Increase a glass to warfare crimes: World marketing campaign to purchase Aussie wine in China commerce battle is shockingly ill-timed

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Australian outrage at Beijing’s meme of a murderous Aussie soldier has been undermined by appalling new photographs from Afghanistan. Not the perfect time, then, to attempt to persuade the world that China is the ‘unhealthy man’ of their commerce warfare.

The continued row between Australia and its largest buying and selling associate, China, begs one easy query: since when did us Aussies turn out to be so thin-skinned?

One offensive social media meme posted by a functionary of the Chinese language authorities and the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China has launched a ‘purchase Aussie wine’ marketing campaign in a bid to shore up our commerce deficit and present solidarity in opposition to the bullies from Beijing. 

I jest. However this group of elected MPs from all over the world has sided, seemingly with out asking too many questions, with the Australians as they battle with Beijing over the state of their A$ 252bn commerce cope with their gigantic northern neighbor.

Now now we have a bunch of worldwide IPAC wannabes and has-beens urging the remainder of the world to stump up for a bottle of plonk from Barossa Valley, Penfolds, or Wolf Blass to assist make up for the shortfall in Chinese language demand since they slapped punitive tariffs on Aussie wine and different imports.

As one wag on Twitter identified, “You’ll need to additionally purchase a shitload of barley, wheat, lobster, timber, coal, cotton, sugar, copper & quickly iron ore to go along with that wine if you wish to restore the harm #ScottyFromMarketing has executed to a 100-year-old commerce relationship.”

Whereas he has a degree, different commentators urged glass of wine may make for a becoming toast: “Let’s have a drink of wine to have fun Aussie warfare crimes,” was one suggestion. Ouch, there’s that warfare crimes discuss once more.

It was Beijing’s undiplomatic dig at which PM Scott Morrison (the ‘Scotty from Advertising’ talked about) took offence. A “repugnant” Chinese language social media meme exhibiting an Aussie soldier slitting the throat of an Afghan youngster draped within the Australian flag whereas clutching a lamb, captioned “Don’t be afraid. We’re coming to convey you peace” went viral, and never simply Down Underneath.

This crude meme, in fact, was a touch upon the just lately launched top-level Brereton report on the battlefield behaviour of Australia’s elite SAS regiment in Afghanistan, which claimed a murderous “warrior tradition” was accountable for the deaths of 39 harmless Afghan civilians by the hands of Aussie troopers.

The Chinese language clearly know that report has ripped the nation aside, largely over who knew what and when, and of their try and wind up the PM, they hit it clear over the boundary fence. 

OK, so it’s a sore topic, however Morrison ought to have recognized higher than to take the Chinese language bait, however he did, and hook, line and sinker. We had been as soon as famend as a bunch of laid-back larrikins with a depraved humorousness and right here is our chief, squealing with social media indignation, as a result of some low-level official slaving away at his pigeonhole in a dreary gray workplace in Beijing has mentioned one thing nasty about us on Twitter. 

Morrison ought to have ignored the infantile provocation on social media. Youngsters lose their rag over slights on Twitter. World leaders don’t. Trolls:1. Scotty from Advertising: zero. 

Not solely has it proven a really un-Australian haste to take offence, it seems just like the PM is making an attempt the ‘lifeless cat’ technique championed by famed Aussie political strategist Lynton Crosby, the place the thought is to introduce a dramatic, surprising, or sensationalist matter to divert consideration away from one which’s extra damaging. So, have a look at these bullying Chinese language and their slurs in opposition to Australia. (Don’t have a look at our beforehand revered troopers going rogue with “bloodlust” and slaughtering folks they’re supposed to guard.)

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An Australian soldier drinks beer from a prosthetic leg that belonged to a Taliban fighter
Pic of Aussie soldier CHUGGING BEER from ‘prosthetic leg of lifeless Taliban fighter’ emerges amid Afghan warfare crimes report fallout

To pile on the ache for Morrison, this week, footage have appeared on-line exhibiting Australian troops chugging beer from a prosthetic leg taken from the physique of a Taliban militant killed in an assault in 2009. It makes that Chinese language meme look tame and Morrison seem much more ridiculous.

The Aussies have solely themselves accountable for locating themselves on this mess. Making an attempt to curry favour with Donald Trump again in April, they had been on the entrance of the queue in calling for a world inquiry into the coronavirus pandemic, with the subtext being that one thing fishy went down in Wuhan that China was not sharing with the remainder of the world. 

Beijing disagreed. Understandably, it took offence on the finger-pointing foreigners and their assertions, and determined Australia ought to be punished with sanctions for selecting to take a lead within the China-bashing.

Firstly, they slapped punishingly excessive tariffs on a variety of Australian imports, comparable to wine. However now, after months of tit-for-tat and name-calling, with Canberra selecting to battle again and take the ethical excessive floor over human rights – no-one point out Australia’s indigenous peoples or asylum seekers in offshore detention centres, please – China lastly discovered a vulnerability it may exploit within the controversial navy report.

Every section of this ongoing and bad-tempered saga is like an episode from the long-running Aussie cleaning soap ‘Neighbours’. Everyone seems to be fast to take offence and accusations fly like, properly, flies at a barbecue. And what’s that scent? Oh, yeah, I recognise it. That’s the stench of smouldering hypocrisy, and it’s coming from each side of the fence.

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