Australians want Chinese ambassador kicked out

Outraged Australians want the Chinese ambassador expelled for his ‘threats of economic coercion’ in revenge for a coronavirus inquiry.

Jingye Cheng triggered a diplomatic firestorm by warning Scott Morrison’s push for an inquiry into the origins of coronavirus would lead to a boycott of Australia. 

His outrageous threats to wreck Australia’s economy prompted angry calls on social media for him to be banished under diplomatic protocol.

Jingye Cheng triggered a diplomatic firestorm by warning Scott Morrison’s push for an inquiry into the origins of coronavirus could lead to a boycott of Australia

Ambassador Cheng’s outrageous threats to wreck Australia’s economy prompted angry calls on social media for him to be banished under diplomatic protocol

‘The Chinese Ambassador has publicly engaged in threats and intimidating behaviour that is unacceptable to the people of Australia and must be removed,’ a petition read.

‘His disrespect for our country by saying and acting in a manner inconsistent with the country in which he is a guest cannot be tolerated. 

‘We will not be bullied in this manner. It is arrogant and warlike. It is offensive and highly inappropriate.’

However, China expert Clive Hamilton argues there is no point to removing Mr Cheng because Beijing would just replace him with someone worse.

‘For those who are worried about China’s influence in Australia, he’s the best thing we have going for us because the mask has fallen away,’ he told Daily Mail Australia.

Professor Hamilton, from Charles Sturt University, said the aggressive rhetoric finally showed China’s true colours. 

China is accused of covering up the severity of the epidemic after it started in a live exotic animal market in Wuhan, costing the world vital weeks of preparation. Pictured: A bat in a wet market in Indonesia

He said China had for many years quietly and insidiously influenced Australian policy and Mr Cheng’s outbursts finally brought it into the open.

Hu Xijin, editor of the state-run Global Times, on Tuesday night threw fuel on the fire by making even less veiled boycott threats. 

‘Australia is always there, making trouble. It is a bit like chewing gum stuck on the sole of China’s shoes. Sometimes you have to find a stone to rub it off,’ he said.

Professor Hamilton said Mr Xijin’s extraordinary comments helped expose the lie that was China’s professed friendship with Australia.

‘They show how the the Chinese Communist Party has always thought of Australia,’ he said.

‘It’s important to acknowledge that because so many prominent Australians have fallen for the friendship trap and talk in these dreamy-eyed ways about how China is our friend and we have to behave like friends. 

‘No, China is not our friend, it is hostile towards Australia and our interests and we should go into negotiations with them understanding that.’

A China expert said China had for many years quietly and insidiously influenced Australian policy and Mr Cheng’s outbursts finally brought it into the open

AMBASSADOR’S ECONOMIC THREAT TO AUSTRALIA

In an interview with the Australian Financial Review, Ambassador Cheng slammed Australia’s push for a global inquiry as ‘political’ and warned Chinese consumers could boycott the country.

Answering a question about whether China could boycott Australian iron ore or gas, Mr Cheng instead focused on China’s contribution to Australia’s agriculture, tourism and education sectors. 

Mr Cheng said: ‘I think if the mood is going from bad to worse, people would think why we should go to such a country while it’s not so friendly to China.

‘The tourists may have second thoughts. Maybe the parents of the students would also think whether this place, which they find is not so friendly, even hostile, is the best place to send their kids to. 

‘So it’s up to the public, the people to decide. And also, maybe the ordinary people will think why they should drink Australian wine or eat Australian beef.’ 

Professor Hamilton said the escalating diplomatic stoush would at least make Chinese covert influence effort more difficult.

‘Chinese diplomats have for years been quietly building their support in Australian business, universities, and politics, and they’ve done well given how many of our elites count themselves as friends of China,’ he claimed.

‘China has powerful Australians who are essentially doing its work, and that’s been extremely damaging to our interests.’ 

Professor Hamilton revealed Chinese President Xi Jinping had last year changed his diplomatic strategy to be more confrontational, so Mr Cheng was just following orders.

This ramped up significantly as China was determined to deflect blame for the coronavirus pandemic believed to have started in a Wuhan wet market.

‘China’s foreign ministry has instructed its ambassadors to adopt a much more aggressive tone in its international relations,’ he said.

‘One of these was the extraordinary claim that coronavirus originated in the U.S. and there have been others in Europe who have made extremely aggressive statements.’

At least seven Chinese ambassadors, to France, Khazakstan, Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Ghana, and the African Union have in the past week been hauled by their host countries in to explain themselves.

Accusations ranged from spreading rumours and misinformation to ‘racist mistreatment’ of Africans living in the Chinese city of Guangzhou. 

An earlier example was Chinese ambassador to Sweden Gui Congyou who in November threatened ‘consequences’ if dissident Swedish-Chinese publisher Gui Minhai was awarded a prestigious literature prize.

Outraged Australians have called for Mr Cheng to be sent home, but China experts argue President Xi Jinping (pictured) would just replace him with someone worse 

‘We treat our friends with fine wine, but for our enemies we have shotguns,’ he told Swedish public radio. 

Mr Congyou again ignited outrage in January with veiled threats against the Swedish press that prompted calls from politicians for him to be expelled. 

‘President Jinping has decided that aggression and bullying is the best way for China to pursue its interests, hoping that other nations will back down,’ Professor Hamilton said.

‘It’s certainly worked with smaller nations in the Asia Pacific region that have been bullied into submission.

Hu Xijin, editor of the state-run Global Times, threw fuel on the fire by making even less veiled boycott threat

‘But there’s been a very strong negative reaction in Australia to China’s threats and the government shows no sign of backing down.’

However, he said the ambassador was perhaps really speaking to Australian university vice chancellors, tourism bosses, and company directors.

‘He may have been saying ‘you are in our sights’ so they pressure the government,’ Professor Hamilton explained.

‘It’s a tactic that China has used in the U.S. and Australia before but it seems it’s really raising the stakes.

‘The test will be if the leaders of those threatened industries will ask the government to take a softer stance.’

Professor Hamilton said another trend was Chinese diplomats writing to newspapers to make strong complaints about their coverage of China. 

‘The threat that the CCP poses to free speech is coming more into the public eye,’ he said.

Yun Sun, a senior fellow at American think-tank the Stimson Centre, also said increasingly aggressive Chinese diplomacy came from the top. 

‘Under Xi, the top-down approach is absolute, meaning that the leader’s decision is the order that has to be implemented. The diplomats don’t get to make decisions, only implement them,’ she told the South China Morning Post.

‘For their careers, it makes perfect sense for the diplomats to echo and magnify what they see as the leader’s wishes.’ 

China has repeatedly refused to welcome an international investigation into the outbreak, most recently describing the demands of Australia as ‘political manoeuvring’.

Chinese Ambassador’s long history of provocative statements 

Jingye Cheng, 61, has frequently ruffled feathers since he was appointed ambassador to Australia in 2016, but escalated from last year.

He was more measured in June 2017 when he tried to refute a Four Corners report on $4 million of donations to both the Labor and Liberal parties by an Chinese-Australian billionaire  Chau Chak Wing.

Mr Wing has links to China’s ruling party bu Mr Cheng said it was ‘groundless’ to claim the donations were aimed at influencing Australian politics.

‘In Chinese, we call it ‘cooking up the overnight cold rice’, which means repeating the same old stuff again and again,’ he said.

‘Their main purpose, as I see it, is to instigate China panic.’

Mr Cheng said such claims risked the ‘friendly cooperation’ of Australia and China.

At a business event a year later he said there should be less ‘bias and bigotry’ towards China’s motives in the Asia Pacific.

Mr Cheng in August last year warned Australia to stay out of commenting on its treatment of protesters who had ‘grossly trampled on the rule of law and social order in Hong Kong’.

‘Foreign governments and entities should strictly abide by international law and basic norms governing international relations, not support violent radicals, not interfere in Hong Kong’s affairs and China’s internal affairs in whatever form,’ he said.

‘Any attempt to mess up Hong Kong is doomed to fail. A prosperous and stable Hong Kong serves the interests of international community including Australia.

‘We sincerely hope that people from all walks of life in Australia will see the real picture of situation in Hong Kong, act in the interests of Hong Kong’s prosperity, stability and rule of law.’ 

Hong Kong residents raise their arms as they gather in their hundreds to condemn the police in Tsuen Wan on October 2

Ambassador Cheng then in October took credit for Australia’s 28 years of constant economic growth and then-projected budget surplus.

‘China’s growth and the co-operation between China and Australia in trade, economic and other areas, is a major factor in that growth,’ he told The Australian.

In December he doubled down, saying: ‘Australian jobs depend on trade so if we take this theory, Chinese-Australian trade helped create some 640,000 jobs in this country.’

At the same time he dismissed reports of human rights abuses on Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang as ‘utterly fake news’.

‘The local government has taken tough measures to crack down on… terrorism or violence,’ he said.

He also claimed detention camps were ‘vocational and education centres… aimed at deradicalisation’.

Jingye Cheng, 61, has frequently ruffled feathers since he was appointed ambassador to Australia in 2016, but escalated from last year

Mr Cheng in February hit out at the government’s ban on Chinese company Huawei being involved in Australia’s 5G network on security grounds.

‘It is discrimination against a Chinese company. At the same time, it doesn’t serve the best interests of Australian companies and consumers,’ he said.

That same month he demanded Australia end its ban on travellers arriving from China in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic.

‘We are deeply disappointed by the restrictive measures that have been taken because as I see it they are out of proportion,’ he said. 

The deadly respiratory virus has infected more than three million people globally, including 6,744 Australians, and killed more than 217,000.  

China is accused of covering up the severity of the epidemic after it started in a live exotic animal market in Wuhan, costing the world vital weeks of preparation.

Economists believe Australian families and businesses will lose $60 billion by the end of the coronavirus crisis.

American lawyers suing China for $10 trillion claimed up to 95 per cent of the infected global population would have been spared if China acted faster to contain the outbreak.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Wednesday vowed not to back down from his efforts to find out exactly what happened.

‘We will of course continue to support moves to ensure there is a proper independent assessment of what has occurred here,’ he said.

‘It is not a remarkable position. It is a fairly common sense position and one that we don’t resile from.’

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton censured the ambassador for releasing details of the private conversation with the country’s most senior diplomat.

‘I think some of the comments are very much out of line and regrettable,’ he told 5AA Radio on Wednesday.

‘Of course we are not going to be deviating off course from dealing with a very serious issue.

‘We aren’t going to be held to ransom or succumb to threats from anybody.’ 

Vendors wearing face masks as they offer prawns for sale at a market in Wuhan where reports of the virus first emerged in December

This photo taken on April 15, 2020 shows a worker wearing a face mask as he throws ice into a pool with fish at a shop at a market in Wuhan where the first reports of the virus emerged in December

The Chinese Embassy had leaked details of the ‘please explain’ call between Ambassador Cheng and Foreign Affairs secretary Frances Adamson. 

‘Ambassador Cheng flatly rejected the concern expressed from the Australian side over his remarks during the recent AFR interview, and called on Australia to put aside ideological bias, stop political games and do more things to promote the bilateral relations,’ the embassy said.

The embassy said ‘the fact cannot be buried that the proposal is a political manoeuvre’, and that Australia was ‘crying up wine and selling vinegar’ in claiming the inquiry would not target China.

Foreign Affairs rebuked Mr Cheng for leaking the details but the embassy fired back, accusing Australia of leaking to the media first.

‘As the Australian media report was inaccurate and misleading, the Embassy had no choice but to set the record straight,’ it said.

‘The Embassy of China doesn’t play petty tricks, this is not our tradition. But if others do, we have to reciprocate.’  

Ambassador Cheng’s original comments to the Australian Financial Review claimed Mr Morrison pushing for an inquiry was ‘dangerous’.

‘The Chinese public is frustrated, dismayed and disappointed with what Australia is doing now,’ he said.

New Deloitte Access Economics modelling estimates $8.1 billion could be wiped from the accommodation and food services sector in the months from April to August

This graph shows the percentage of employees put out of work during the coronavirus crisis according to new modelling

‘I think in the long term… if the mood is going from bad to worse, people would think ‘Why should we go to such a country that is not so friendly to China? The tourists may have second thoughts.

‘The parents of the students would also think whether this place which they found is not so friendly, even hostile, whether this is the best place to send their kids here.

‘It is up to the people to decide. Maybe the ordinary people will say ‘Why should we drink Australian wine? Eat Australian beef?”

Australia’s economy would lose billions of dollars in a successful Chinese boycott as it is our biggest trading partner.

China accounts for quarter of Australian exports, worth $153 billion in 2018-19 after growing at 10 per cent a year for the past five years.  

More than a quarter of that is in iron ore, the loss of which would also be a huge blow to China’s growth, and food exports are worth more than $12 billion a year.

China’s ambassador to Australia, Jingye Cheng, poses with a baby crocodile during a photo opportunity with Northern Territory politician Eve Lawler in 2018

China also sends millions of tourists and thousands of students to Australia every year. Chinese tourism is worth $40 billion a year and education $12 billion.

Mr Cheng also denied, in a transcript of the entire interview that included unpublished comments, that Chinese wet markets sold wild animals.   

‘Of course China’s laws and regulations have banned any illegal hunting, trading, transportation or consumption of wildlife,’ he claimed.

‘And in China, the farmers’ markets or those markets which sell live poultry are not places for selling any wildlife or wild animals. 

‘Selling those kinds of wild animals in those markets are prohibited by law.’ 

TIT FOR TAT: TIMELINE OF AUSTRALIA’S DEEPENING COVID-19 DISPUTE WITH CHINA

February 1, 2020: Australia bans foreign nationals who have travelled in mainland China from entering the country for 14 days

February 13: As the travel bans are extended, the Chinese embassy lashes out, labelling Australia’s move as ‘extreme’ and an ‘overreaction indeed’

April 15: Treasurer Josh Frydenberg savages the World Health Organisation (WHO) for supporting the reopening of Chinese wet markets

April 19: Foreign Minister Marise Payne calls for a global inquiry into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic and China’s handling of it 

Senator Payne tells the ABC such an inquiry should be run independently of the WHO. 

April 26: China’s ambassador, Cheng Jingye, warns the Morrison government its inquiry push could cause a Chinese consumer boycott.

Mr Cheng warns tourists ‘may have second thoughts’ and students’ parents would wonder if Australia is ‘the best place to send their kids to’, and that consumers may not want to buy Australian wine or beef 

The Australian government fires back, with Senator Payne saying the country rejects  ‘any suggestion that economic coercion is an appropriate response to a call for such an assessment, when what is needed is global co-operation’. 

April 28: Chinese embassy releases an unusual statement describing a call with the bureaucrat in charge of Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) 

In a statement, DFAT says it ‘regrets’ the release of ‘purported details of official diplomatic exchanges’.

The department will not respond by itself breaching the long standing diplomatic courtesies and professional practices to which it will continue to adhere,’ DFAT said. 

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