Wednesday 2 June 2021

Australia’s Eschatological Diplomacy.

Riders In The Sky: This extraordinary snapshot of a thunderstorm over Brisbane reveals nothing less than the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse riding the storm-clouds to Doomsday. The Australian Right's dangerous liaisons with the dark eschatology of Evangelical Christianity have turned Australian diplomacy - especially as it relates to China - down a very dangerous path. 

Eschatology is a part of theology concerned with the final events of history, or the ultimate destiny of humanity. This concept is commonly referred to as “the end of the world” or “end times”. – Wikipedia


WHY ARE THE AUSTRALIANS behaving so provocatively towards China? What makes a nation of 25 million think itself the equal of a nation of more than a billion? China’s economy is second only to that of the United States’. Technologically, it is well ahead of the best Australian science has to offer. Militarily speaking, the Peoples Liberation Army dwarfs the Australian Defence Force. Oh, and China possesses its own nuclear arsenal, with rockets and guidance systems more than equal to the task of delivering a 20 kiloton atomic device through the front doors of the Australian Parliament and detonating it on the Speaker’s Chair.

A government would have to be mad to set itself and its people against a foe so huge and dangerous. Unfortunately, madness, might just turn out to be the most robust explanation for the Australian Government’s eschatological diplomacy.

Let’s begin our diagnosis with Australia’s frankly insane belief that China needs Australia’s iron ore more than Australia needs China’s iron ore purchases.

The most likely source of this delusional thinking is the undeniable fact that Australia holds nearly 54 percent of the world’s iron ore reserves. The problem with this figure is that, if China is removed from the equation, Australia’s huge quantities of iron ore could not be absorbed by any other market. Nowhere else on the planet is there anything like China’s demand for iron and steel. The USA, Europe and Japan are essentially sated economies, and the rest of the planet is simply too poor to take up the slack if China suddenly stopped buying – from Australia.

Because, of course, while Australia owns most of the world’s iron ore, it does not own all of it. At a pinch (and Australia has been pinching China pretty hard of late) China could turn to Brazil and South Africa for its iron ore supplies. Yes, it might take Beijing a little while to reorganise its mineral imports regime, but this minor inconvenience would inflict far less harm on the Chinese economy than the collapse of iron ore exports would inflict upon Australia’s.

The Aussies are fond of pointing their accusatory little fingers at New Zealand on account of the Kiwis’ extreme reluctance to offend the largest purchaser of their country’s crucial dairy exports. Truth be told, however, Australia earns an even larger chunk of its export receipts from China than New Zealand.

If Beijing were to impose a ban on the import of Australian iron ore, the economic impact would be devastating. In very short order, Australia would slide into a deep recession, generating political consequences inimical to the incumbent Liberal-National Coalition Government. The likely election of a Beijing-friendly Labor Government would not only bring the diplomatic and economic stand-off to an end, it would also deliver a harsh, but necessary, lesson in the realities of international politics to a (hopefully) chastened Liberal Party.

That’s the hopeful scenario. An alternative explanation for the current madness of the Australian Government is that, within its ranks, there exists a righteous gaggle of evangelical Christians for whom politics is no longer “the art of the possible”, but eschatological: facilitating the Second Coming of Christ.

The prospect of mutual nuclear annihilation was crucial to the refusal of both the United States and the Soviet Union to push their diplomatic competition beyond the point of no return. Neither side wished to see its people incinerated in a nuclear flash, or succumb slowly to the effects of radiation poisoning. Irrespective of their capitalist and socialist ideologies, Washington and Moscow remained essentially secular, scientific and rational. Had they not, the world would not have survived the First Cold War.

Much has changed, however, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the consequent ending of the First Cold War, in August 1991. In the United States, the ever-increasing influence of evangelical Christianity over the political process, especially over the Republican Party, has seen the practice of politics become radically less secular, less scientific and less rational. It has also undermined the political system’s capacity to respond self-defensively to existential threats. If the end of the world is perceived as a good thing: as the fulfilment of the prophecies contained in the Book of Revelation; what incentive does a true believer have for trying to prevent it from happening?

It is a sobering fact that between 1995 and 2007 Tim LaHay’s 16 “Rapture” novels repeatedly topped the bestseller lists. In 2016, alone, over 65 million copies were sold worldwide. No less an authority than Jerry Falwell reckoned the impact of LaHay’s novels on American Christianity at second only to the Bible itself. Believers in the Apocalypse look upon the end of the world – and fear no evil.

On 5 July 2005, the Sydney Morning Herald published a story headlined “Politics Goes To Church At Hillsong”. According to the SMH:

“They were all there - NSW Premier Bob Carr and federal ministers Alexander Downer, Kevin Andrews and Peter Dutton, as well as NSW Christian Democrats MP Fred Nile, Liberal MP David Clarke and other state parliamentarians.

“But the 20,000-strong crowd of evangelical Christians reserved their most enthusiastic applause for Treasurer Peter Costello, who received an almighty welcome – just as he did last year”.

Fifteen years on, it’s 2021, and Peter Dutton is Australia’s Defence Minister. His deep-seated hostility towards China is undisguised, as is his belief that some form of military confrontation with Beijing is inevitable. Peter Costello, who lays claim to the title of Australia’s longest-serving finance minister, is currently the Chair of Nine Entertainment Co. – the television network responsible for the rhetorical question: “Has New Zealand become New Xi-land?” (As in Xi Jinping, China’s President – geddit?)

It is difficult to know how New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade is able to deal sensibly with an Australian Government (and an Australian bureaucracy and defence force) in which evangelical Christian eschatology often seems to count for more than the rational assessment of national self-interest and self-preservation that has long guided New Zealand diplomacy.

One can only imagine what China’s politicians and diplomats make of Australia’s eschatological diplomacy. Let alone the fact that the Australian Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, is a member of the “Horizon” congregation – a “happy-clappy” evangelical community that just can’t wait for Jesus to win the Battle of Armageddon and carry up the righteous to glory.


This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Tuesday, 1 June 2021.

20 comments:

Rusty said...

Doesn't help that lots of right wing evangelicals in NZ, as in the US, are now being supported by the poisonous Steve Bannon.

Tom Hunter said...

Much has changed, however, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the consequent ending of the First Cold War, in August 1991. In the United States, the ever-increasing influence of evangelical Christianity over the political process, especially over the Republican Party,...

Oh Pfft. I heard exactly the same hysterical nonsense from the Left about Reagan during the 1980's, especially when he was first elected. There were seemingly endless articles in the likes of Time, The NYT, and other such MSM's about evangelical Christians "increasing" dominance in the GOP and the scary influence they had on Reagan, where their apocalyptic Biblical prophesies might lead him to pull the nuclear trigger. All of which proved to be just so much partisan and ideological attack politics when the veil of history was lifted on the inside stories years or decades later.

And now in The Year Of Our Lord 2021, you're trying to pull a downscaled form of this stunt on the Australian right-wing government. Come on; Australia is simply joining an increasingly lengthy list of nations, most of which are Asian, who have been getting intimidated by China and have decided to start pushing back, at a minimum by joining together in military exercises and diplomatic and economic efforts. On that last:

If Beijing were to impose a ban on the import of Australian iron ore, the economic impact would be devastating. In very short order, Australia would slide into a deep recession,

Actually no, as economics analyst, Michael Reddell, pointed out in this piece, Economic coercion:

That is pretty much what you’d expect in a commodity product: some cost, some disruption, some stress for firms involved, but at the end of the day overall global demand and supply conditions won’t have changed much if at all. What we don’t see is any sign of severe economy-wide consequences: there is no mention of the issue (or risks) in the Reserve Bank of Australia’s latest (lengthy) minutes (by contrast, changes in New Zealand population growth actually get a mention).
It seems to a third-order issue at a macroeconomic level – and the overall economy is what governments should be thinking about when they consider economic risks and consequences.


Which is what you'd expect for a commodity - total gross iron ore exports from Australia - that amounts to about 5 per cent of their GDP. Individual companies might get hurt but that's not the same thing, and as Riddell points out, the impact of such a thing on Australia (or NZ) does not even come close to that of something like the GFC or the Covid lockdowns.

And it's not as if he's just arguing the numbers and economic models:

but it is not as if Australia is the only country the PRC has tried coercion on. They’ve had a go at Norway, at South Korea, at Taiwan, at the Philippines, at Mongolia, at Japan, in one form or another. In some case the governments have buckled – lobbying for special interests will do that – but in no case was there any evidence of a very large adverse macroeconomic effect. Nothing of the bogeyman story that our “elites” would like us to believe, that to offend China would be to jeopardise our very economic security or prosperity.

Heh! "Our Elites", like Comcast China lobbyist John Key. The company you may end up keeping, Chris, in your efforts to pretend that this is just another anti-communist Cold War.

Guerilla Surgeon said...

I don't know a great deal about the religious right in Australia – to the point where I was little surprised when whatshisface made that statement about his religion on national television. But I know that in the US it is a danger, and that they are exporting it. US Dominionists are pretty much responsible for much of the anti-gay legislation and feeling in Africa for instance. And of course the religious right supported Donald Trump, even though he is the antithesis of their supposed values.
And of course they insist they are being discriminated against if they are not allowed to discriminate against others. They are anti-Semitic, yet support Israel simply because they think that country is going to bring on the Armageddon that precedes the rapture. The more extreme of them advocate for torture, and the execution of gay people. They also advocate for the downsizing or abolition of the social welfare system, because of course as Jesus said "We can't feed all these people – it would only create dependency."
And what I find both distressing and amusing in equal measure, is that they excoriated Bill Clinton for his infidelities, but don't seem to care about Trump's – they're quite willing to swallow a dead rat to get abortion made illegal. And they are well on their way to doing it, even though the Supreme Court hasn't been quite the puppet they expected it to be. And if there is a church left of reasonable size that hasn't covered up some child abuse I'll eat my hat. The crazy is certainly strong over there.
They are working towards a theocracy, and I think that we need to strengthen our position on church/state separation. Because at the moment we don't really have one.

CXH said...

Well that is a surprise, Chris you obviously would have been a supporter of Chamberlain prior to WWII. China is being a bully on the world stage. Claiming protection from international rules when it suits them and just ignoring them when it doesn't.

Australia is showing it has some backbone and is not prepared to prostitute itself for another RMB. NZ is showing that its most likely future is the Albania of this century.

greywarbler said...

One can only say with an upward inflexion 'Good God'!

This is a snippet from the past that is of interest. We have employed an Oz PM here. They have employed Rarnaby Budge (oops Barnaby Joist - thick as a plank) over there. Let's keep to NZs here please, people who have more than a foot in the country before they accumulate cash and go back to mash us from home.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/119419731/tourism-wars-1m-payouts-and-an-arrogant-future-australian-pm-at-the-centre-of-a-very-kiwi-scandal

ScoMo Dundee: A future Aussie PM's role in New Zealand's great tourism wars
…Within weeks of his arrival in Wellington in 1998, the future Australian prime minister had plunged headfirst into a messy political saga – dubbed by media at the time as 'the Tourism Wars'.

"Like a cross between Rasputin and Crocodile Dundee," was how former Dominion Post political editor Nick Venter described Morrison after the extent of his involvement in the scandal was revealed…

Brendan McNeill said...

Chris

I have been appreciating your commentary over recent months, but every so often you drift off into the irrational and bizarre, this post being one example. I have noted that you appear to harbour a deep dislike for evangelical Christianity. Perhaps you have had a bad experience, who knows, but you are a long way from understanding the influence of Christianity in Australia. Almost 20% of secondary students are educated in Church or explicitly Christian schools, primary schooling is a little less, but similar.

Furthermore, about 16% of the population regularly attend church in that country, which is approximately double the number for New Zealand. No doubt more would profess Christianity, but not regularly attend.

And, surprise surprise, they knowingly elect Christian politicians, and then return them to parliament, much to the media’s angst and obvious disgust. Suggesting that any mainstream Christian, let alone Australia’s PM and members of his Cabinet are seeking to invoke the apocalypse by some means is an absurd proposition and does you no credit.

It appears not to have occurred to you that the Australian Government understands the economic value of trade with China, but have had a guts full of China’s subversive activities in their country. In addition they have expressed concern about what is taking place in the South China Sea, and the genocide against their Uyghur people. They have also angered China by seeking honest answers about the source of the Covid-19 virus, which is now increasingly looking like it came from the Wuhan lab. A lab I might add that received funding from the USA to conduct some of its viral experiments.

It is clear they have expressed these concerns out of a conviction that their bedrock values as a nation are worth more than (say) thirty pieces of silver. There has always been a price to pay for anyone who displays both courage and integrity. These are extremely rare commodities amongst politicians; attributes I would have though you might welcome both at home and abroad.

Guerilla Surgeon said...


Sumsuch– I believe you are asking for critiques of Jordan Peterson. I think someone came up with the conversation between him and the QI guy whose name escapes me at the moment – and it's not worth looking up. This was hardly a critique simply a conversation. Here are some critiques to get you started. I'm not sure if you would trust the people involved I more or less do – the young guy below I don't particularly like, but I'm perhaps a little jealous of the fact that he is more intelligent than I was at his age. He's done a series debunking Jordan Peterson, and does it quite well for a young bloke it seems to me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwXAB6cICG0

Richard Wolff is a Marxist professor emeritus at an American university but you won't be afraid of that obviously.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liT7e5M6XfY

This guy I know less about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIh2wQkCqoI

And absolutely nothing about this guy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQ3RL3WZaXg

But there does seem to be a variety of people and qualifications here – and one or two good thinkers.

Wayne Mapp said...

Tom,
Are you seriously suggesting that the Republican Party of today is the same as the Republican Party of Reagan?
Frankly that is an absurd proposition.
On the broader point about the contest with China. There is no doubt there is a cross party view in the US, and to a substantial extent in Australia, that China represents a major challenge, one that must be met. Kurt Campbell the lead China person in the Biden administration being the most important. I know from direct experience that he is of the view that the US is in a new Cold War. One that the US must win. His job is mobilise an international coalition to step up against China. Australia, Japan, India and the US being the core group. All have historic and strategic reasons to work together on this.As is clearly evident NZ is expected to play a part, at least to some extent. Opting out will not be possible, though obviously we have a level of discretion as to how involved NZ will be.
I personally completely discount the Christianity aspect, at least in the sense of risking nuclear war. But there is no doubt ideology is a powerful motivated. The democracies against an increasingly strident dictatorship.

Patricia said...

I totally agree with all you said Chris. Live and let live. We are all different. There is more than one way to skin a cat and we don’t have to do it the same way. If the evangelical christians want to meet their god they do have a way without in involving the rest of us.

Nick J said...

Tom, you hit the thorney question of what the hell is of economic value. In Aussies case about a quarter of GDP is export based, 60% services based. In tangible terms exports and imports generally mean items you can touch, not ethereal stuff we do such as lawyering, accounting, cutting hair etc.

Im not an economist so I cannot in their terms capture whatever service economies do. I do however understand economies that make and distribute tangible touchable objects such as food or cars or iron ore. I suspect that the CCP understand the relationship between unsold ore and the dinner arriving on Australian tables. That may be a very fine balance for both parties.

sumsuch said...

Make China 'lovable'? Out of the aggressive China their latest fount of all wisdom has produced?! South Korea and Taiwan are democracies, don't expect me to try to wrap my head around China's 'point of view'. Most alienating of all is their technological tracking of their citizens' every movement, and most awfully, thoughts.

They have the strength of being one and the weakness of only being one. All of their neighbours, except for the equally foul, hate them. NZ should never have suggested otherwise. Solidarity! Lessen our trade.

Interesting the dictator's 'lovable' thing came after the joint statement from Ardern and Morrison.

greywarbler said...

Tom Hunter talks in an apparently informed way about Australia exporting to China. I thought it would be good to see some detail. You can wallow in the welter if you wish.

Australian boasting box  -  https://www.dfat.gov.au/publications/trade-and-investment/trade-and-investment-glance-2020#australia-is-a-top-20-country(Australia is the No.1 global exporter or iron ore and coal) and high in the ladder for other extractive items.Other interesting stats.

Find graphs on google with keywords - Australian exports of iron ore and other minerals by graph: Australia on one pie chart as Major iron ore producer at 44% - Brazil next at 29%

Pie Chart of Australia Trade at a Glance for 2011 -
Minerals and Fuels were 47.5% earning billions $135.0 (largest category)Services, Manufactures and Rural about 41%Gold and Other Goods about 10%

https://tradingeconomics.com/australia/exports-to-china
The amalgamation of *extractive items is higher than the amalgamated figure for General Merchandise and Non-Rural Goods - so digging into the ground counts for a lot in the Oz financial flows.
Metal Ores and MineralsMetalliferous Ores and Metal ScrapIron Ore and ConcentratesCoal - Coke and BriquettesCoal, Coke & Briquettes (twice listed)thenGas, Natural (twice listed different categories)

Australia is feeling good - their figures are generally up after the effects of Covid19.    https://tradingeconomics.com/australia/exports

Tom Hunter said...

Are you seriously suggesting that the Republican Party of today is the same as the Republican Party of Reagan?
Frankly that is an absurd proposition.


I am continually amazed that a man who was a Cabinet Minister could be so unable to read what people write.

No, Wayne, I am merely noting that when it comes to Evangelical Christian influence on the GOP, particularly in relation to foreign policy, the Cold War and nuclear war, I heard exactly the same worried concerns from the likes of Chris in Reagan's time that I'm reading now in this post about the Australian PM and his party, and that they were as much a nonsense then as they are now.

Tom Hunter said...

Are you seriously suggesting that the Republican Party of today is the same as the Republican Party of Reagan?
Frankly that is an absurd proposition.


I am continually amazed that a man who was a Cabinet Minister could be so unable to read what people write.

No, Wayne, I am merely noting that when it comes to Evangelical Christian influence on the GOP, particularly in relation to foreign policy, the Cold War and nuclear war, I heard exactly the same worried concerns from the likes of Chris in Reagan's time that I'm reading now in this post about the Australian PM and his party, and that they were as much a nonsense then as they are now.

Tom Hunter said...

One more thing Wayne:

Kurt Campbell the lead China person in the Biden administration being the most important. I know from direct experience that he is of the view that the US is in a new Cold War. One that the US must win.

My but you have changed your tune since you complained in 2019 about how I was indulging in "more tiresome China bashing" over at No Minister.

Politicians and political winds eh?

greywarbler said...

I suggest Tom Hunter that Wayne has changed his view upon consideration of changes and what is applicable to the current situation. You seem adept at repeating yourself, and I would expect, ad infinitum.

Tom Hunter said...

Oooo - burn on that last one.

In fact a repeat copy comment has only ever happened to me here once, and my comments appear only slowly through Chris's moderation so I am in no position to delete a twice-submitted comment. I hit "Publish" and it vanishes from sight until, hopefully, Chris approves it, which seems to happen to others faster given that responses to me often seem to appear at the same time that my comments do.

WRT Wayne I applaud anybody who can change his mind but the criticisms that I was making of China in 2019 that he found so tiresome, are the same ones that exist now but amidst far more people. That's probably the key change.

sumsuch said...

If you fly high enough you see everything, on the downside not detailed enough. Disinterested, but uninformed. A fine balance.

GS I've seen Woolff's refutations. Off-handed, as befits an honest truth-seeker set on his own studies first. If public intellectual Hitchens was around Peterson would be dropped and 'dead'.



sumsuch said...

Grey, 90 percent of your fellow evangelical believers will go with their comfort over reality. You, Rod Oram and, maybe (re his beliefs) Chris are exceptions. It is a solid decision now, between that version of christianity and fighting for reality. They are just not compatible in the main. Love god and love your neighbour, certainly, but that's not the main thrust of christianity via America's plutocracy.

greywarbler said...

Me an evangelical? I try to go with reality and find something in it that will give me comfort. And eva's seem to be far away from what I think I think. The religious are so set in their minds, that perhaps Bertrand Russell' s quote applies. My quote: I think they are obsessed with sex and should concentrate on being kind and practical.


The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts. Bertrand Russell
https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/bertrand_russell_121392