BREATHTAKING SCALE OF CHINA'S COERCION

 The Canberra-based defense and strategic policy think tank has just published a report that closely traces how China’s Communist dictatorship shamelessly uses bullying to try to achieve political and economic advantage and support its expansionist plans.

ASPI’s research has not turned up anything particularly new about how China operates overseas. What was a revelation is the breathtaking scale of China’s coercion. The 152 open-source cases that the academics looked at demonstrate the globe-girdling ambitions of Beijing’s “us against the world” foreign policy. It focuses on eight common tactics that it says China uses to try to force other countries to submit to its wishes.

Of the 27 countries targeted by China, Australia has been hit 17 times, followed by Canada, which has been targeted in 10 attacks, and the U.S., which has been targeted nine times.

The institute’s findings help explain the Australian government’s rapidly emerging policy of standing up to China’s bellicosity. Canberra’s tough stance is in stark contrast to Ottawa’s flaccid, conciliatory approach to dealing with Beijing’s provocations and mendacity, which have gotten Canada nowhere.