China Diplomacy: The Wet Celery Strategy

Foreign Minister Wong's Mantra: "Cooperate where we can and disagree where we must, and to manage these differences wisely" has been repeatedly hijacked by reality. Now What ?

grey zone

Gray Zone Getting Bleaker

When an Australian serviceperson finally dies as a result of PLA actions, it will be a surprise to the Australian public. We are inching closer to the inevitable, but so far the average voter isn’t paying attention.

That’s why China likes the gray zone¹.

The Latest Outrage

Flares:

Last week, A Chinese jet fired flares across the propellors of an Australian navy helicopter in the East China Sea.

China doesn’t like us enforcing UN sanctions on North Korea to stop them supplying weapons to Russia.

Sonic Blasts from Sonar

Last November, also while enforcing sanctions on North Korea, an Australian vessel HMAS Toowoomba required divers to clear fishing nets from its propellors, and were subject to sonic blasts from PLA-N Ningbo’s Sonar system.

Chaff and Flares

In June 2022, in the South China Sea, a Chinese J16 jet released chaff and flares, with chaff ingested into the Australian Poseidon P8 creating a high crash risk.

Laser Blinding

In February 2022, in Australian waters, a Chinese navy vessel pointed a laser at an Australian military aircraft close to Australia's northern coast.

Every time this happens, incensed civilians show support for our service men and women and protests erupt on campuses and public spaces across Australia.

Not an Australian protest against Chinese violence

Actually this doesn’t really happen, although it should.

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Meanwhile in China:

In China the pilots who will eventually kill Australian service people, are immortalised in popular culture.

The Top Gun counter movie, “Born To Fly”, glorifies Chinese pilots heroically pushing the limits of creating near accidents over the East China Sea and South China Sea.

When an incident with Australian casualties finally happens, the Chinese propaganda system will need to go into overdrive to make sure the Chinese populace fiercely support their heroes against the nasty upstart Australians.

The flood of war related movies in recent years is part of preparing the ground for the propaganda battle to come after an Australian plane crashes in a ball of flame.

Chinese Martyr Pilot Wang Wei

The other part of the propaganda process is to glorify the PLA-N² pilot Wang Wei, who died clipping a US surveillance plan on 1 April, 2001, in international waters.

Accident Location Map:³

By Guinnog

Now Wang has become a CCP martyr. People build model aircraft and place them on his grave.

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Collision Course:

We see here a pattern of escalating harassment designed to scare Australia and other smaller nations out of participating in UN sanctions enforcement against North Korea or freedom of navigation in the South China Sea.

We see growing momentum in propaganda efforts to make the Chinese public support these actions and blame outsiders as the aggressors.

It’s reasonable to conclude that China fully plans that at some point, if we don’t back down, they will cause an accident at sea. We don’t have a strategy for what comes next.

Next comes information warfare, over what happened, followed by public opinion warfare, over how the public in Australia and China feel about it.

In Australia, China’s aim will be to make the Australian public blame the Australian government. It is vital to plan for this now, and make the Australian public understand why we have operations in contested zones and why they should support these actions and their naval and air service men and women.

Public opinion is a key battlefield without which we can end up being fooled into choosing backdown. With help from Tik Tok and Wechat, and the CCP presence on other media, China will have the upper hand.

Wet Celery Strategy:

So far, our nations service people have had the support of documents being issued and statements being made decrying the PLA-N conduct as being “unsafe and unprofessional”.

“Unsafe” states the obvious. “Unprofessional” misses the point, which is that China is planning and implementing situations where Australian service people might die, and sooner or later some will.

Using weak language delivered through lower level politicians or bureaucrats in the form of letters while pretending relations are improving, does not make our military safer.

The current strategy has as much effect as whipping Xi Jin Ping with wet celery.

Anthony Albanese holding a big stick of wet celery, looking as menacing as he can.

Xi Jinping loves wet celery. He is prepared and not afraid.

China’s actions are execution of a well flagged strategy.

They will continue.

Think of it as a negotiation. If we want to influence China’s behaviour, add consequences to respond to these attacks.

Here’s a few ideas:

• Don’t leave it to underlings or bureaucrats to send “sternly worded letters” to counterparts - PM, FM, Defence minister all need to speak up loud, pronto.

• Cancel meetings, imply potential cancellation of the Premier Li Qiang visit in June. Speak up loudly and publicly at that one.

• Undo a few recent trade concessions on products that China dumps

• Call the incidents what they are - a provocation demanding retaliation.

• Make noise.

• Use it to rally the nation against Chinese influence, interference and bullying.

• Get creative. How about calling for another UN inquiry into COVID ? or something in that vein.

you may like

1. “Grey zone confrontation is the dangerous ‘grey’ area between peace and war” (Anthony Robertson 2022)

2. Peoples Liberation Army - Navy

3. - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6420105...