Not “just a pawn in their game”

Vanguard June 2012 p. 3

The Australian people will never agree to be just a pawn in the games between major powers.

This observation is prompted by comments apparently made to the Fairfax media by a former senior PLA officer, Song Xiaojun on May 15 as Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr visited Beijing.

According to press reports, Song stated that Australia cannot juggle its relationships with the US and China, and must choose a “godfather” to protect it.

“Australia always has to depend on somebody else, whether it is to be the ‘son’ of the US or the ‘son’ of China,” he said.

Frstly, Song Xiaojun does not speak for the Government of China or the Chinese Communist Party.  He holds an academic position and provides commentary on military matters.   It is hard to know whether he is an independent commentator, a Chinese Andrew Bolt, pushing a bourgeois nationalist line, or whether he is a kite-flyer for sections of the Chinese leadership.

Secondly, ideological and political debate is now not uncommon in China, and there is a furious and lively blogosphere where all sorts of ideas are put.

Some clearly do not express a Marxist or revolutionary position and instead push for China to extend its influence at the expense of other nations’ sovereignty. A case in point is Prof. Shen Dingli’s Don’t shun the idea of setting up overseas military bases.

Song’s status stems partly from his contribution to a controversial book - Unhappy China—The Great Time, Grand Vision and Our Challenges – which encourages China to acquire superpower status or risk being pushed aside by US imperialism.

Where China is bullied by US imperialism, we will support it.

If China were ever to attempt to bully us, we will oppose it.

We are fighting for anti-imperialist independence and socialism.

We have no interest in being a pawn on one side or other of a superpower chessboard.

(See 13^th Congress resolution on China on p. 3)