Aussie mining tycoon turned politician Clive Palmer has fuelled tensions with China once again after going on a stinging verbal attack against Australia’s biggest trading partner on national television.
Palmer, whose privately owned firm Mineralogy is in the middle of a long-running royalties dispute with Chinese state-owned conglomerate Citic Pacific, described the Asian nation’s government as “mongrels” who shoot their own people.
On Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Q&A program on Monday night, the leader of the Palmer United party was asked about allegations he received more than $12 million from Citic, through his company, to his fund his election campaign.
Palmer energetically denied the accusation and repeated his claim that certain media organizations are just trying to discredit him.
He also accused the “communist Chinese government” of trying to take over Australia’s ports to steal the nation’s natural resources.
“I don’t mind standing up against the Chinese bastards and stopping them from doing it,” he said on ABC’s Q&A program.
The Chinese embassy in Australia responded to the lengthy attack by labelling Palmer’s comments as “absurd,” “irresponsible,” and “full of ignorance and prejudice,” ABC reports.
This morning the Queensland MP apologized through its Twitter account:
But concern has arisen over the potential economic and diplomatic fallout from Palmer’s verbal attacks.
A national executive statement by the Australian Industry group condemned the comments as “a new low in the political debate”.
“The statements, by a prominent member of the Australian parliament about our major trading partner, risk significant damage to Australia’s standing as a natural destination for foreign investment and have the potential to materially damage our reputation as a desirable trading partner,” said a statement from the group’s chief executive, Innes Willox.
China is Australia’s largest trading partner, with two-way trade hitting nearly $151 billion in 2013.
Watch Palmer’s rant:
9 Comments
Mac McDonald
Many will write their own press and start believing their own press while absent of the reality of the force of totalitaian systems. You must understand the ways and the history of the iron triangle of govt corporations and military especially those of totalitarian governments. The Chinese are very fine people. Many of the elite Chinese and Chinese citizens are very respectable people. Yes state backed companies will try to own and control another nations assets. Do not suffer The Perils of Pollyanna.
Mac McDonald
Totalitarian systems can bypass the barriers of processes for approval. Totalitarian arms of leadership can grand slam their targeted objective with a mighty force. First the state backed with a soft sell then a goon squad to push the hard sell. Be careful of people. Watch People.
velocitybox
I am a Chinese working as a China analyst at a think tank. It is becoming more and more apparent to many people, that the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) knows it is on its last straw of survival.
The party is facing severe and increasing systematic stress on all fronts:
1. Increasing external oppositions from all other countries in the world including all of China’s neighbours. They are forming more and more alliances and becoming more outspoken with rising strengths against China, in addition to increasing anti-China sentiment from people in all other countries.
2. Increasing internal severe and massive violent social unrest and anti-CCP mutiny from people of all Chinese living places e.g. mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Xinjiang, Tibet, Macau etc. To beat down internal dissent, the CCP every year is forced to spend even more money than on its massive military budget. This is continuously worsened by the free flow of information, with Chinese people knowing more and more from travelling abroad and learning about truths from jumping beyond the “Great Fire Wall” on the internet.
3. Fierce unstoppable purges and mutually-destructive infighting among different factions within the party, who are imprisoning and killing each other every day. This power grab goes on under the thin guise of “anti-corruption drive” when everyone knows all officials in china are corrupted.
4. Its own economy never able to develop to higher level beyond mass skill-less manufacturing, due to complete absence of law and common morals. High technology and innovations and scientific development all require citizens working together long term in a system they trust, with things like rule of law, no restrictions on speech and expression, copyrights, patents, common morals when collaborating and trading with each other etc. These qualities are all destroyed in modern China by the CCP. When was the last time you heard an announcement of technology development or innovations or scientific breakthrough coming from a Chinese organization or company or university? You haven’t because there ain’t any. The only way modern China gets these things is from stealing and spying from all other countries, but that has become much more difficult since the whole world has caught on to their act.
5. China’s mass skill-less manufacturing itself is going away to other countries due to increasing costs and openly hostile and unfair business environment full of frauds and sanctioned protectionism and government robberies. It is further worsened by the rise of robotic automatic manufacturing and 3D printing. This situation is a death knock to the “growth-based legitimacy” of the CCP, which is the only thing CCP can rely on for continuing ruling power. For sure Chinese people tolerate the CCP when the economy seemingly explodes, but when one day it crashes and the country’s hopeless bad shape hit them in the face the people’s “support” for the CCP will turn on a dime.
Since six months ago, all the major economic indicators for China have gone on a nose dive – including manufacturing orders, export volume, commercial investments, corporate credits, foreign capital inflow, domestic consumptions, real estate prices, HSBC Service PMI, survey of business sentiments etc. The CCP is on its last resort of printing literally trillions of worthless renminbi to dump into the economy, causing way more long-term harm than short-term help, and when that is over there is nothing else the CCP can do to prop up the failing economy.
6. Its many suppressed fatal problems have all grown too big to be contained all breaking out at the same time e.g.
– severe carcinogenic poisonous pollution everywhere in air and water and soil and their own food etc
, with the WHO issuing warnings on Chinese population having the fastest cancer growth rate in the whole world
– skyrocketing unrepayable bad debts of all kinds everywhere, its true scope unknown because all data from China are faked
– biggest housing bubble in human history, in addition to innumerous crumbling ghost cities and shoddily-built infrastructure that cannot and will not be used
– rapidly aging and gender-lopsided demographics (from one child policy, culture of “leftover women”, and many Chinese families killing their own daughters so as to chase boys)
– world’s no.1 wealth inequality, with a Gini coefficient rivaling 18th century France just before the French revolution
– complete absence of soft power / cultural influence / social attraction, one result of which is minimal and sharply dwindling number of foreign professionals and tourists and students going to China
– all Chinese chasing foreign-brand goods and services while ditching low-quality poisonous Chinese-brands, dashing CCP’s hope to build domestic consumption economy
– corruptions and fraud throughout the whole rotten core of a system
– desperate mass exodus in all levels of Chinese society to escape the country using emigration or studying abroad or marriage to foreigners or plain old human smuggling, resulting in all able Chinese leaving taking huge amounts of talents and money out of the country
– the law of large numbers and the “middle-income trap” all work against the “growth-based legitimacy” CCP desperately needs for its survival
Most importantly, the CCP knows that if 1.4 billion Chinese learn about basic human qualities such as morals, truth, fairness, human rights, rule of law, freedom, universal values etc the CCP will be toppled very quickly. Therefore its brainwashing education and propaganda machine ensure a complete lack of morals and regard for laws in all Chinese. This results in failure in all basic aspects of human interactions with every modern Chinese, whether it is business trading / personal dealings / technology development / creating innovations / human communications / scientific research / artistic expressions / teamwork collaborations / academic exchange etc.
Some people say China has economically developed a lot in past 30 years, but the truth is this “development” is actually debt borrowing against the future. After the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre of its own students, in order to stay in power and rob from the country, the CCP has made China a place with no law, no morals, no basis for future scientific or economic or social development, no other assets apart from money, no spiritual support apart from money, no trust or cooperation among Chinese, no trust or goodwill from foreigners, no other country as friends, all resources sold away cheaply, entire environment and air and water and soil and food fatally polluted, no creativity or personal development for Chinese young people, a populus not allowed to know the truths and not allowed to say the truths.
The end result is that majority wealth of this “debt borrowed against the future” has gone to the 0.0000001% elite ruling class “princeling” CCP families (about 250 of them) who have already smuggled trillions of dollars abroad along with their U.S. passports and their own children. For the CCP in 1989, 1.4 billion people is great asset when the country starts from nothing and you order them to do backbreaking mass manufacturing repetitive work 20 hours a day without workers protection of any kind. But in the 2014 borderless knowledge economy when that no longer works, 1.4 billion immoral and uncooperative and selfish undeveloped and angry Chinese contained in a lawless system without any hopes of growth is very, very dangerous liability for the CCP.
All debts against the future have to be paid back – China is no exception. That moment may arrive a bit later than expected but it surely will come, as it has on 100% of occasions in human history. For China the moment has arrived to suffer the consequences for all its own chosen actions in past 30 years. All the festering fundamental systematic problems listed above and much more, are getting worse and worse everyday until one day when the system can suddenly no longer bear.
Think USSR in 1989.
PMFR
CP’s comments are absurd and an embarrassment for Australians… insulting the people of China by calling them “mongrels” and “bastards” is biting the hand that has fed the Australian economy for the last 10 years. CP should know better than this – perhaps with his billions he doesn’t care but he should care about the potential ramifications for the next generation of Aussies…..
Miners wife
Go Clive it is refreshing to hear someone tell it how it is. We all know our Government is selling our country off like it belongs to them and our minerals are no different. Media are doing to Clive as they did to Pauline Hanson. Speak out of turn you will be crucified.
Jonson.joe
Relax people, he just said it out loud. Chinese state-run resource corporations will try to do what is best for them. Australia is just one place where they do so.
LAMB
Here in CANADA, we have the same problem of our government selling off our resources to firms out of Brazil, Switzerland, China, Australia and even the USA (US STEEL IN Hamilton). The classic ‘hurt’ was when XSTRATA bought Falconbridge ‘s Timmins operation, then closed the Zinc refinery and moved that operation OFFSHORE to their own Zinc Refinery, throwing over 400 people out of work – NOT A WORD OF PROTEST FROM EITHER THE PROVINCIAL OF FEDERAL GOVERNMENTS – they like us to believe that it is an INVESTMENT in CANADA while they give away our Resources and Jobs to Foreign Companies.
TIME TO RESURECT FIRA (Foreign Investment Review Agency) HERE IN CANADA.
patentbs
Easy does it Clive. I am an economic nationalist as well BUT remember we do not ‘sell’ a resource. We lease the right to produce it. We retain the right to regulate the resource and the production rates. We also retain the right to regulate all other matters ( like labor law) around an organization.
Stick to the proper use of our rights and we will control even the Chinese conglomerates within our borders.
Secret Squirrel
Big Clives frustrated /abusive rant towards China certainly could have dire ramifications for Australia and Australians alike . Honesty or Rascality it doesn’t matter when Business is business ;do the maths people ,China is the largest trading partner and yes we trade with all countries good /bad or indifferent .
As a polititian who represents a number of Australian voters “Clive Palmer should know better’, as his outburst has the potential to tar all Australian as disrespectful racist’s.
There are a number of middleclass Australians living /working/ and doing business in China who certainly don’t need the headache of an unprofessional Australian polititian making these remarks. From one Australian to another Clive ” get yourself an over sized cup of “Shut the #@K up” .
Although …..
There is a huge up side for all average Australians if China would walk away from all Australian trade and products ……the economy would dive !!! Possibly making the place a cheaper place to live/ trade and visit!!! on second thoughts….Go big clive ya Mongrel!!!