When Justice Michael Kirby spoke at the launch of the Australia Institute in 1994, he called on us to ‘never forget the neglected, the despised, the underprivileged, [and] the disadvantaged.’
For me his speech was pitch perfect. I had decided to establish the new think tank because the victims of the system—the unemployed vilified as ‘dole bludgers’, the single mothers dismissed as ‘welfare queens,’ the refugees fleeing persecution—needed strong arguments to support their rights and claims to justice.
So I was dismayed last month by the publication of a paper by my old institute that defended the unlawful claims of an oppressive regime, provided cover for its bullying of weaker nations, and ignored its attacks on innocent people trying to make a living.
Titled ‘How China Sees the South China Sea’, the paper purported to explain ‘the Chinese perspective’ but in practice it promoted Beijing’s case. China rejects the claims of other nations with long-standing and internationally accepted Exclusive Economic Zones in the South China sea.
Despite promising not to do so, it has militarised the zone by building bases on islands and features, equipping them with missiles and airstrips capable of hosting nuclear bombers within reach of Australia. It has systematically coerced and bullied other nations, notably the Philippines and Vietnam, to get them to accept China’s claims.
In 2016, after a complaint from the Philippines about China’s territorial claims and behaviour, the International Court of Arbitration in the Hague ruled that the PRC’s historic claims to sovereignty and jurisdiction over the islands, features and waters within the nine-dash line had no foundation and were contrary to international law. The decision has been accepted by the international community.
What does the Australia Institute say? It argues or infers that China’s claims are historically justified, that they are more limited than appears to be the case, that the decision by the Hague Tribunal was not really a repudiation of Beijing’s case, that China’s concerns are merely defensive, that China’s actions can be explained as a response to ‘coordinated belligerence’ by other states, that Beijing is interested in dialogue with other claimants in pursuit of peaceful resolution, and that the problems are inflamed by the meddling of ‘external actors’ (the United States and Australia).
In short, the paper is an apologia that reproduces most of the assertions to be found in China’s state media (for example, here, here, here and here). It was not surprising, therefore, to see the paper’s main author interviewed sympathetically on Phoenix TV, the state-owned network that reliably adheres to the diktats of the CCP’s Propaganda Department.
What we do not find in the Australia Institute paper is any expression of concern for the victims of China’s aggressive activities in the South China Sea. Victims like the two Vietnamese fishers injured when a Chinese coast guard vessel fired water cannon as they fished in traditional waters. Or the Philippines navy sailor badly injured when his vessel was rammed by a Chinese coast guard ship in Filipino waters. (For a catalogue of China’s aggressive activities up to the end of 2021 see here. For more recent incidents see here.)
Perhaps the authors of the paper could contact these victims and explain to them that they were illegally in waters owner by China, that the Hague Tribunal on the Law of the Sea got it wrong, that Beijing is using peaceful means to resolve the conflict, and that foreign actors are stirring up trouble.
Some years ago at a meeting with ASEAN countries, a top Chinese official allowed the facade to slip. Looking at his counterpart from Singapore, he said: ‘China is a big country, and other countries are small countries, and that’s just a fact.’
Beijing’s friends in the West are quick to explain away its sins by pointing to the sins of the United States. Whatever the United States’ infractions are, and there are many, they do not change the wrongness of China’s. Whataboutism is not an argument; it is a rhetorical device used to turn attention elsewhere and to derail accountability.
In his classic study of how post-war French intellectuals defended Stalinism, Tony Judt considered those on the left who justified the 1956 invasion of Hungary as a defensive move by an empire under threat.
The actions of the Soviet Union could thus be explained either as the legitimate defence of the heartland of revolution or as the imperial realpolitik of a superpower; in either case, the separate concerns of the local victims were secondary.
Apologists for Russia today use the same justifications for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
We don’t know how the Australia Institute’s report was funded. And that’s a problem. When I ran the Australia Institute, I was transparent about our funding sources. One benefit of this policy was that I could in good faith condemn right-wing think tanks for refusing to respond when asked if their climate denial campaigns were funded by fossil fuel corporations.
Now the Australia Institute has adopted the same secrecy. Other progressive think tanks do not feel the need to ‘protect the privacy of our donors.’ It’s been reported that Andrew Forrest’s charity, the Mindaroo Foundation, this year made a large donation to the Institute but the Institute will not comment. Forrest has for some years been Australia’s most enthusiastic pro-Beijing business leader.
Can we expect the Australia Institute to publish papers justifying Beijing’s plans to invade Taiwan—a free, independent and democratic country of 24 million people—or perhaps one denying the mass internments, forced labour, and cultural genocide in Xinjiang?
Instead of bromides from the Australia Institute, we would be wiser to listen to the words of Cai Xia, former professor at the Central Party School who was expelled from the Communist Party after criticising the reckless approach of Xi Jinping. In 2021 she wrote that ‘Chinese authorities have deliberately heightened tensions in the South China Sea’ and a year later she warned of Xi’s pursuit of a ‘China-centric world order’ by means of ‘risky and aggressive behavior abroad [including] militarizing the South China Sea.’
November 2025
[*] Clive Hamilton is Professor of Public Ethics at Charles Sturt University in Canberra (mail [at] clivehamilton.com). He was Executive Director of the Australia Institute from 1994 to 2008.