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Editorial: Wen Jiabao takes the yellowcake

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) arrives in Australia today to do some serious business. How serious? Billions of dollars in the years to come, largely involving energy. Most observers will be denied access to his most telling conversations with Australian Prime Minister John Howard and Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, but it is likely that Howard will make only a token nod to human rights abuses before moving on to settle a uranium deal to end them all. And it is a done deal: Wen would not travel so far from the Central Kingdom unless it were a fait accompli, and Australia would not dare allow the premier to lose face on such a critical matter.

The manner of language Wen will use is just as predictable. Here's a sample: In an interview in Thursday's edition of the Australian newspaper with its editor-in-chief and China correspondent, Wen imperiously greeted his guests with cliched selections from the Analects as if educated Australians had never heard of Confucius. His guests, of course, were too polite to reply with a lesser known Confucian query, such as: "In practicing government, sir, why should you kill?" (子為政，焉用殺)

If there is one thing that is more troubling than autocrats appealing to Confucian wisdom, it is the near silence that reigns in Australia over the propriety of the uranium deal. Nobody with seeming influence is asking how a regime that presides over massive desecration of the countryside, lies about environmental mishaps and punishes whistleblowers can be trusted to manage not only the operations of nuclear reactors in the long term but also guard the vast amounts of radioactive waste that must be stored securely for an eternity. And that's not considering the possibility of uranium transfer to China's nuclear weapons program or the terrorist threat.

Federation for a Democratic China (Australian division) head Chin Jin (秦晉) has expressed reservations about the deal on just these points. But polls indicate that most people in Australia are much too impressed by the money to care, let alone a government ecstatic about the revitalized market for uranium in China and, maybe, India.

Unlike the US, where for strategic and philosophical reasons there is a reliable and vocal core of sentiment backing Taiwan against Chinese aggression, the Australian establishment has no substantial pro-Taiwan lobby to balance excesses spawned by lip-smacking over a "rising China." Still, it would be encouraging to see Howard and his foreign minister seize the opportunity to publicly warn China against any cross-strait act of aggression. But Howard knows it is not his place to lecture a Son of the Dragon: The consequences of impertinence would be too great, as with vassal states of old.

The conclusion of this uranium deal coincides deliciously not only with an Australian senate report expressing concern over China's military, but also the summoning to the Cole inquiry of Australia's trade and defense ministers over what they really know about bribery in the sale of Australian wheat to former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's government. The irony of this seems to have escaped most commentators, but from a Taiwanese point of view, the Australian government's documented ineptitude -- if not outright corruption -- in its dealings with a vicious autocracy does not bode well.

Until the time comes that Canberra stands up and unequivocally supports Taiwan's democracy against any form of Chinese violence, its actions in relation to China on key matters such as uranium sales and military contacts -- however they are intended -- can only be regarded as hostile.

As for that heroic but pathetic breed of Chinese known as the "democrat" -- who is hoping against hope for a committed advocacy of human rights -- Australia's easy embrace of an autocratic agenda can only serve to further discourage and bewilder.
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