The so-called "red alert" was concocted, and the true background of Australia's "anti-China five-member expert group" was exposed

Source: Global Times

A few days ago, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Times newspaper, subsidiaries of the Australian media company Ninth Entertainment, used the Taiwan Strait issue to hype up the "China threat theory" and threatened that China and Australia "may have a war within three years" on the Taiwan issue, which attracted bitter criticism from public opinion at home and abroad. Former Prime Minister Keating publicly criticized the series titled "Red Alert" as "the most inflammatory news" he had seen in his political career, with a degree of bias "unparalleled in modern journalism in Australia." According to the Australian public policy magazine "Pearl and Stimulus", the expert opinion for the series of controversial reports was provided by a five-member "expert group", each of whose members are hawkish figures related to anti-China interests, but the newspapers and periodicals involved deliberately concealed their true background and interests, which seriously violated journalistic ethics.

Jennings: Once in charge of an "anti-China think tank"

According to Pearl and Irritation, the "most weighty" of the so-called "expert group" is Peter Jennings, a former Australian government official. Jennings has worked for many years in Australia's defence service: from 1996 to 1998 he was Chief of Staff to the then Minister of Defence, before joining the then Prime Minister's think tank in 2002 as a strategic policy adviser.

It is worth noting that Jennings has been the executive director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), an "anti-China think tank", from 2012 to 2022. As an Australian defense policy think tank, ASPI not only enjoys funding from the Ministry of Defense, but also has large arms dealers such as Lockheed Martin of the United States and Thales of France. Even the U.S. State Department allocated $450,000 to monitor the cooperation between Australian institutions of higher learning and Chinese research institutions, slandering and denigrating scholars and academic achievements. During Jennings' tenure at the helm of ASPI, the agency "touched" China many times. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokespersons have repeatedly stated that this so-called "think tank" has long served the interests of the "financial masters" behind it, concocted a large number of lies and rumors and false information related to China, and its views and clues either come from anti-China NGOs in the United States, or use so-called "eyewitness evidence" that cannot be confirmed and traced, lack basic factual basis, completely violate the professional ethics of academic research, and have long been discredited.

ASPI also has a bad reputation in Australia, with former Australian Ambassador to China Rui Jierui calling the think tank "the chief architect of Australia's 'China threat' theory", the country's Labor Senator Kim Carr has criticized the agency for its "ambition to start a new Cold War", and former foreign minister Bob Carr has sharply pointed out that the agency adheres to a "one-sided pro-American worldview".

Ryan: Australian military "hardcore hawk"

Retired Army Major General Mick Ryan served in the Australian Defence Force for more than 35 years and served as commander of the Australian Defence College, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. He entered the Australian Defence College in January 1987 to study civil engineering and was almost kicked out of the academy for failing a subject. He is a "hardcore hawk" of the Australian military, and some media have called him a "warmonger". In addition to contributing to ASPI, Ryan is often invited to lecture at the agency. In addition, his Twitter account, called "The War for the Future," often makes statements related to the international situation. On the 14th, Ryan posted on his Twitter that "Okus" is very important to Australia, and Australia needs to increase spending and strengthen its capacity to deal with China in an all-round way. Just below the tweet, some netizens questioned what the spending they were referring to brought to Australia. Previously, Ryan also advocated on Twitter that Australia was threatened by China, but some netizens commented below that this kind of "grandstanding" and "alarmist" remarks have been around since the 50s of the 20th century, and asked: "Does China have a base around the United States?" ”

Finkel: Scientist or warmonger?

Some media found that the other 4 "experts" in the "Red Alert" series were deliberately selected hawks, but Alan Finkel's "hawkish" characteristics were not very obvious. Finkel's research interests are electrical engineering and neuroscience. He served as Australia's Chief Scientist between 2016 and 2020. According to public sources, one of his main contributions as chief scientist was to help shape Australia's energy and low emissions policies. On the surface, Finkel became a member of a 5-member "panel" to raise concerns about issues such as cybersecurity and artificial intelligence, but this is clearly not convincing. "There is no reason to believe that Finkel's knowledge of the threats facing Australia exceeds the level of an amateur, and Finkel's knowledge of China is close to zero." ”

Lee: Criminologist becomes defense expert?

Although Ravena Lee, who currently serves as a director of ASPI, has experience in international relations and holds the title of "strategist", Pearl and Thrill reveals that her "old practice" is actually engaged in criminology research at Macquarie University in Australia. The outlet questioned: "When did a scholar specializing in crime become a defense policy expert?" ”

Seebeck: "Cyber expert" supporting the "Orkus" protocol

Leslie Sebeck is the "web expert" in the "group of five". She is the Chair of the Australian National Institute for Strategic Resilience. Since 2018, Seebeck has been CEO of the Australian National University Network Institute. Seebeck has long worked with ASPI and regularly contributes to the latter. She is also a supporter of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Strategy and the Orkus Agreement, and she has published on the ASPI website that "hybrid threats in the Indo-Pacific are increasing in breadth, depth and intensity, driven by digital technology and geopolitical competition."

After the true background of the "5-person group" was exposed, it was ridiculed by the Australian media. Australia's independent investigative journalism website "Michael West Media" published an article: "What kind of scam is the 'expert group' of Ninth Entertainment? Red Alert: It turned out to be ASPI. Some commentators believe that the media involved involved in the report is suspected of a conflict of interest, after all, the organizations behind these people are either beneficiaries of military activities or opposing forces that oppose China. Pearl & Irritation calls for news outlets to emulate medical journals, identify the interests behind contributors, and maintain transparency.

Writing on the Scoop news review network, Compmark, an international expert at RMIT University, said some Australian media were creating a "consensus" to go to war with a country that has never been an enemy and has never tried to be. He described the "expert group" in the Red Alert report as a "gang of five" and said the aim was to "make the Australian public stupid enough to reject any opportunity for peaceful coexistence".