From Labelling Chinese Students as Communist “Spies” to
Persecuting a Socialist Political Prisoner:

Cold War Witch-Hunting Returns
… Mixed With White Australia Racism

21 February 2019 – Seven months ago, the Australian government granted a visa for Canadian white supremacist, Lauren Southern, to come here on a speaking tour. Southern calls to keep out people from Asia and Africa, ridiculously claiming that immigration leads to “white genocide.” In late 2017, the government also allowed racist provocateur, Milo Yiannopoulos, to tour. A misogynist who calls for women to be banned from driving, Yiannopoulos used this tour to brand Muslims as “rapists” and to insult the art produced by Aboriginal people as “really shit.” Emboldened by his rants, neo-Nazi groups unleashed violent assaults against the African community living in the Kensington suburb where his Melbourne event was held. Yet while the government has allowed the likes of Southern and Yiannopoulos to enter, two weeks ago they banned Chinese-Australian businessman, Huang Xiangmo, from re-entering Australia. Unlike the far-right figures that the Australian regime have allowed in, Mr Huang, has not been inciting racial hatred. In fact, he has been involved in events supporting racial unity. Moreover, while the likes of Southern and Yiannopoulos have no residency status here, Huang is actually a permanent resident of Australia – one whose wife and son live here. So why is Mr Huang being treated much worse than purveyors of racial division have been?

For the Australian government to revoke the permanent residency of a person who has committed no criminal offence is not only highly unusual: it is, perhaps, completely unprecedented. So why has the Morrison government – with the ALP’s acquiescence – banned Huang? It is because he has made statements sympathetic to the Peoples Republic of China (PRC). The ASIO spy agency cited his past leadership of the Australian Council for the Promotion of the Peaceful Re-unification of China – a group that shares Beijing’s views on the Taiwan, Hong Kong and Tibet issues – as one of the main reasons why it ordered the cancellation of Huang’s residency. The media claim that Huang has used large political donations to push this pro-PRC agenda. Even if that were actually true – and it is far more likely that Mr Huang’s donations are merely yet another case of wealthy businessmen protecting their interests by currying favour with politicians – then so what! It is not illegal to express sympathy for political positions held by Beijing and it is not illegal for people who hold those views to make political donations. To strip a person of permanent residency based on their advocacy for positions held by Red China is an outrageous attack on democratic rights. The decision amounts to asserting that a person who expresses sympathy for a socialistic country should not be accorded the rights of other residents. Right-wing politicians and the mainstream media will speak forever about protecting “freedom of speech” when they defend the “right” of extreme racists to whip up hatred against racial and religious minorities. Yet they want to curb any “free speech” that involves sympathy for the Peoples Republic of China! There is another irony to this saga. The PRC is, by far, Australia’s largest source of export income.  Yet, while the ruling class is happy to make a fortune selling goods to the PRC they are determined to stop anyone saying anything positive about her! 

Now as a billionaire businessman Huang Xiangmo is hardly our cup of tea. All capitalist businessmen – including Mr Huang – are the class enemies of working class people. However, Huang is certainly not being attacked by the Australian ruling class because he is a capitalist exploiter (or else it would be the likes of Andrew Forest, Gina Rinehart and Clive Palmer who would have had their rights stripped long ago). Far from it! Mr Huang is being persecuted, in fact, in the opposite way – because for his own reasons he has chosen to express sympathy for certain goals of a socialistic country. In short, he is being attacked for the wrong reasons by the wrong people. Therefore, we add our voice to those demanding that Huang Xiangmo’s cancelled permanent residency be immediately restored.

Of course, the government knows that the masses – for good reason – dislike billionaires. That is why it is convenient for them to ratchet up their attacks on pro-PRC Chinese people by targeting a person like Mr Huang. Yet what others should realise is that if they can so blatantly trample on the rights of a person with such connections to the political elite then what are they going to do to working class people of Chinese background who speak positively about the PRC? The Australian regime’s timing of their move against Huang seems to be designed to intimidate. The ripping up of his permanent resident’s visa was announced right when the community were marking New Year’s Day! The message has not been lost on the community who to their credit have refused to take this attack lying down. There is a small anti-communist part of the Chinese community who hate the PRC because their landlord/capitalist ancestors were deposed from their tyrannical domination of China by the 1949 Revolution or because they are linked to the capitalist classes who still rule Taiwan and Hong Kong and these people celebrated the attack on Huang. However, 128 Chinese community organisations signed a statement declaring that, “What happened to Mr Huang Xiangmo today may happen to any of us tomorrow.” The statement rightly insisted that:

“The unfair treatment suffered by Mr Huang has dealt a heavy blow to the legitimate political participation of people from Chinese or other ethnic minorities. It made the underprivileged people from the Chinese community and other ethnic minorities even more vulnerable.”

Indeed, the revoking of Mr Huang’s residency is but the latest event in the ruling class’ escalating witch-hunt against the large, pro-PRC portion of Australia’s Chinese community. Mainstream media are running hysterical articles condemning local Chinese organisations, student groups and Chinese-language media for supposedly “threatening Australian sovereignty” by “covertly exerting influence” as proxies of the Communist Party of China (CPC). Ironically, the media group spearheading the claim that most of Australia’s Chinese media are not independent and, instead, are covertly controlled by Beijing is the itself not at all independent ABC which is owned and thus controlled by the Australian capitalist state! Not surprisingly, the ABC’s board of directors is dominated by corporate bigwigs and heads of business associations. The ABC and other media have, as in the persecution of Mr Huang, been spurred on by leaked statements from anonymous figures in ASIO and the Australian Federal Police (AFP) as well as “senior diplomatic figures.” Talk about “covertly exerting influence”! Shadowy ASIO spies and others are quoted complaining about pro-PRC Chinese “silencing” anti-PRC forces through “vilification.” For ASIO spies to complain about “voices being silenced” is the height of hypocrisy.  This is a feared organisation with a history of using infiltration and sabotage to disrupt the activities of leftist dissidents, Aboriginal rights activists and other progressive and anti-racist forces.

Pro-PRC Students Targeted

The main target of attacks on the Chinese community have been pro-PRC international students from China. They have not only been slandered by the media but have faced attacks from the likes of, now former, foreign minister Julie Bishop and Australia’s highest-ranked foreign affairs bureaucrat, Frances Adamson. These officials have made thinly veiled threats warning Chinese students not to spread propaganda or “blindly condemn” those within university circles who attack the PRC. Laughably, their attacks on Chinese students have been made in the name of upholding Australia’s supposed “openness and freedom of speech.” Except that Chinese students are not supposed to say anything positive about the PRC or to expose the flaws in the arguments of anti-PRC crusaders.

Worryingly, the campaign against pro-PRC students is starting to move from denunciations to repression. ANU Professor, Geremie Barme, made a thinly veiled call for ANU student, Lei Xiying, to face disciplinary action. Why? Because Lei made a series of passionately pro-Red China videos that went viral. Consider the difference with the way Lei has been hounded with how lightly Nationals senator Barry O’Sullivan has gotten off for his despicable comment two days ago about “us having a biosecurity breach from some bloody old Chinaman that brings in his favourite sausage down the front of his undies.” Meanwhile, a package of draconian “foreign interference laws” are now going into force that everyone knows are aimed at supporters of China. The laws could be used to jail those who advocate political positions held by Beijing. If Australia’s current course is not resisted, some leaders of Chinese community organisations and student groups could well face criminal prosecution in the future.

The Beginning of a New McCarthyism and
the Resurgence of White Australia Racism

There definitely is a racist aspect to the ruling class campaign against pro-PRC Chinese people. It is an expression of the refrain of racist rednecks that “we let you into the country so the least you could do is … [shut up and stay out of politics!]” It amounts to making people of Chinese background second-class citizens. Which other ethnic minority will next be targeted for expressing a view that the Australian regime deems to not adhere to what they decree to be “Australian values”? Palestinian community members who campaign for the liberation of Palestine? People from Latin American backgrounds who protest against Washington and Canberra’s efforts to incite a right-wing coup in Venezuela?

The Australian government’s attempts to deny a big part of the Chinese community the political rights formally accorded to others is stained with the same white supremacist methodology as the discriminatory laws it has placed on Aboriginal people in the NT – and now certain other parts of Australia – that prevent them having the same access to social welfare as other citizens. Moreover, the mainstream media’s witch-hunting of Chinese community organisations and PRC international students cannot be separated from their racist vilification of the Muslim community and African youth. Similarly, the Australian regime’s demonisation of Huang Xiangmo and their cancellation of his visa has parallels to the way that Peter Dutton brands refugees as “rapists”; and to the way that both the Liberals and ALP insist on denying these persecuted refugees residency in Australia.

However, racism is not the only factor here. After all would a pro-imperialist person of Hong Kong background have his residency cancelled if he expressed opposition to Hong Kong’s re-integration into China? Not a chance! The attempts to silence the pro-PRC part of the Chinese community is not only racist, it is anti-communist. It is an attempt by the Australian regime to gag any voice speaking in defence of socialistic China or any other workers state. Now Mr Huang, as a capitalist businessman is hardly a communist. Rather, knowing that the right to capitalist exploitation is not guaranteed in Red China – a reality that is good for China’s masses – Huang and some other Chinese capitalists seek to stave off their businesses from being nationalised by trying to ingratiate themselves with the CPC. Similarly, former Labor senator Sam Dastyari, who was unfairly witch-hunted out of politics for having once made the patently true statement that the South China Sea issue is China’s internal affair, is no revolutionary. Yet, that even Huang and Dastyari could be persecuted shows the dangers that actual leftists and supporters of the PRC workers state face today. Indeed the way that they were victimised for the slightest displays of “softness” on the CPC is reminiscent of the Cold War witch-hunt in late-1940s and 1950s Australia and the U.S. (where it became known as McCarthyism). Back then anyone not critical enough of the then most powerful socialistic state – the USSR – or who had any They suffer in silence and follow cialis samples the point to ‘keep quiet and carry on’. Suffering from erectile dysfunction once or twice is 25mg barato viagra bad enough that they are suffering from this disease in private now they have to discuss it with people and explain what’s wrong with them. For instance, 10 mg tablets of Lipitor for a 30 day supply may cost you $80 or more in America but only $40 or viagra fast less in Canada. How does it work? This is cialis viagra canada a common question heard from people across the world. connection with people in the local communist parties was branded a traitor and driven out of their job. In Australia, several Communist Party of Australia (CPA) leaders were jailed alongside communist trade unionists. In a witch-hunting atmosphere that almost saw the CPA banned in 1951, the government even raided CPA offices. 

Anyone who thinks that such an anti-communist witch-hunt could never happen again because “society has progressed” should look around the world and think again. Less than five years ago, South Korea’s capitalist regime banned the country’s third largest parliamentary party (the Unified Progressive Party) and jailed several of its leaders, because that party was not hostile enough to North Korea. In the Ukraine, Bulgaria, Latvia and Lithuania laws are in force banning people from displaying communist symbols. In the Ukraine, these laws are used to prevent the country’s pro-communist parties from standing in elections. Moreover, in the Australian state’s latest attacks on pro-PRC Chinese, the methods of 1950s McCarthyism are being re-deployed. This is seen in the line spun by ASIO that they knows things about Mr Huang but can’t tell us … because it’s secret so you just have to believe them! This apes FBI director J. Edgar Hoover’s “Loyalty Security Reviews” during the U.S. Cold War witch-hunt where suspected communists were not allowed to know who was accusing them and were often not even told what they were accused of! Meanwhile, the media’s branding of PRC students as “spies for the Communist Party of China,” Canberra’s exclusions of Chinese tech giant Huawei because of “security concerns” and the media’s ritual blaming of China for every cyber hack without any evidence all have more than a whiff of an impending McCarthyite witch-hunt.

There is a factor that makes this impending Cold War witch-hunt potentially more dangerous than its earlier version. That is the fact that the main country targeted by today’s Red Scare is an Asian one (rather than the majority white Soviet Union) and the fact that there is a large diaspora from that country living here. This makes White Australia racism even more a component of today’s new McCarthyism than its earlier variety – all the more so because it dovetails with a period of increasing racist attacks on all people of colour. Already, the combination of anti-communist hostility to Red China and White Australia racism have led to a surge in racist violence against Chinese background residents. In October 2017, three Chinese high-school students were bashed by racists at a Canberra bus stop. Two months before this, a white supremacist student at ANU pulled out a baseball bat during a lesson and beat and tried to kill his tutor of Chinese origin and four other Chinese students. Especially when one knows the post-1788 history of this country – from the Gold Rush anti-Chinese pogroms to the 19^th century anti-Chinese laws to the White Australia Policy – it is understandable why some people of Chinese descent are fearful.

The emerging Cold War witch-hunt in Australia is starting to expand beyond targeting supporters of the PRC. This is seen most clearly in the case of Chan Han Choi, a socialist political prisoner in Australia. Choi is facing charges of helping the DPRK to export its produce in violation of cruel UN economic sanctions which if true would only make him a great humanitarian and partisan of socialism. He has outrageously been denied bail over the last 14 months, in part, on the grounds that he is a DPRK supporter, which the prosecution claims means that he has no loyalty to Australia. Thus this is, as with the persecution of Mr Huang and the slandering of pro-PRC students, yet another case of people being denied the rights accorded to others on the basis of their sympathy for a socialistic state.

The Real Truths About “Democracy” and “Foreign Interference”

Supporters of socialistic states have always faced the threat of repression in capitalist countries. For they embody the greatest fear of capitalist rulers: that the exploited masses will unite to depose them from power. If in many periods, socialists have been able to operate legally in Australia it is only because the ruling class thinks that it is more effective to rule the masses by maintaining a facade of “democracy.” Yet no one should be fooled into thinking that the Australian government democratically represents the needs of the majority. Under this country’s current system it is the big business owners who, through their ownership of the media and their huge resources to fund political parties, pay for political advertising, establish think tanks and hire lobbyists who thoroughly shape political discourse. The whole state machinery – including ASIO, police and bureaucrats – has been created for enforcing the rule of the capitalist exploiters at home and enforcing the superexploitation of the peoples of Australia’s neo-colonies abroad (ASIS the overseas operation’s counterpart of the ASIO organisation that is targeting the pro-PRC Chinese community at home has for example been involved in spying on East Timorese officials during negotiations over the Australian ruling class’ attempts to normalise its plunder of Timorese oil resources). That is why no matter who wins elections, the resulting governments always enable tycoons to leach incredible wealth while overseeing a large amount of homelessness, poor living conditions for so many Aboriginal people and the frequent throwing of large numbers of workers out of their livelihoods at the whim of greedy bosses. Today, these same governments – as well as top bureaucrats and ASIO spies – are warning Chinese students that their political discourse must comply with what they deem to be “Australian values.” However, a state machine that does not govern for the interests of the majority should have no right to determine which values people are supposed to adhere to. So we hope that more people – both citizens and international students – will refuse to be bound by the values decreed by a regime that only governs for the interests of the greedy, big end of town.

The Australian ruling class is actually not even truly wedded to the notions of “free speech” and “democracy” that it claims to be defending against Red China’s influence. To be sure, they do find it easier to rule by maintaining some formalities of “democracy.” Yet when they feel the need to dispense with these – as they did during the late 1940s and early 1950s – they will not hesitate to try and do so. Today, we are again entering such a period. The ruling class is slowly moving away from the norms of “free speech” and “democracy” (all in the name of saving these!) because they are shaken by a crisis of confidence. The Great Recession that struck the capitalist world a decade ago really did damage the self-belief of the capitalist ruling classes of the world. Although Australia did not suffer a recession, Australia’s capitalist rulers know that their economy was only saved by exports to China’s booming, socialistic state-owned enterprises. Meanwhile, capitalist rulers around the world see growing resentment amongst the masses. Although, at the moment, mass disgruntlement has led more to support for far-right forces and only to some degree to a leftist radicalisation, the exploiting classes know that this could quickly change. Moreover, they see a socialistic power in China going from strength to strength – and it terrifies them!  Very immediately, the influence of a socialistic power in the South Pacific is enabling countries like PNG, Fiji and Vanuatu to start to free themselves from Australian imperialist domination.

In this context, the Australian ruling class has an interest in manufacturing a “China threat” and an “agents of Chinese influence” scare. This helps them to “justify” to the public an expensive military build-up aimed against socialistic China and North Korea, aggressive policies against Chinese assistance to South Pacific countries and greater political support to anti-communist movements within the PRC. On the other hand, the Red China scare also enables the Australian regime to defend moves to curb leftist dissent and civil liberties within Australia. Moreover, their vilification of a big chunk of the Chinese community helps them to divert the working class masses that they exploit away from the real source of the masses’ troubles. Although much of their scare-mongering about CPC interference is contrived, to some degree they are also truly concerned about the influence of PRC students in Australia. For example, what happens when the Australian class mates of these students find out that these PRC students, who they know have experienced life in both the PRC and Australia, actually like the PRC and don’t feel repressed there? How will the Australian ruling class be able to justify a hostile policy against its biggest trading partner then? And what if the friends and classmates of some Chinese students even start thinking that China’s socialistic system has certain advantages? Heaven forbid!

Although the Australian ruling class is today hyping up the issue of “foreign interference” they actually have no specific stance on the issue per sé. They are hostile to pro-socialist influence but welcome any foreign interference that serves their capitalist interests. Thus, the ruling class welcomes U.S. interference as they need U.S. power to guarantee their predatory neo-colonial subjugation of South Pacific countries. The Australian state welcomes large numbers of U.S. troops in Darwin, hosts U.S. military bases at several locations and established the U.S. Studies Centre at Sydney University to promote U.S. influence in Australia.

The PRC actually goes out of its way to avoid interfering in the internal affairs of other countries. Even all but the most extreme anti-China hawks in Australia do not claim that the PRC is actually trying to change Australia’s political system. Supposed PRC “interference” is at most aimed at ameliorating Canberra’s hostility to the PRC and at opposing anti-communist Chinese groups exiled in Australia. However, the assumptions behind Beijing’s attempted “non interference” policy is flawed for a couple of key reasons. For one, all countries – and key events within them – inevitably affect other countries whether it is by design or not. On the negative side, for example, the rise of extreme right-wing forces around the globe has definitely encouraged fascist groups within Australia. This is partly through white supremacists here being emboldened by seeing the ascendancy of Trump and far-right parties in the likes of Italy and Austria and partly through Australian speaking tours by interfering far-right bigwigs like Southern and Yiannopoulos. On the other hand, the Aboriginal rights struggle in Australia drew inspiration from the militant black liberation movement in the U.S. and vice versa.

The second problem with Beijing’s policy of “non interference” is that it is premised on the expectation that if the PRC does not interfere in the affairs of capitalist countries, the latter will, in turn, not interfere in China’s internal affairs. However such a reality is not what is happening! Although the PRC genuinely does not seek to threaten the social system in the capitalist countries, the capitalist powers do everything possible to undermine socialistic rule in China. Washington – with Canberra’s support – provides massive financial, media and political support to anti-communist groups within China from “pro-democracy” neo-liberals to yuppy Hong Kong students sympathetic to British colonialism to a tiny but violent minority within the Uighur community of right-wing anti-communist, religious extremists. That is why the PRC should take the gloves off and abandon the CPC leadership’s failed policy of “non interference.” It should seek to influence events in the capitalist world – not by covert methods – but by openly proclaiming the advantages of the socialist system, by attributing its own economic successes to socialistic public ownership and by supporting the struggles of the working class and oppressed in the capitalist world. A powerful example of the latter was when the PRC, in the early 1970s, twice feted delegations of some of Australia’s leading Aboriginal rights activists (see: http://www.kooriweb.org/foley/images/history/1970s/china/chinadx2.html).

One thing that the rising tensions between the PRC and capitalist Australia have proved is that no matter how much the PRC tries to avoid interfering in the affairs of an imperialist country, she will still face prejudice and accusations of “interference”. That is why, in a sense, the PRC has nothing to lose if it were to start openly and aggressively promoting the socialist cause within countries like Australia. If she did so she would start to win significant sympathy amongst Australia’s working class people. For example, if the Australian masses, angry at the greed of the local banks, heard that the PRC has a sound financial system based on public ownership of all its key banks, they would find that rather attractive. And it would provide badly needed encouragement to their own struggle for socialism.

Resist the Attacks on the Pro-PRC Chinese Community!
Resist the New McCarthyism!

Today, the pro-PRC section of the Chinese community is facing not only the resurgent White Australia racism that is targeting all people of colour in this country but particular vilification in the context of an emerging, new Cold War witch-hunt against supporters of the socialistic PRC. This needs to be resisted by mass mobilisations on the streets. However, this is the task of not only the Chinese community but the entire left-wing and working class movement in Australia. For the Australian regime’s attacks on a large section of the Chinese community is an attack on all working class people. For one, the racism that this campaign is inciting divides working class people and thus weakens our ability to unite to fight for our rights. Secondly, the persecution of supporters of Red China could well turn into a broader witch-hunt against trade unionists and leftists. The McCarthyite witch-hunt in the U.S. first began with persecution of supporters of the USSR and then progressed to repression against all communists and eventually targeted people who advocated for social welfare and public health which were seen as communist policies. In Australia, the late 1940s and 1950s Cold War witch-hunt saw the regime first attacking communists and then using that to target all trade union militants. If the Australian ruling class’ current campaign against PRC supporters is not pushed back we can imagine that soon all avowed communists within Australia will face persecution; and later trade union militants and those who advocate policies that are also pursued by Beijing – such as extensive public housing and public ownership of key industries – will be targeted. Thirdly, the U.S. and Australian imperialist drive against the PRC is against the interests of working class people. Although the PRC’s government has allowed too much capitalist intrusion into China, the PRC remains a workers state where all the key sectors are under public ownership. This is a great treasure for all the workers and downtrodden of the world that must be protected.

With the capitalist rulers increasingly insecure, ever more worried about their system’s decay and ever more fearful about the stunning development of socialistic China we will only be able to put an end to racist scapegoating and Cold War-style witch-hunting when we sweep away this capitalist system for good. However, to advance the struggle towards that goal we need to fight right now to resist racist attacks on any victimised community and to oppose all crackdowns on pro-socialist political expression. And our struggle for workers liberation here will surely be stronger if we can ensure that the world’s most populous country continues to remain a workers state.

Fight back against the racist, red-baiting witch-hunt against the pro-PRC Chinese community! Oppose all the Australian regime’s racist attacks on Aboriginal people, Muslims, youth of African descent and refugees! Defend the right of supporters of the PRC to express our views! Resist the drift towards a new Cold War witch-hunt against leftists! Fight to free socialist political prisoner in Australia Chan Han Choi! Stand by the PRC – defend and strengthen socialistic rule in China!