Certified Legendary Thread China History in the Making Part 2

[Lockhart Road]

Freely acknowledging this a footy forum and posters are free to express their opinions but I totally agree with the principal objective of the PAFC to pursue commercial interests in China. I am not oblivious to China's human rights history but also have personal links with Chinese Nationals who welcomed Port's involvement despite their own families political involvement - to their detriment.

No person could have foreseen the outbreak of Covid. People can argue if it was right or wrong to pursue the China initiative but I was and remain strongly of the opinion it was the correct decision at the time.

Hey, Rexie. Good to see we are still together, here in the BigFooty Town Hall. Never forget that April 2013 Monday we met, down at the Port Club when Richo was what he was then and showed us around the Club, and we met the Great Man. Nine years, and things change. Richo is CEO and the Great Man has left us for those paddocks in the sky.

China. It came as a consequence of us meeting up at Alberton in April 2013, of Peter Chant being recognised 44 years after he was killed in action, and because we had a new president called David Koch who had a daughter living in Hong Kong … and because Richo had staged a profitable event for the Port Magpies in Hong Kong in 2006 and knew what the place looked like.

The Club’s involvement in China, the Club’s financial rewards from China, had nothing to do with politics, war, genocide or any other sort of imperfection. It was created by financial necessity and fresh outlook and the planets lining up in a massive fluke assisted by people who loved, who love, who were and still are prepared to sacrifice their spare time and personal assets, psychological assets or whatever assets, for the Club.

s**t happens, said Forrest Gump. It sure does. Peter Chant played for Port and got killed defending a political position that, though unjust, was there to be defended because the Government of the time insisted. Soon after, we had Whitlam going to China to create history in complete contradiction of what his opposition political party had preached was the right way to go. Ignorance had persevered too long.

Now we have the Premier of China reminding us about Whitlam and Canberra’s volte face of the early 1970s, and with it we have renewed opportunity for our Club to restart our association and engagement with China … for the benefit of the Port Adelaide Football Club, first and foremost.

I think of all the Chinese-Australian voters who last weekend stuck it up to ScoMo and Dutton, ignorants all, those two, who speak of the ‘lessons’ of the 1930s when their party was no more than a bad idea, who casually speak of another war in the South China Sea as if they know all about it and the consequences of it but know sweet f@ck all about anything. I think about that. And I feel sick.

Then I think about what more I can do for my Club in these new circumstances … and I feel reborn.

 

[Rexie J]

Hey, Rexie. Good to see we are still together, here in the BigFooty Town Hall. Never forget that April 2013 Monday we met, down at the Port Club when Richo was what he was then and showed us around the Club, and we met the Great Man. Nine years, and things change. Richo is CEO and the Great Man has left us for those paddocks in the sky.

China. It came as a consequence of us meeting up at Alberton in April 2013, of Peter Chant being recognised 44 years after he was killed in action, and because we had a new president called David Koch who had a daughter living in Hong Kong … and because Richo had staged a profitable event for the Port Magpies in Hong Kong in 2006 and knew what the place looked like.

The Club’s involvement in China, the Club’s financial rewards from China, had nothing to do with politics, war, genocide or any other sort of imperfection. It was created by financial necessity and fresh outlook and the planets lining up in a massive fluke assisted by people who loved, who love, who were and still are prepared to sacrifice their spare time and personal assets, psychological assets or whatever assets, for the Club.

s**t happens, said Forrest Gump. It sure does. Peter Chant played for Port and got killed defending a political position that, though unjust, was there to be defended because the Government of the time insisted. Soon after, we had Whitlam going to China to create history in complete contradiction of what his opposition political party had preached was the right way to go. Ignorance had persevered too long.

Now we have the Premier of China reminding us about Whitlam and Canberra’s volte face of the early 1970s, and with it we have renewed opportunity for our Club to restart our association and engagement with China … for the benefit of the Port Adelaide Football Club, first and foremost.

I think of all the Chinese-Australian voters who last weekend stuck it up to ScoMo and Dutton, ignorants all, those two, who speak of the ‘lessons’ of the 1930s when their party was no more than a bad idea, who casually speak of another war in the South China Sea as if they know all about it and the consequences of it but know sweet f@ck all about anything. I think about that. And I feel sick.

Then I think about what more I can do for my Club in these new circumstances … and I feel reborn.

Memories LR, they happened only yesterday. Some we cast aside but so many others remain forever.

Oh and by the way, being such a gentle soul, I recently slowed down so I didn't T bone Billy when he was reversing out from his driveway.

 

[GremioPower]

I.

Relationships are complicated. If it’s difficult to preserve a marriage, a community of two people, imagine a country. And we are talking about the relationship between two countries (culturally different to boot).

This endeavor would never be easy. Covid is only one of the many MAJOR setbacks we will face. Yet, the endgame of this project in China is so ridiculously out of proportion (e.g. Shanghai alone has the population of Australia) that even failure can be fairly considered as success.

That alone is reason enough not only to justify our efforts so far, but to keep us fully committed to it.

—

II.

The best position would be having people on board well-posted in both major parties, so electoral results don’t matter much.

However, as Australians already know pretty well, power struggles within the parties can be as nasty, with not nastier, than those between the different parties. So, even that wouldn’t be enough.

Moreover, our personal interests and the club’s may eventually clash. It’s very possible that the best government for me wouldn’t be the most favorable for Port due the circumstances. It’s also possible that the parties change in a way that the ally becomes the foe and vice-versa.

As maddening as it all can be (just like a marriage!), it’s part of the game. There’s nothing we can do but to play it.

 

[Lockhart Road]

I.

Relationships are complicated. If it’s difficult to preserve a marriage, a community of two people, imagine a country. And we are talking about the relationship between two countries (culturally different to boot).

This endeavor would never be easy. Covid is only one of the many MAJOR setbacks we will face. Yet, the endgame of this project in China is so ridiculously out of proportion (e.g. Shanghai alone has the population of Australia) that even failure can be fairly considered as success.

That alone is reason enough not only to justify our efforts so far, but to keep us fully committed to it.

—

II.

The best position would be having people on board well-positioned in both major parties, so electoral results don’t matter much.

However, as Australians already know pretty well, power struggles within the parties can be as nasty, with not nastier, than that between the different parties. So, even that wouldn’t be enough.

Moreover, our personal interests and the club’s may eventually clash. It’s very possible that the best government for me wouldn’t be the most favorable for Port due the circumstances. It’s also possible that the parties change in a way that the ally become the foe and vice-versa.

As maddening as it all can be (just like a marriage!), it’s part of the game. There’s nothing we can do but to play it.

Lovely, Grem.

Just one correction, in your last few words. There’s no point playing the game. You have to be ahead of it.

We were ahead viz China from 2013 onwards … until Trump, Bannon, COVID-19 and their gang materialised to screw us up.

Now we have to start again, ahead of the game … or not start at all and become what we used to be pre-2013, an also-ran.

 

[GremioPower]

Lovely, Grem.

Just one correction, in your last few words. There’s no point playing the game. You have to be ahead of it.

We were ahead viz China from 2013 onwards … until Trump, Bannon, COVID-19 and their gang materialised to screw us up.

Now we have to start again, ahead of the game … or not start at all and become what we used to be pre-2013, an also-ran.

Correction taken. To clarify, that which you call “being ahead of the game”, I would simply call “playing the game correctly”.

The game is unavoidable. “Man is a political animal”, as Aristotle has famously said. If we must play it, then let’s play it for the win. Right?

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I don’t think China is blameless here. Again, relationships need more than one pole.

To be honest, we would simply be witnessing International Politics returning to normalcy. The XX Century was the exception. It’s no longer “Good v. Bad”. There are no more only “black and white”. It’s all different shades of… teal! Yet, they still clash.

Politics is always in perpetual tension. Sometimes, those tensions lead to conflict; even when we are all acting in good faith.

[NOTE: In Politics, by “good faith”, I simply mean “recognizing the inescapable reality of the relationship as part of one’s own nature” — i.e. “the other as a fundamental part of my own identity.” Only ideologies preach the end of Politics — by annihilating the other in the way of Perpetual Peace (“Imagine all the people…”).]

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I know quite a few pro-Trump/anti-Bannon Americans to avoid putting both in the same basket. Trump and Bannon were allies, indeed, but far from sharing all the same goals. To my best knowledge, although Bannon had an important role during the first campaign, after the election, he rapidly lost a lot of space in Trump’s inner circle.

 

[portly]

I think the move to "china" was a huge mistake, while i was initially on board thinking that this was a great strategic move, upon further reflection anyone who would tango with the serpent will always come of second best.
chinas record speaks for itself the theft of intellectual property their power mongering with their military might intimidating not only countries around them but using it against their own people. Their involvement and lack of transparency with the recent pandemic that has destroyed so much and sent many people to an untimely death. The murder and confinement of their own people not to mention people not of their nation for speaking their minds and the list surely would go on and on.
To me it is just another act of simplicity and bastardization of this club by chairman koch.
Very poor decision imho.

Now critique America.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

I think of all the Chinese-Australian voters who last weekend stuck it up to ScoMo and Dutton, ignorants all, those two, who speak of the ‘lessons’ of the 1930s when their party was no more than a bad idea, who casually speak of another war in the South China Sea as if they know all about it and the consequences of it but know sweet f@ck all about anything. I think about that. And I feel sick.

Then I think about what more I can do for my Club in these new circumstances … and I feel reborn.

Electorates with big ethnic Chinese-Australian population gave them a whack.

'I almost cried': What role did Chinese Australians play in Labor's election victory?

Australia's fraught relationship with China was a key talking point during the election campaign. But how much did it influence voters of Chinese heritage?

www.abc.net.au

Electorates where almost one in five people have Chinese ancestries – such as Reid (18 per cent) and Chisholm (19 per cent) – saw swings of more than 8 per cent to Labor. That's much higher than the national average of 3.4 per cent.

The swing in Chisholm in Melbourne saw Hong Kong-born Gladys Liu lose her seat to Labor's Carina Garland.

But it wasn't the same story everywhere. Fowler, in Sydney's west, which has 16 per cent Vietnamese ancestry and 11 per cent Chinese heritage, saw a huge 16 per cent swing away from Labor to Dai Le, an independent.[That was the Keannely factor in play]

Liberal-held Banks, where 16 per cent of the population has Chinese ancestry, and Labor-held Parramatta (12 per cent) saw modest swings to Labor but did not change hands.

Kooyong, where more than 11 per cent of the population has Chinese heritage, saw a 10 per cent swing away from former Liberal treasurer Josh Frydenberg in favour of independent Dr Monique Ryan.

Western Australia's Tangney, where one in 10 people have Chinese heritage, saw an even bigger swing of 11.9 per cent to elect new Labor MP Sam Lim, a former dolphin trainer with Chinese-Malaysian heritage. [He wanted to be a copper in Malaysia but it didn't pay well so became a dolphin trainer and when he immigrated to Oz he eventually became a copper in WA police force.]

Counting is still ongoing in Deakin, where almost 10 per cent of people have Chinese heritage, and a swing to Labor has the current margin to just a few dozen votes.


Bennelong - Johnny Howard's old seat only once not held by Liberals after WWII - and North Sydney have large Chinese communities and the liberals lost these seats with swings of 8% and nearly 13% respectively.

In the above story they interviewed someone in Kooyong who had a great analogy

Wang Zhengliang, who lives in the Kooyong electorate in Melbourne's inner-east, immigrated from China more than three decades ago. Mr Wang said many in his community voted for the Liberals in the past, but switched to the independent this time.

"China is so far away, throwing a brick may not be able to cross the Pacific Ocean [to China]. It could end up hitting us [Chinese Australians] on the head instead."

 

[proman_x]

Now critique America.

Or the English (as Byron already said), French, Dutch, Spanish, Russia, ect, etc. Just depends on how far back you want to go.

 

[klem22]

Now critique America.

Is koch looking to line up there to?

 

[Jason K]

Freely acknowledging this is a footy forum and posters are free to express their opinions but I totally agree with the principal objective of the PAFC to pursue commercial interests in China. I am not oblivious to China's human rights history having personal links with Chinese Nationals who welcomed Port's involvement despite their own families political involvement - to their detriment.

No person could have foreseen the outbreak of Covid. People can argue if it was right or wrong to pursue the China initiative but I was and remain strongly of the opinion it was the correct decision at the time.

At the time is abig disclaimer on this forum, I feel

 

[Jason K]

W

I and plenty of others on here take your point. It's a card played by many and even more from those who are not Port

supporters. It aint a perfect world out there. The card I would play has a Union Jack on it. Their world wide record

for the last 200+ yrs is appalling. Commerce and value judgments can be awkward bed fellows.

Can you put this in leymans. I think I am misunderstanding

 

[Byrons Firen]

W

Can you put this in leymans. I think I am misunderstanding

People saying our China venture morally wrong. The English have a very ordinary record over the last 200+yrs.

 

[wannabejack]

Australia's Defence Minister meets Chinese counterpart, thawing a two-year diplomatic freeze

Defence Minister Richard Marles holds a one-on-one meeting with his Chinese counterpart in Singapore, officially ending a two-year diplomatic freeze between Canberra and Beijing.

www.abc.net.au

 

[VineValerian]

Australia's Defence Minister meets Chinese counterpart, thawing a two-year diplomatic freeze

Defence Minister Richard Marles holds a one-on-one meeting with his Chinese counterpart in Singapore, officially ending a two-year diplomatic freeze between Canberra and Beijing.

www.abc.net.au

Tiny slivers of hope start to appear.

 

[GremioPower]

How useful for us is the fact that SA’s governor had been Australian Ambassador to China?

 

[Lockhart Road]

How useful for us is the fact that SA’s governor had been Australian Ambassador to China?

Frances Adamson’s daughter Claire was with the Club’s China team for a few years.

Her role as SA Governor would be very useful in many different directions if the Club handled and applied the connection correctly.

 

[GremioPower]

if the Club handled and applied the connection correctly.

Which unfortunately is a big “if”, right?

 

[Lockhart Road]

Which unfortunately is a big “if”, right?

Not so big.

We have our AFLW girls coming up, we have three ladies on our board of directors with two, Holly and Christine, involved in the project, and we have Ms Penny Wong and Ms Susan Close in federal/state political power, and we have Her Excellency in Govt. House.

All fits nicely. Or it should.

 

[GremioPower]

Not so big.

We have our AFLW girls coming up, we have three ladies on our board of directors with two, Holly and Christine, involved in the project, and we have Ms Penny Wong and Ms Susan Close in federal/state political power, and we have Her Excellency in Govt. House.

All fits nicely. Or it should.

Fingers crossed!

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

 

[GremioPower]

It’s kind of expected, but it won’t last forever. Once the tides turn again, this will improve again.

 

[GremioPower]

Well done.

It is now imperative to secure and expand the MG partnership long and wide into the future.

It is also imperative not to sit on our laurels thinking that the job is done.

We need three, why not four or five or more, partners akin to MG each and every year from here on, whether or not they have anything to do with China.

Regarding China, I know everything project is currently “on hold”.

But are we still doing something, even if under the radar? Do we still keep people on the ground working for the club? “

We had some school projects there, if I’m not mistaken. Are those going on? Maybe other stuff?

 

[MALTSY]

Chine? pfffft.
Tasmania is a country with far more potential.

 

[sobrave]

Regarding China, I know everything project is currently “on hold”.

But are we still doing something, even if under the radar? Do we still keep people on the ground working for the club? “

We had some school projects there, if I’m not mistaken. Are those going on? Maybe other stuff?

If we can't even afford half decent assistant coaches then I doubt it

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

Regarding China, I know everything project is currently “on hold”.

But are we still doing something, even if under the radar? Do we still keep people on the ground working for the club? “

We had some school projects there, if I’m not mistaken. Are those going on? Maybe other stuff?

Yes we are. Tony Zhang is still working for the club in Shanghai one day a week. Promise Xu is still employed at Alberton. Gui Guojie is still talking to the club, just not travelling to Oz because of covid.

Business still continues between China and Oz. Most of those China-Oz business contacts we made are still in business especially Chinese businesses set up in Oz. Most are still doing things with the club, just on a smaller scale.

Some high profile consumer goods have been smashed by tarrifs, like wine, packed meat, crayfish plus commodities like barley, but in 2021 Oz still exported $180bil of merchandise goods to China and imported $90bil from China, which is a fair chunk of a $2,000bil economy. Trade in services has been slashed thanks to covid principally, ie tourism services and education services, but also professional services due to lack of people movement.