Shocker from David Speers, taking Trump's comments with Albanese and spinning them into a misguided commentary on a "war over Taiwan" that has no meaningful understanding of Taiwan or its relationship to China.
www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10...
@mhar4.bsky.social
Taiwan, China, social theory, ideology, politics, foreign policy.
Shocker from David Speers, taking Trump's comments with Albanese and spinning them into a misguided commentary on a "war over Taiwan" that has no meaningful understanding of Taiwan or its relationship to China.
www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10...
"βCountry could shut downβ: Australia has just 28 days of petrol"
Racking my brains trying to think of some possible regional crisis that could disrupt Australia's oil imports.
www.afr.com/policy/forei...
Tasmanian Chinese Buddhist Academy of Australia Cultural Park, under construction for many years, vandalised with "δΈε½η»ζι¨AUS HQ".
11.10.2025 00:08 β π 2 π 2 π¬ 0 π 1"...on the other is the Kuomintang (KMT) party, which has always been friendlier with China, and encouraged more dialogue."
Has it, though?
www.bbc.com/news/article...
"An absolute resolve to stand together and defend democracy itself."
Australian PM Albanese on defending democracy.
A line with far-reaching implications given the active threat to one particular democracy in our region.
www.pm.gov.au/media/addres...
"Funding deal for research program about Australia's polar security rejected by Tasmanian government."
A lot to unpack here.
"Classified US intelligence warns of China's preparations for Taiwan invasion."
Yes.
Those were the days. A 594 page reading pack.
26.09.2025 01:38 β π 4 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0Call in the Hobart Mercury for "multipolarity", a codeword for great power spheres of influence and abandoning the liberal principle of universal human rights.
24.09.2025 21:50 β π 2 π 1 π¬ 0 π 1New regulations on transnational education, or δΈε€εδ½εε¦ Chinese-Foreign Cooperation in Running Schools just released.
20.09.2025 23:44 β π 3 π 2 π¬ 0 π 0Important speech by University of Canberra VC Bill Shorten, with much to commend it, but still treating academic knowledge as a resource to be extracted, not a field to be tended.
www.canberra.edu.au/about-uc/med...
ABC report on the Victorian state government delegation in China, with important comments from John Fitzgerald and the revelation that the Victoria-China MOU on public education cooperation is "confidential".
www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzXb...
Tell me you don't understand Taiwan without telling me you don't understand Taiwan.
"German reunification could offer lessons for Beijing on Taiwan: government adviser"
Imagine trying to teach about Taiwan at any Victorian education institution under this agreement, or being a student who identifies as Taiwanese-Australian.
16.09.2025 01:09 β π 8 π 4 π¬ 0 π 0"The landmark Memorandum of Understanding between Victoria and Chinaβs Ministry of Education will establish the Working Group, driving educational cooperation from the primary to the tertiary level."
This is an abrogation of Australia's national sovereignty.
www.premier.vic.gov.au/historic-agr...
More troubling is how the policy statement actively conflates the People's Republic of China with the diverse communities in Victoria that can be ascribed the label "Chinese".
15.09.2025 23:15 β π 5 π 4 π¬ 0 π 0"Victoriaβs China Strategy: For a New Golden Era"
Released coincident with dire economic data for China, a new "China strategy" for the Victorian state government that, typically for these sorts of documents, has little to say about China itself.
www.vic.gov.au/victorias-ch...
With a combination of malice and ignorance, it looks like ICE managed to activate decades of trauma in South Korea from its history of authoritarian violence.
14.09.2025 23:06 β π 14 π 3 π¬ 0 π 0but Taiwanese defence spending and whole of nation preparedness for conflict is on a whole other level to Australia and misreading it to make a political point about the US-Australia alliance is misguided.
14.09.2025 00:16 β π 0 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0Maybe check the legislative proposals, but even 18% is still 3x what Australia spends of its national budget on defence.
@johnquiggin.bsky.social is arguing that if the Taiwanese are sanguine about their defence needs then so should Australia be, and only US pressure would make us otherwise.
Those figures don't include current efforts to restructure the national budget by the legislature.
13.09.2025 23:45 β π 0 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0Taiwan has a very small national budget compared to Australia.
13.09.2025 23:24 β π 0 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0"Representation of the CCP's Concept of the United Front as Part of the the Theory of Contradictions."
This from Lyman P. Van Slyke in 1967 still lands.
Excellent commentary in the China Daily on the JapanβAustralia 2+2 Foreign and Defence Ministerial Consultations.
www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202509/07/...
Come for the pop philosophy, stay for the Wade-Giles.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Extreme example of cognitive dissonance on ABC Insiders, from Raf Epstein and AshleighRaper, vehemently asserting it is unacceptable to be seen with Putin and Kim, et al, but explicitly excluding Xi Jinping himself - who hosted them - from that judgement.
06.09.2025 23:43 β π 2 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0Nice save.
06.09.2025 22:34 β π 2 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0Did I say GDP? The point is that the fiscal structure of Taiwan is different to Australia's. That also applies to its defence. I get that you want to use "Taiwan" to make arguments about Australia's defence spending and the US alliance but Taiwan needs to be taken on its own terms.
04.09.2025 20:58 β π 0 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0