Keating said the South China Sea is to China what Cuba was to the US during the Cuban missile crisis- The recalcitrant ignored the sovereign states who also claim the South China Sea,all of whom are Australia's allies, two are FPDA partners

 by Ganesh Sahathevan 

Paul Keating in 2016, interviewed by Kerry O'Brien:


Keating: So the Chinese are all about pushing American naval power away from their coast. But the Americans still operate surveillance across the Chinese coast. If the Chinese blue water navy sailed down the coast of San Diego, I mean, the Americans would be horrified. And you saw what happened with Jack Kennedy and Cuba – when the Soviet Union tried to put missiles on Cuba, Kennedy and the Americans made clear that the Caribbean was their area of very exclusive domain,. And this is underpinning, in a messy kind of way, what’s happening in the South China Sea.




The former Australian prime minister ignored completely the claims of Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia over the South China Sea.

Keating also ignores the ongoing court, UN and on sea  conflicts between China and the other claimants, which have become a regular feature of that area. Truly a recalcitrant in this ongoing problem that threatens the region, and as the map above demonstrates, the Australian economy. 

All these states are Australian allies or at least friendly nations, Singapore and Malaysia are Five Power Defence Agreement partners. 

To Be Read With

Thursday, March 16, 2023

Former Australian PM Paul Keating''s desperate attempts to scuttle AUKUS and defend China likely a reflection of growing bad loans at China Development Bank' - Keating was once chairman of CDB and seems fearful that AUKUS will disrupt China's plans to "tidy up the east" and complete "obvious economic colonisation of the 50-odd states between the western border of China up to at least western Europe.

 by Ganesh Sahathevan 

Like a desperate Chinese businessman former Australian PM Paul Keating has become even more farcical in his attacks on his country's decision to join the US and UK in the AUKUS nuclear submarine program. 

In his latest attack he claimed that US Virginia class submarines are so big that they are visible to satellites (see video above). 

It does appear, given his links to Chin Development Bank (he was once its chairman) is that  AUKUS will disrupt China's plans to , in his words, "tidy up the east" and then move on to the "reasonably obvious economic colonisation of the 50-odd states between the western border of China up to at least western Europe.”

Keating was a director of Chinese Development Bank when he uttered the following in 2016:
“The Chinese want to tidy up the east - but their real future is in the west," he said. "They want to rebuild the old silk road, the railways and highways up through the ‘Stan countries', through Istanbul, up to the Baltic coast of Poland," he said.

“What we’re going to see is a reasonably obvious economic colonisation of the 50-odd states between the western border of China up to at least western Europe.”

The CDB has lead the way in making loans to Belt And Road initiatives, and it is no secret that many of those loans have gone or are going bad. Any delay in implementing China's projects that are tied to those loans would probably have negative consequences for the CDB are other Chinese banks.

Keating's expectation that Japan and ASEAN would be "tidied up" by this point of time in accordance with China's plans has not happened. AUKUS is seen by China as a disruption to its "tidying up", and Keating understands that that will mean deteriorating loans books at the CDB and other Chinese banks.