‘WDWYFP’, the Signal China Really Deserves

In an article in Tuesday’s Australian, Greg Sheridan rightly calls out the arrogance of Chinese officials in seeking to block Sky News reporter Cheng Lei at the joint Li Qiang /Pekingese Albanese (thanks Johannes Leak!) press conference and, more importantly, Anthony Albanese’s typically pathetic response – ‘Nobody told me about it’.

But Sheridan missed a far more telling incident.  One that seems to have flown under the radar.  Sheridan gives the Albanese government some credit for his handling of China, including “it will call out Chinese military misbehaviour if there’s absolutely no alternative.”

Really?  Categorizing blatant and dangerous provocation as ‘acting unprofessionally’, which is as far as Albanese has been prepared to go, does not come within a bull’s roar of calling out misbehaviour.

In a recent article, Peter Jennings noted how often, in relation to China, PM Albanese resorts to the refrain ‘we co-operate with China where we can, disagree where we must and engage in our national interest’. And sure enough, he trotted that line out again yesterday.

Of course, with Albanese, the ‘disagree where we must’ always takes place behind closed doors. That is so he can be given riding instructions by his Chinese puppetmasters. Hence, in an oblique reference to recent incidents that have put Australian servicemen at risk, yesterday Albanese told us:

one of the very practical measures that we spoke about was improving military to military communications so as to avoid incidents.

In other words, we might have been just as much at fault when a Chinese fighter dropped chaff in the path of a RAN helicopter, operating in international waters, as China was.   The Chinese reactions to Albo ‘calling out misbehaviour’ has been a) to deny it did anything at all or b) to blame Australian servicemen.    At least Albo hasn’t gone as far as that.  Just conceded that the unprofessionalism might have been a two-way street.

How would this improved military to military communication play out, I wonder?  Here’s a possible scenario:

Panda One to unidentified client state aircraft:  Withdraw immediately from PRC South China Sea or face the consequences.

Kangaroo One: Roger out.

What a sellout.   As a former professional infantry officer and Vietnam veteran, that mightily offends me.  More importantly, how will it be received by our currently serving veterans, in particular those who were directly affected?  With disgust, I imagine.  Should help recruiting and retention no end.

If we ‘must disagree’, then we must disagree in public.

I have a coded diplomatic message for China.  It’s one Albo should have sent.  WDWYFP.  Their cryptographers should have no trouble deciphering it.