Former Australian diplomat Bruce Haigh utilized a mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party to endorse Australia’s opposition leader Anthony Albanese as his pick for the next Prime Minister, calling on him to repair Australia-China relations.
“Albanese is a cautious person and politician. He is not an intellectual. He has demonstrated a propensity to believe the US view of the world without analysis,” Haigh, who is also a regular contributor for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation wrote in an op-ed for the propaganda outlet on Feb. 14.
“He is not a lateral thinker, he is not creative, he will not be a charismatic leader. He will be a safe leader, if not an ordinary leader,” Haigh said, advocating the Australian Labor Party (ALP) leader as his pick in the country’s upcoming general elections in May.
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“Nonetheless, in comparison to Morrison, he positively shines, such is the abysmal state of Australian politics,” he added.
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Haigh expressed his hopes that with Albanese in the pole position, he would bring Australia back to the “shore” and repair essential relationships with China.
However, “At the moment, he is being swept along by a fear of upsetting voters prior to the Federal election due in weeks,” Haigh said.
Haigh furthermore blamed the “Murdoch-dominated media in Australia” for stirring up an supposedly “anti-China” mindset among the populace.
He also contended that current PM Scott Morrison of the ruling National Liberal Party coalition (NLP) had “acquiesced” to the United States and, more specifically, former President Donald Trump, in its worsening relationship with China. A relationship that Haigh claimed took a “dramatic turn with his (Morrison’s) Trump-inspired Wuhan/COVID aspersion.”
The author referred to Morrison’s call for an independent investigation into the origins of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in Wuhan, which provoked a trade embargo by China on Australian products.
This apparently was a kind of retaliation the CCP issued for merely bringing up the possibility that China would have had a share in disseminating SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, worldwide as part of a larger plan.
“It was a pathetic attempt to please a ridiculous President,” Haigh added, while stating, “Morrison is a clown. Fewer and fewer people in Australia are taking him seriously, which is a hopeful sign for the future.”
Political backlash
Haigh’s unsolicited endorsement of a new Prime Minister came at a rather inconvenient moment for the leader of the ALP during the run-up to the federal elections.
Labor has come increasingly under fire by conservative politicians and media for cozying up too eagerly with China.
Several conservative media interpreted the hit piece as the smoking gun that proved how much the Global Times and Beijing are interfering in Australian politics.
Sky News headlined an article pointing out Global Times “backs Anthony Albanese as Prime Minister as questions mount over Labor’s ties with Beijing,” while news.com.au simply quoted Morrison as he referred to Albanese as a “Manchurian candidate.”
“We now see evidence that the Chinese Communist Party has also made a decision about who they’re going to back in the next federal election,” Defense Minister and outright opponent of a more friendly China-policy, Peter Dutton said, according to Sky.
“And that is open and obvious,” Dutton added. “And they have picked this bloke (Albanese) as their candidate.”
“I’m indifferent to it,” Albanese said about Haigh’s flirtations with the ALP according to AAP. “Ultimately, what we’re focused on is the position that we have in relation to national security,” he said.
On Feb. 10, Morrison referred to China when he said in parliament that he doesn’t seek to appease those who try to “coerce Australia.”
The leader of the Labor Party said he’s happy to trade away and ask China “to accept some and stand by some of their coercion,” he added.
“You can appease, or you can stand up for what you believe in as a country,” Morrison told Sky News. “And no one has any doubts about our government when it comes to which path we’d take.”
