China’s military buildup
Emma Graham-Harrison’s report China dredges up a frontline (5 June) on China’s military buildup in the South China Sea islands fails to acknowledge adequately the developments in the region that offer a clear understanding of the issues. Graham-Harrison fails to mention that China has claimed the disputed islands as Chinese territory since the 12th century, when Chinese texts record these islands as part of China.
We should take note also that the US has numerous military bases in Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and Taiwan and that a number of Pacific islands host nuclear warships, nuclear missiles and B-1 bombers. America’s seventh fleet – with more than 70 warships plus aircraft carriers with hundreds of fighter planes – continuously patrols the East and South China seas.
In addition, it is well known that President Obama’s Asia Pivot policy announced in 2011 in his speech in Australia’s parliament is intended to strangle China militarily, while America’s Trans-Pacific Partnership is intended to strangle it economically. It was the US who initiated these moves years before China’s military buildup.
Considering these facts, China’s military installations in the South China Sea islands are clearly a reaction to America’s overt military threats.
Bill Mathew
Melbourne, Australia
• That hardline warning in the Chinese press that “war [is] inevitable if the US [tries] to stop the reclamation projects” in the South China Sea is the kind of thing that is once again making us nervous down here in our antipodean isolation from Europe and America. But it may be that our fear of Chinese military aggression – a fear that has a lot to do with our experience fighting off the Japanese in the 1940s – is focused in the wrong place.
A 1938 book in my late father’s library had an interesting thing to say about the tension between nations in our region at a time when we were experiencing growing nervousness at the rise of an aggressive Japan. It’s a message that may well be applicable to our current fear of an aggressive, expansionist, China.
That book, Japan Reaches Out by Willard Price, stressed that “national supremacy is in the last analysis a matter of economics, not guns. If the Japanese can make better mouse traps than the rest of us”, wrote Price, “guns will not stop them conquering the earth”.
In the end, in the particular circumstances of that time, the Japanese did use military force – and lots of it. And it was guns that stopped them.
But in the far less aggressive circumstances of today, Price’s notion could still hold true. Nearly everything we buy down under, so it seems, is made in China. And we are still heavily dependent for our export wealth on the China market.
If push came to shove in Sino-Australian relations, they would have us over a barrel economically, notwithstanding our strong US military alliance. They wouldn’t necessarily need to use their guns.
Terry Hewton
Adelaide, South Australia
Problem with referendums
The problem with referendums is not “that they can go horribly wrong” (Cameron should beware the referendum, 5 June). They go wrong when the process is abused by political leaders. Switzerland provides the evidence that when the referendum process is under citizen control it is efficient and effective.
The Swiss typically vote on 12 to 14 national referendums every year. These referendums are not initiated by the Swiss government. Some are required by their constitution; most are petitioned by citizens.
The Swiss referendum process keeps politicians on their toes. They know that a vote is likely to be petitioned where parliament fails to act. Citizens are aware of the referendum option should politicians fail to respond to public demands. They also know, however, that it is citizens, not the government, who will have to live with the consequences.
The country’s political and economic stability is due to the responsibility the Swiss constitution assigns to citizens for their own governance.
André Carrel
Terrace, British Columbia, Canada
Australia’s asylum failure
The assertion that “Australia has successfully stopped its boat-people problem by the simple expedient of rescuing them, if necessary, and then returning them to their point of origin” is a staggering misstatement (Reply, 29 May). How wide it is of the truth can be seen in the report of the commonwealth and immigration ombudsman, which slams the Australian government for its prolonged detention of asylum seekers after finding children are being born and remain in detention facilities waiting for their families’ claims of protection to be processed.
The ombudsman noted the government’s duty of care to detainees, and the damage done to their physical and mental wellbeing. The director of the International Detention Coalition said Australia had one of the longest immigration detention rates in the world. So much for the benign policies with which the Australian government is credited.
Malcolm Ronan
Melbourne, Australia
Give Canada a break
It’s time the eco-world took a reality check and eased up on Canada bashing (Oil still king in Canada’s west, 15 May). It’s true that we are top of the league in per-capita production of CO2, but given our climate and population distribution, is that really so surprising? Moreover, much of that CO2 comes from the production of food and natural resources that are eagerly used by the rest of the world, who hypocritically assign the CO2 content to us rather than to them. Our CO2 production is minuscule compared with that from the “dirty five” of China, the US, Russia, the EU and Japan; if we stopped all Canadian CO2 emissions tomorrow, the resulting change in the atmospheric CO2 content would be less than the analytical error involved in its measurement.
We’re all in favour of CO2 reduction, but achieving that aim itself will take energy derived partly from hydrocarbons. Wouldn’t you rather that the energy came from responsible producers in Canada than from the Middle East cauldron?
A Mitchell
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Uzbekistan’s rights abuses
Your article Fear still grips Uzbek refugees (29 May) makes no reference to the international response to the massacre. It is interesting to reflect that when Craig Murray was sent as British ambassador to Uzbekistan in 2002, he did his best to alert the British government to Islam Karimov’s abuse of human rights – a bland phrase for activities that included boiling dissidents alive.
His reward was to be removed from his post in 2004 and hounded from the Foreign Office. Read all about it in his book Murder in Samarkand.
Peter Coltman
Leeds, UK
Briefly
• After reading Catherine Bennett’s article about British tourists’ barely concealed revulsion at having to look at migrants (5 June), I am deeply ashamed to be British. Are we in northern Europe, safe in our homes and with the luxury of taking a holiday, so completely devoid of any compassion or understanding of people so desperate, so terror-stricken that they are prey first to the greed of the people smugglers and then to persecution when they finally think they are safe?
Gillian Hearn
Monemvasia, Greece
• In Guess who’s not coming to dinner (22 May), Amelia Gentleman quoted a member’s comment about the (usually capitalised) “master of the rolls”. For a moment I wondered whether she was referring to someone in charge of the Drones Club-like bread roll throwing mentioned in the previous paragraph.
Richard Holland
Cobourg, Ontario, Canada
• Vladimir Putin scoring eight goals in an all-star game featuring former NHL legends (29 May) is reminiscent of a basketball game where Idi Amin and his palace staff played against the Ugandan Air Force team. The final score was 100-0. President Amin scored 98 points and one of his wives scored two.
James T Neilson
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
• Did Prince Charles really intend to shake the hand of Gerry Adams? The Eyewitnessed photograph (29 May) suggests he was expecting Gerry to relieve him of the empty tea cup and saucer in his other hand.
Anthony Walter
Surrey, British Columbia, Canada
• With such a moniker, Sly Bailey (former Trinity Mirror chief) could have popped right out of a Dickens tale (29 May).
R M Fransson
Wheat Ridge, Colorado, US
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