Cap.(retd) David L.O. HAYWARD^

A few days ago, I had an opportunity to spontaneously interview a middle-aged Chinese lady. She has been resident in Australia for 43-years. Considers herself to be a true-blue Ozzie. Her mother was Chinese, her father Ukrainian. Her parents wanted to get out of China. This was not possible until the end of the Maoism era. [Parris H. Chang]. So the family quickly migrated to Australia.

Today, forever patriotic to Australia, this lady earnestly hopes prosperity and peace prevails in the Indo-Pacific Region. A sobering thought.

At the 2021 census, 1,390,637 Australian residents identified themselves as having Chinese ancestry, accounting for 5.5% of the total population. Another 50,000 students are due to arrive at Australian universities. [Padraig Collins, Daily Mail, 31 January, 2023].

Among this diaspora, there are those demonstrating loyal allegiance to China and in some instances reporting back to the United Front Work Department (CCP) in Australian regional capitals. Akin to a fifth column.

We have been at war with China since October 1949, since the Communist Party first established the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in the French Concession Quarter in Shanghai (Mai Zedong). The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), founded in 1921 in Shanghai, originally existed as a study group working within the confines of the First United Front with the Nationalist Party.

In reality, the perceived war goes back further – to as early as the 1840s when colonialism was first initiated on mainland China. Do you remember the gunboat incident on the Yangtze River in 1937? Colonialism in China, which initially started in only a few treaty port areas during the 1840s, gradually expanded over time and continued for more than a century, finally to end in 1945 after Japan was defeated in World War II.

Colonialism has come back to bite us. No small wonder. We deserve what we are now receiving. China will never forgive us for the “100 years of humiliation”. “Century of humiliation” or “hundred years of national humiliation” (simplified Chinese: 百年国耻); is a term used in China to describe the period of intervention and subjugation of the Qing dynasty and the Republic of China by Western powers and Japan from 1839 to 1949.

I’m not talking about kinetic warfare in its purest form. I’m exposing a different kind of war. Geopolitical, logistical and economic. A clash of two different political ideologies. Differing economies. A wide dichotomy between East and West. Essentially political warfare is paramount. [Visual Aid].

The West has failed to recognize the acute subtlety, subterfuge and sophistication inherent in this all conquering onslaught of a new type of PRC warfare. Ladies and gentlemen, I hate to say this, but we have been fooled and seriously taken in by Chinese waishi foreign policy. And by many other techniques: Tianxia Trope, Three Warfare’s, “Cabbage” strategies, “Salami Slicing”, maritime grey-zone operations, hybrid warfare and the Netizen 50-Cent Army. [You can Google these for further explanation]. The latter is a citizen’s Army on mainland China made up of Internet Users who are paid to post fake information, misinformation and propaganda as blogs to the Internet. An informal Troll Factory alleged to comprise millions of members. The West has no equivalent.

Time does not allow me to expand on these techniques.

It is only in comparatively recent years the ODNI, MI16, Mossad, ASIS, Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (DGSE), Agenzia Informazioni e Sicurezza Esterna (AISE), Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) and many other western intelligence agencies have realised their mistake in under assessing the PRC. [Explain ODNI].

Today, an ‘eureka’ awakening (Archimedes) has occurred. Almost all our intelligence agencies in the West now know the full encompass of the PRC’s true intentions. World hegemony at any price. The development of a new Chinese Imperial Empire greater than those ever seen on our planet since early civilisation.

Xi Jinping is largely the architect of this new manifestation.

Why?

The answer is to be found in the Secret Directive Number 9, more properly the Communiqué on the Current State of the Ideological Sphere (关于当前意识形态领域情况的通报), widely circulated within the CCP in 2013 by the General Office of the CCP. [Wikipedia].

Succinctly put, the Communique refutes all the salient features within western style democracy. It warns of seven dangerous Western values, allegedly including individual rights, media freedom and judicial independence. Within China, teaching on any of the seven topics is forbidden. There is an emphasis on controlling and preventing communication using the internet of ideas subversive to one party rule. The document was issued in the context of planned economic reforms and increased calls for political reform. [Wikipedia].

Xi Jinping’s Secret Directive is the very antithesis of our comfortable way of living in the West. Its true purpose is to invoke an ardent form of nationalism among Chinese citizens worldwide. To ignore democracy and more importantly the rules-based international order: the rules that protect sovereignty, preserve peace and curb excessive use of power, and enable international trade and investment.

WHY HAVE WE BEEN TAKEN IN SO NAIVELY?

To answer this, let me return to waishi foreign policy. It is not a loose term. It has been around since the late 1970s. Simply put the policy “describes the spectrum of the Chinese government’s attempt to create policies to influence and at times control foreigners, foreign culture and technology within and beyond China (duiwai zhengce) (Anne-Marie Brady).

Waishi was evident at the Beijing Olympics. It convinced many of us that China is a benign country and is to be trusted. How could we be so wrong? Foreign investment in China increased dramatically. Junket trips were hastily taken up by leading Australians: elite academics, politicians, well known business people and high ranking military officers. This is further expounded by Clive Hamilton in his book Silent Invasion. [Visual Aid].

The trouble is we have wanted China to be like us. Nixon is partly to blame. To acquire democratic values and move closer to our ideological ideas. For a while, this seemed possible. But we have suffered from cognitive bias and consequently deluded ourselves.

DO I THINK WE WILL ENGAGE IN KINETIC WARFARE WITH THE PRC, NORTH KOREA INCLUDED, ANYTIME SOON?

You ‘betcha’. Increasingly, among our politicians, elite academics, prominent business people, journalists, think tanks, and high ranking military officers; a new groundswell of opinion is materializing. Perhaps it’s far too late?

For example, the late NSW Senator Jim Molan, AO, in his remarkable book Danger on Our Doorstep blatantly asserts we will be at war with the PRC in three to five year’s time. [Visual Aid].

I firmly believe we will be at kinetic war with China anytime soon. In truth, we have been so for many decades; by means of the PRCs clandestine, seductive, coercive and opaque political strategies.

Time being limited; I’ve kept my comments to a minimum. But I am happy to answer your questions. Or if you email me, I’ll send you some of my published defense research papers. You can even join our China Research Team.