Quote:
Originally Posted by Helium
I dont however like that he immediately after his election pulled Australia out of the joint Singapore, India, Japan and US annual defence meeting, which some people and China viewed as a Pacific NATO to contain China, which I believe it is and I think this is a good thing when you have a ideolically different giant emerging and significantly lacking in transperancy especially to do with Defence spending. I believe the majority of Australians would agree with being in this defence treaty and I question why then he would pull out, the action he took didn't benefit Australia (although it didn;t hurt) but seems to have been more benficial to China.
Rudd was democratically elected by Australians and I expect him to act in Australias interests not Chinas nor any others (not that I am implying he has but i am sceptical of him). And i do not believe withdrawing from that defence treaty was in our interest as much as to appease Chinese relations, but as another member said in this thread - China does not like to mix its economic and strategic interests/diplomacy - so our economic ties with China were not threatened by the treaty and I believe diplomatic ties aswell.
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I can understand your sentiment as an Australian.
Watching from the sideline, I want to say that good cops and bad cops are all cops. Their behavior may seem contradictory, but in the grand scheme of things their actions complement each other to accomplish their common objectives. Rudd is in a unique position to play good cop. No one else in the world can play his role. If he decides to play good cop, he has to pull out of that multinational alliance against China to gain some credibility to play good cop. The fact that we have this discussion is a proof that playing good cop is much harder than playing bad cop. I hope Australian will back him up to assume this tough role. Your statement about Rudd’s effort to reduce special interest influence to the government also says that Rudd wants to be responsible for the general public, not just special interests. I tend to trust this type of politician.
Interestingly, Taiwan’s president-elect Ma Ying-jeou will need to play a similar the good cop role. He currently enjoys very strong support from voters in Taiwan, because we realized that playing a bad cop role was a disaster for us. Nevertheless, playing good cop is a tougher role. He surely will be questioned by people in Taiwan in the near future. That seems unavoidable for a good cop
