But it looks terrible in Asian capitals. Morrison has the courage of a coward. Far from standing up for his values, he is following America moth-like into his own fiery end.  He is making fools of all Australians!

This is red-neck America's fight. Why not try fence-sitting, like New Zealand does, and reap the benefit of neutrality? If you make China the enemy, it will become your worst enemy.

Mr. Morrison, you are playing politics with the lives and livelihood of Australians.

You may need your Viagra, but not your country.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.