tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/clive-hamilton-11335/articlesClive Hamilton – The Conversation2022-10-16T19:02:17Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1910042022-10-16T19:02:17Z2022-10-16T19:02:17ZClive Hamilton’s activism memoir wars with neoliberals, the ‘naive’ left and China<p>Clive Hamilton personifies the Australian progressive “public intellectual”. He’s a prolific author of opinion articles and books, concerned “to make a difference in the world” by persuading people to engage with “powerful ideas”. </p>
<p>His memoir describes almost 40 years of activism. The tone is often confessional: he admits to an introvert’s terror at electioneering and a white progressive’s anxiety about what to say to Indigenous people. Despite this, <a href="https://www.hardiegrant.com/au/publishing/bookfinder/book/provocateur-by-clive-hamilton/9781743798577">Provocateur</a> is most of all a narrative of “ideas in action”, embodied by one individual.</p>
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<p><em>Review: Provocateur: A life of ideas in action – Clive Hamilton (Hardie Grant)</em></p>
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<p>Hamilton’s fame is closely linked to <a href="https://australiainstitute.org.au/">The Australia Institute</a>, which he founded in 1994. Since then it has come to dominate the progressive think-tank landscape. His narrative offers much guidance for think-tank progressives: a relentless focus on media relations and public impact, and most of all, an ability to discern the mood of progressive opinion. Hamilton may be aligned with the Greens, but he has little time for the amateurism and self-absorption that were once Greens traditions. </p>
<h2>Appealing to the unconverted</h2>
<p>Progressives, Hamilton argues, should initially talk among themselves – but then move on to appealing to the unconverted. He is an enthusiast for focus groups and opinion polling. In the battle for media attention, Hamilton is aware of the power of provocation and outrage. He admits he sometimes deliberately overstates his certainty, aiming to generate opposition. He has little interest in understanding the motives of his opponents, who include “postmodern” academics, Chinese nationalists, pornography consumers and affluent suburbanites. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489685/original/file-20221013-12-isqtqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="book cover: Provocateur by Clive Hamilton" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489685/original/file-20221013-12-isqtqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489685/original/file-20221013-12-isqtqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489685/original/file-20221013-12-isqtqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489685/original/file-20221013-12-isqtqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489685/original/file-20221013-12-isqtqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1152&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489685/original/file-20221013-12-isqtqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1152&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489685/original/file-20221013-12-isqtqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1152&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>Hamilton’s narrative expresses a religious sympathy; he is deeply critical of the secular, rationalist denial of the sacred. At one point he takes pride in a description of himself as a cleric without the cloth. But he’s not attracted to the Christian virtue of forgiveness. </p>
<p>This is a very Protestant book; the sentiment is that of a 19th-century liberal, free-trade nonconformist doing battle for the Lord and His earthly causes. His style is solitary; Hamilton is not a committee man, and in The Australia Institute’s legal battles, he is often frustrated by his more cautious colleagues.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ive-seriously-tried-to-believe-capitalism-and-the-planet-can-coexist-but-ive-lost-faith-131288">I've seriously tried to believe capitalism and the planet can coexist, but I've lost faith</a>
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<h2>Wars with consumerism and ‘affluenza’</h2>
<p>The first two-thirds of the book are mostly about the campaigns of The Australia Institute. The cases speak to Hamilton’s preferred themes and his eye for the zeitgeist. His imagined audience is less the organised left than a broader milieu, anxious about excessive individualism and greed: small “c” conservatives who know something is deeply wrong with the world in ways the champions of progress ignore. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489687/original/file-20221013-15-z1vhte.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Book cover: Growth Fetish by Clive Hamilton" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489687/original/file-20221013-15-z1vhte.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489687/original/file-20221013-15-z1vhte.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489687/original/file-20221013-15-z1vhte.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489687/original/file-20221013-15-z1vhte.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489687/original/file-20221013-15-z1vhte.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1138&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489687/original/file-20221013-15-z1vhte.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1138&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489687/original/file-20221013-15-z1vhte.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1138&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>Hamilton’s (and The Australia Institute’s) war with consumerism and affluenza, as covered in his 2003 book <a href="https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/book/Clive-Hamilton-Growth-Fetish-9781741140781">Growth Fetish</a>, appealed to those traumatised by John Howard’s materialist ascendancy. Two chapters cover Hamilton’s battle with the retailer David Jones – a war sparked by a 2006 <a href="https://australiainstitute.org.au/report/corporate-paedophilia-sexualisation-of-children-in-australia">Australia Institute report</a> that accused the retailer of “corporate paedophilia”, on the grounds that its advertising material sexualised children. David Jones sued The Australia Institute, and Hamilton as executive director, for “misleading and deceptive conduct” under the Trade Practices Act. They withdrew their action (first threatened in October 2006) in April 2008, after nearly 18 months of engagement. </p>
<p>This was the archetypal Australia Institute campaign: a bold offensive for the moral high ground, followed by grim defence against a cashed-up opponent. The narrative reveals a lot about the ability of the wealthy to use the legal system against their opponents. It also shows Hamilton at war with much of the self-identified left. His “sex-positive” critics, such as <a href="https://www.mup.com.au/books/the-porn-report-paperback-softback">Catherine Lumby</a> or <a href="https://www.blackincbooks.com.au/books/panic">David Marr</a>, are cast as shallow libertarians –acquiescent to capitalist individualism and indifferent to the social decay of modern society. </p>
<p>Throughout the book, Hamilton accuses the “left” of capitulating to identity politics and libertarianism. Here, he swims with the tide of much contemporary Australian opinion: <a href="https://www.watoday.com.au/politics/federal/liberalism-is-alive-and-its-killing-us-why-postliberalism-is-the-answer-20140903-108v50.html">left</a> and <a href="https://www.connorcourtpublishing.com.au/LIBERAL-SHOCK-The-Conservative-Comeback--William-Dawes-Editor_p_292.html">right</a>. He offers a “post-liberal” dismissal of liberalism as selfish, atomistic individualism. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/book-review-hidden-hand-exposing-how-the-chinese-communist-party-is-reshaping-the-world-142058">Book Review: Hidden Hand – Exposing How the Chinese Communist Party is Reshaping the World</a>
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<h2>Climate politics and China</h2>
<p>Climate politics, above all, is central to the first part of the book. The story here is familiar and depressing: the “greenhouse mafia”, the duplicities of “moderate” Liberals, and the failures of former prime minister Kevin Rudd. The result, as Hamilton sees it, is a looming climate catastrophe. He doesn’t share the optimistic view of Rudd’s former climate advisor Ross Garnaut that <a href="https://www.blackincbooks.com.au/books/superpower">rational policy will eventually triumph</a>.</p>
<p>Hamilton’s work with The Australia Institute often reflected an optimistic sensibility: the belief people were ready to embrace alternatives to neoliberal individualism – and that some had already begun to move in this direction (for example, by “<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-suburbs-are-the-spiritual-home-of-overconsumption-but-they-also-hold-the-key-to-a-better-future-108496">downshifting</a>”). The climate crisis challenged Hamilton’s optimism and left him adrift and exhausted. </p>
<p>Despair at the failure of climate activism drove his shift to warning against the threat of China – more specifically, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/chinese-communist-party-2614">Chinese Communist Party</a>. It’s the focus of the final third of the book. This section is hard to judge.</p>
<p>In part, it combines a principled critique of Australian foreign policy with a reasoned condemnation of the actions of the Chinese government and its supporters – and a depressing account of the unwillingness of publishers to challenge a great power. Hamilton’s first China book, <a href="https://theconversation.com/book-review-clive-hamiltons-silent-invasion-chinas-influence-in-australia-93650">Silent Invasion</a>, was abandoned by two major publishers – <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/free-speech-fears-after-book-critical-of-china-is-pulled-from-publication-20171112-gzjiyr.html">Allen & Unwin</a> and then <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/controversial-china-book-may-get-parliamentary-protection-20180205-p4yzfy.html">Melbourne University Publishing</a> – due to fear of legal action (and for Allen & Unwin, fear of reprisal from China too).</p>
<p>Behind the book lurks the old trope of left disillusionment: the complaint that “the left” has betrayed its values. Most of all, it recalls <a href="https://www.blackincbooks.com.au/books/mission-0">Noel Pearson</a> or <a href="https://www.mup.com.au/books/the-politics-of-suffering-paperback-softback">Phillip Sutton</a> complaining “the left” was indifferent to the dysfunctional reality of many Indigenous communities.</p>
<p>Hamilton rails against what he sees as the naivety of the left – but also the hidden hand of China, whose agents (and unwitting agents) he perceives everywhere: <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-paul-keating-transformed-the-economy-and-the-nation-131562">Paul Keating</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/bob-carrs-diary-reveals-a-true-satirist-a-self-made-grotesque-25453">Bob Carr</a>, Tasmanian Liberal and Labor, <a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-if-growing-us-china-rivalry-leads-to-the-worst-war-ever-what-should-australia-do-185294">Hugh White</a>, Geraldine Doogue. He even sees them within Daniel Andrews’ staff. <a href="https://theconversation.com/robert-manne-how-we-came-to-be-so-cruel-to-asylum-seekers-67542">Robert Manne</a> launched Hamilton’s unsuccessful Greens candidacy in the 2009 Higgins by-election, but Hamilton accepts the breakdown of relations between them over the China issue.</p>
<p>Hamilton seems to view some on the right more favourably. He appears on the Bolt Report – not because of any sympathy for Andrew Bolt, but in the hope of appealing to some of Bolt’s audience (just as he sought conservative support in his campaign against “corporate paedophilia”). Hamilton talks to security intellectuals, and credits former US president Donald Trump for recognising the China threat, in contrast with the naivety of his predecessor Barack Obama.</p>
<p>Despite this, Hamilton’s story is not a neoconservative one. His unhappiness with much of the left does not impel him to forgive old enemies, such as The Australian newspaper. He would never follow the example of <a href="https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-morrisons-gilmore-candidate-is-the-man-whos-been-everywhere-110300">Warren Mundine</a> or <a href="https://theconversation.com/unleashed-latham-too-opinionated-even-for-an-increasingly-opinionated-sky-75415">Mark Latham</a>. He remains a strong critic of modern materialism and growth mania, and an advocate of radical climate action. Most of all, he is still a seeker in search of meaning.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/final-2022-election-results-coalition-routed-in-cities-and-in-western-australia-can-they-recover-in-2025-184755">2022 federal election</a> provides a real-world coda to Provocateur. Hamilton has had a long association with the Greens. But his sensibility seems a poor fit for Adam Bandt’s social democracy. </p>
<p>In many aspects, this book speaks more to <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-this-the-end-of-the-two-party-system-in-australia-the-greens-teals-and-others-shock-the-major-parties-182672">the “teals”</a>. Not to their Turnbullite MPs, but to the army who impelled them to victory: the moral middle-class, Boomer and millennial, precariat and retired, rich and poor. Provocateur will need a sequel.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191004/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Donated to the campaign of a Labor candidate in the 2022 federal election. </span></em></p>Clive Hamilton’s memoir of 40 years in activism is most of all a narrative of ideas in action. He argues for the power of provocation – and against the left, the right and China.Geoffrey Robinson, Senior Lecturer, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1420582020-07-10T03:47:56Z2020-07-10T03:47:56ZBook Review: Hidden Hand – Exposing How the Chinese Communist Party is Reshaping the World<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346757/original/file-20200709-54-wndjq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=369%2C0%2C5149%2C3767&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">ROMAN PILIPEY/EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In <a href="https://www.booktopia.com.au/hidden-hand-clive-hamilton/book/9781743795576.html?source=pla&gclid=Cj0KCQjwupD4BRD4ARIsABJMmZ881odU425JWK6szC6fVX7PtFvzUmmX23qBH1t29E_1U7pZUrSErXUaArNiEALw_wcB">Hidden Hand</a>, China scholars Clive Hamilton and Marieke Ohlberg examine the Chinese Communist Party’s influence in Europe and North America in a similar way to how Hamilton dissected the CCP’s influence in Australia in his 2018 book, <a href="https://www.booktopia.com.au/silent-invasion-clive-hamilton/ebook/9781743585443.html?gclid=Cj0KCQjwupD4BRD4ARIsABJMmZ-SVjgV-jcwAJz4JHQ8g3uXzW1uTY29diy4uyCQf0RAFrIKP6cVhDcaAlKwEALw_wcB">Silent Invasion</a>. </p>
<p>In my <a href="https://theconversation.com/book-review-clive-hamiltons-silent-invasion-chinas-influence-in-australia-93650">review of the 2018 book</a>, I wrote</p>
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<p>Perhaps Hamilton’s book is a useful reminder that we must not be naïve about our relationship with China. But his prescription, premised on China being our enemy and determined to achieve world domination, is precisely the wrong direction for addressing the genuine issues he raises.</p>
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<p>The new book warrants a similar conclusion, though President Xi Jinping’s continued strengthening of CCP controls and pursuit of hegemony in our region add to the importance of not being naïve. </p>
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<p>Hamilton and Ohlberg chronicle the various ways the CCP has attempted to wield influence in North America and Europe, from political and business elites to the Chinese diaspora, media, think tanks and academia, as well as through espionage and diplomacy. </p>
<p>Central to the book’s thesis is the diagram on pages 124-5 summarising most of the channels of influence from Chinese institutions (particularly party institutions) to various groups and organisations in Western nations. This is a one-direction diagram and assumes a totally coordinated strategy.</p>
<p>The book’s presentation is extremely detailed, including not just the names of Chinese institutions but the individuals said to be directing the strategies of influence. Similarly on the receiving end, the authors describe not only the groups and organisations in the West they claim are being influenced, but many of the individuals involved. </p>
<p>This level of detail is highlighted by the book’s 113 pages of footnotes and a 24-page index.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-clive-hamilton-and-richard-mcgregor-on-australia-china-relations-140959">Politics with Michelle Grattan: Clive Hamilton and Richard McGregor on Australia-China relations</a>
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<p>Despite this, the book is not a balanced, scholarly document. The narrative centres on a single-minded Communist Party that has always sought a Leninist world and is now taking advantage of its increased economic power to advance that objective more effectively. </p>
<p>There is little recognition of the huge shifts in Chinese economic, social and strategic policies over the past 50 years, or of the scale of the changes to its institutional arrangements and the role of government. </p>
<p>The authors also do not allow those in the West who they claim have been successfully (and naively) influenced the opportunity to respond, let alone to present evidence of their influence in the other direction. </p>
<h2>Containment vs. ‘engage and constrain’</h2>
<p>Hidden Hand is right to remind people that:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>China and the CCP are not one and the same</p></li>
<li><p>China has a party-state system of government that is authoritarian and not democratic</p></li>
<li><p>China does not have Western-style rule of law</p></li>
<li><p>it does not recognise universal human rights in the way we understand them.</p></li>
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<p>What is missing is a balanced discussion of the central debate about the appropriate approach to be taken in the West’s relations with China. </p>
<p>As Peter Varghese, the former head of DFAT, recently <a href="http://chinamatters.org.au/policy-brief/policy-brief-june-2020/">put it</a>, the choice for Australia is between trying to “contain” China or “engage and constrain”. </p>
<p>Containment, he argues, is gaining traction in the US and among cheerleaders in Australia, but risks dismantling the global economic system and the supply chains that support it. For Australia, Varghese says, decoupling from our largest trading partner would be “sheer folly” irrespective of legitimate complaints about China’s behaviour. </p>
<p>The “engage and constrain” approach he favours involves expanding areas of cooperation where mutual interests are served, while holding firm to our values and strengthening our capacity to resist Chinese coercion through increased investment in defence and diplomacy.</p>
<p>This would show Beijing that “leverage is a two-way street” and that, with others, we are willing to “push back” if China pursues its interests in ways that do not respect our sovereignty. </p>
<p>While increasing investment in defence may well be justified, boosting our spending in diplomacy is even more important. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-do-we-keep-turning-a-blind-eye-to-chinese-political-interference-94299">Why do we keep turning a blind eye to Chinese political interference?</a>
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<p>In this light, viewing China as our “enemy” is counterproductive and ignores the mutual benefits and increased sharing of interests that have resulted from China’s opening up since 1978. (Hidden Hand does not repeat the explicit description of China as our enemy found in Hamilton’s earlier book, but it comes close, saying for the past 30 years China has viewed both sides of the Atlantic as its enemies). </p>
<p>Diplomacy may influence China’s perceptions of its national interests and, where significant differences remain, help to forge important alliances elsewhere. </p>
<p>Hamilton and Ohlberg seem to favour the “containment” strategy, warning on page 96 that “in fact, today it (the party-state) is more powerful than ever <em>because of</em> market forces” (emphasis in original).</p>
<h2>Engagement can still have a positive effect</h2>
<p>The implication, presumably, is that we should no longer contribute to China’s economic growth. This dismisses the remarkable benefits involved in China’s growth, including not only massive reductions in poverty, but also, for most Chinese, freedoms that were unimaginable in the Mao Zedong era. There have also been flow-on benefits for the rest of the world.</p>
<p>China’s opening up has of course not led to Western-style democracy, and is unlikely to do so in the foreseeable future. Indeed, under Xi, the CCP’s position has been consolidated and many of the reforms of the 1990s and 2000s have been wound back. Human rights have been seriously curbed, <a href="https://theconversation.com/hong-kong-activists-now-face-a-choice-stay-silent-or-flee-the-city-the-world-must-give-them-a-path-to-safety-141880">most recently in Hong Kong</a>. </p>
<p>But Hidden Hand’s presentation of a single, continuous CCP Leninist agenda ignores the existence of different views among the leadership and elsewhere in China, including those who favour further liberal reform (as described in Richard McGregor’s 2019 book, <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/xi-jinping-the-backlash-9781760893040">Xi Jinping: The Backlash</a>). </p>
<p>And it fails to appreciate the underlying contradictions of China’s “socialist market economy” and Xi’s “China Dream”, which offer avenues for Western leaders and academics to influence debates in China through engagement – as has happened over the past 30 years.</p>
<p>As the main coordinator of the <a href="https://www.anzsog.edu.au/resource-library/research/the-greater-china-australia-dialogue-on-public-administration">Greater China Australia Dialogue on Public Administration</a>, which organises annual workshops of scholars and practitioners from across the PRC (including Hong Kong and Macau) and Taiwan, I have witnessed some of the winding back of academic freedoms since Xi’s 2016 <a href="https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2055308/chinas-xi-jinping-wants-both-academic-excellence-and-tighter-grip">restrictions on social science teaching and research</a>. This includes some of the specific CCP restrictions mentioned in Hidden Hand. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-world-has-a-hard-time-trusting-china-but-does-it-really-care-119807">The world has a hard time trusting China. But does it really care?</a>
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<p>But this surely makes it even more important to continue the engagement while resisting the pressures involved.</p>
<p>Similarly, I am not at all convinced by the book’s attacks on any cooperation with the Belt and Road Initiative. </p>
<p>While the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank has more sound governance, there are similar arguments for participation in BRI, providing support from the inside for transparency, proper cost-benefit analysis of projects and good understanding of debt obligations. It would also limit opportunities for China to pursue improper methods of influence. </p>
<h2>How the West should respond to Chinese influence</h2>
<p>The book’s afterword provides a slightly more moderate position on what should be done to counter Chinese influence moving forward. It still overplays its hand in promoting an “active pushback strategy” and its recommendation the Western </p>
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<p>elites who acquiesce to or actively support Beijing deserve public scrutiny and robust criticism. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>But the other recommendations have merit: defending democratic institutions through greater transparency and foreign interference laws, addressing the underfunding of universities and financial challenges facing our media, reducing vulnerability of our industries to CCP pressure and promoting more alliances, including with developing countries.</p>
<p>We cannot lose faith in liberal economics as Hamilton and Ohlberg seem to suggest, relying only on democratic forces to ensure freedom. The truth is, we need both.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/142058/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Podger does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Viewing China as an ‘enemy’ to the West is counterproductive. We need to embrace a new approach that simultaneously ‘engages and constrains’ China instead.Andrew Podger, Honorary Professor of Public Policy, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1409592020-06-17T10:09:02Z2020-06-17T10:09:02ZPolitics with Michelle Grattan: Clive Hamilton and Richard McGregor on Australia-China relations<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342404/original/file-20200617-94054-14km8en.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C24%2C5400%2C3573&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/puzzle-national-flag-china-australia-concept-348767108">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>After its calls for an inquiry into the origins of the coronavirus, Australia has found itself targeted by China with trade retaliation as well as sharp rhetoric.</p>
<p>In this podcast, we talk with two prominent China experts about the superpower’s wider ambitions and tactics and the bilateral relationship.</p>
<p>Clive Hamilton, from Charles Sturt University, has just coauthored, with Mareike Ohlberg, Hidden Hand. The book probes China’s ever-expanding activities on the international stage. “From Beijing’s perspective, they see themselves not in a new Cold War, but still in the old Cold War,” Hamilton says.</p>
<p>Richard McGregor, who as a journalist reported from China for many years, last year published Xi Jinping: The Backlash. McGregor argues for a rather different “tone” in Australia’s diplomacy. “We always seem to want to bring on a fight with China, and that ignores the economic equities we have in the relationship. We don’t want to give them any excuse to unfairly punish us.”</p>
<p><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/politics-with-michelle-grattan/id703425900?mt=2"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233721/original/file-20180827-75984-1gfuvlr.png" alt="Listen on Apple Podcasts" width="268" height="68"></a> <a href="https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly90aGVjb252ZXJzYXRpb24uY29tL2F1L3BvZGNhc3RzL3BvbGl0aWNzLXdpdGgtbWljaGVsbGUtZ3JhdHRhbi5yc3M"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233720/original/file-20180827-75978-3mdxcf.png" alt="" width="268" height="68"></a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-conversation-4/politics-with-michelle-grattan"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233716/original/file-20180827-75981-pdp50i.png" alt="Stitcher" width="300" height="88"></a> <a href="https://tunein.com/podcasts/News--Politics-Podcasts/Politics-with-Michelle-Grattan-p227852/"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233723/original/file-20180827-75984-f0y2gb.png" alt="Listen on TuneIn" width="318" height="125"></a></p>
<p><a href="https://radiopublic.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-WRElBZ"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-152" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233717/original/file-20180827-75990-86y5tg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=268&fit=clip" alt="Listen on RadioPublic" width="268" height="87"></a> <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/5NkaSQoUERalaLBQAqUOcC"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237984/original/file-20180925-149976-1ks72uy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=268&fit=clip" width="268" height="82"></a> </p>
<h2>Additional audio</h2>
<p><a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Lee_Rosevere/The_Big_Loop_-_FML_original_podcast_score/Lee_Rosevere_-_The_Big_Loop_-_FML_original_podcast_score_-_10_A_List_of_Ways_to_Die">A List of Ways to Die</a>, Lee Rosevere, from Free Music Archive.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140959/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Michelle Grattan speaks with Richard McGregor and Clive Hamilton about Australia-China relations.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/942992018-04-04T01:44:13Z2018-04-04T01:44:13ZWhy do we keep turning a blind eye to Chinese political interference?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212913/original/file-20180403-189804-run4vj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Chinese President Xi Jinping is sworn in for a second term at the National People's Congress at the Great Hall.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Wu Hong</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Academics in Australia might reflect on the fact that scholarly books critical of the Chinese Communist Party are now shunned by publishers. Scholars who work on China know that continued access to the country requires them to play by Beijing’s rules, which for most means self-censorship – the dirty secret of China studies in Australia.</p>
<p>Despite refusing to <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/controversial-china-book-may-get-parliamentary-protection-20180205-p4yzfy.html">publish</a> my book, <a href="http://www.hardiegrant.com/au/publishing/bookfinder/book/silent-invasion-by-clive-hamilton/9781743794807">Silent Invasion</a>, I am privileged in my access to free speech in a way that most Chinese-Australians are not.</p>
<p>In February, Alex Joske, my researcher for the book and of Chinese heritage himself, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/06/opinion/beijing-chinese-australians-censorship.html">wrote in the New York Times</a> that as Beijing’s interference in Australian society intensifies:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… the voices of the Chinese-Australians alarmed by Beijing’s encroachment are being drowned out by an aggressive Chinese government campaign to silence critics here.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Once quite vocal, pro-democracy activists, supporters of Tibetan autonomy, and Falun Gong practitioners are barely heard nowadays. In my book, I describe how this marginalisation has been carried out.</p>
<h2>Marginalising critics</h2>
<p>Examples are legion. The New York Times recently <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/18/world/australia/china-taiwan-discrimination.html">reported</a> that Taiwanese workers at restaurants in Sydney have been sacked because, when asked whether they believe Taiwan belongs to China, they say “no”.</p>
<p>It only takes a few examples like this to send a signal to all Taiwanese in Australia to keep their views to themselves if they go against Beijing. This kind of violation of democratic principles — not to mention employment law — has for years been ignored by the mainstream.</p>
<p>Soon after Allen & Unwin <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/free-speech-fears-after-book-critical-of-china-is-pulled-from-publication-20171112-gzjiyr.html">pulled publication of my book</a>, a retired businessman phoned. For years he has been taking in Chinese students as lodgers. Recently, he was walking through the CBD with one of those students when they came upon a Falun Gong practitioner collecting signatures on a petition. When he said “let’s go over”, she begged him not to. She kept walking while he signed the petition.</p>
<p>Two weeks later, the student’s parents back in China had the Ministry of State Security knocking on their door. They were warned to keep an eye on their daughter, who was creating trouble in Australia.</p>
<p>Think about that. Chinese authorities in Australia are monitoring Falun Gong practitioners on the streets of Sydney and Melbourne, photographing anyone who interacts with them. They can identify any ethnically Chinese person and put them on a watchlist.</p>
<p>In the course of researching my book, I spoke with pastors at Chinese churches in Australia who believe their congregations and community groups have Communist Party agents spying on behalf on the consulate. Some Chinese-Australians cannot even go to their places of worship without Beijing’s vast security apparatus watching and reporting on them.</p>
<p>Few religious groups of modern times have experienced more coercion and violence than practitioners of the peaceful spiritual practice Falun Gong. Working through the consulates, the sinister <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/610_Office">610 Office</a> has harassed, threatened and bullied Falun Gong practitioners in Australia and frightened off sympathetic politicians.</p>
<p>Last year, Feng Chongyi, an associate professor at the University of Technology Sydney, was <a href="https://theconversation.com/academic-chongyi-feng-profits-freedom-and-chinas-soft-power-in-australia-78751">forcibly detained in China</a> for a week while doing research on human rights lawyers. China does not like what he is uncovering and wanted to send an unambiguous message that he should change what he works on in Australia.</p>
<p>It’s important to understand that the effect of Beijing’s suppression of critical voices in the Chinese-Australian community is not confined to pro-democracy and Tibetan autonomy activists. The dominant narrative in the community is now one that supports the Communist Party view of the world.</p>
<p>Leading Sinologist John Fitzgerald has <a href="http://insidestory.org.au/beijings-guoqing-versus-australias-way-of-life/">shown</a> how the once-diverse Chinese-language media became overwhelmingly pro-Beijing. Chinese-language media in Australia is subject to Beijing’s censorship regime. Chinese-Australians who speak about human rights violations or complain about Beijing’s interference in Australian politics are vilified.</p>
<p>A young Chinese-Australian who wants to enter politics knows that any criticism he or she may make of, for example, party influence operations in Australia will result in bad press and pressure from “community leaders”. If they were to persist, family members in China may receive intimidating visits from state security. It’s much easier to stay out politics.</p>
<p>This is a denial of their democratic rights. It means that Chinese-Australians critical of the Communist Party have no representation in parliament. Who will speak up for them if their family is threatened, or if their business in Australia is sent broke by a boycott organised by the consulate?</p>
<h2>Enabling the silencing</h2>
<p>Instead of giving these critics of the Communist Party a voice, some of our political leaders have collaborated in their silencing. They shun them, even condemning them when they protest outside the Sydney consulate, while mixing with and responding to “community leaders” who typically head United Front organisations guided by the party through its network of agencies that operate in Australia.</p>
<p>In February, Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen expressed outrage in parliament because Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen had threatened violence against any Cambodian-Australians who staged a protest during his visit to Australia. Bowen declared he would defend the right of Cambodian-Australians to protest and would not allow peaceful protesters to be harassed and bullied.</p>
<iframe src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fchrisbowenmp%2Fvideos%2F1412172932225379%2F&show_text=0&width=560" width="100%" height="400" style="border:none;overflow:hidden" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" allowfullscreen="true"></iframe>
<p>Good for him. But where is Bowen when Chinese-Australians are threatened and intimidated by China’s state security apparatus in Australia? Where is he when supporters of Tibetan autonomy are drowned out and intimidated on the streets of Sydney?</p>
<p>Bowen is a prominent member of the New South Wales Right faction of the Labor Party and accordingly has been the <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/foreign-affairs/sam-dastyaris-chinese-donor-has-communist-party-cell/news-story/e28a2cb165c1873044205cbfa0c8ca45">recipient</a> of largesse from wealthy Chinese businessmen close to Beijing. He has been flown to China at the expense of the Communist Party and an organisation run by Huang Xiangmo, the businessman ASIO <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-05/asio-china-spy-raid/8589094">warned</a> the major political parties to avoid taking money from. </p>
<p>Bowen <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/foreign-affairs/nonprofit-group-linked-to-chinese-donors/news-story/fa4c9d594e8508f6fb29c0a999d91883">has been a patron</a> of the Australian Council for the Promotion of Peaceful Reunification of China, the peak United Front body closely associated with Huang Xiangmo.</p>
<p>As my book appeared in the bookshops, the big beasts of the NSW Right came out to monster me because I have said they are too close to Communist Party front groups and agents of influence. <a href="https://twitter.com/bobjcarr/status/965788549634179072">Bob Carr</a>, <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/lets-see-corporations-pay-their-full-tax-obligations-before-talk-of-cuts-20180219-h0waaz.html">Paul Keating</a> and <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/graham-richardson/clive-hamilton-is-treating-us-as-mugs/news-story/adca7132b4c541e9b5ecaa1ec7d435f5">Graham Richardson</a> attempted to trash my reputation and make me out as a Sinophobe and closet racist. </p>
<p>They are embarrassed when anyone draws attention to the evidence of the deep penetration of the Chinese state into their part of the Labor Party. They should know that the more they try to shut down critics, the more we will ask what they have to hide.</p>
<h2>Xenophobia-phobia</h2>
<p>Like others, I have puzzled over the astonishing level of naivety in this country about what China is doing here. </p>
<p>It doesn’t seem enough to speak, as some have, of being blinded by the money or referring to the natural openness of Australians. For some, it’s almost a wilful unwillingness to see, despite the powerful evidence of China’s aggressive intentions.</p>
<p>When writing Silent Invasion, I anticipated that its arguments would be dismissed as rooted in xenophobia and that I am just stirring a cauldron of anti-Chinese racism. I have a pretty good <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2015/08/04/4286786.htm">record</a> of anti-racism over the decades, but for some that counts for little. </p>
<p>More to the point, in the book I tried hard to reflect the experiences of those Chinese-Australians who are critical of the Chinese Communist Party and feel threatened by it in their new home.</p>
<p>I discussed with some of them the risk of racist groups misusing the book to reinforce their prejudices. The typical response was: “Well, what’s the alternative? Should you just say nothing?”</p>
<p>The judgement of these Chinese-Australians is that they may have to take some collateral damage to win the larger battle. They are much more worried about the vast apparatus of Communist Party coercion than some wave of anti-Chinese sentiment.</p>
<h2>Blame shifting</h2>
<p>From the moment I began researching and writing Silent Invasion, I resolved to ensure that none of the criticisms I made of the Chinese Communist Party could be construed as anti-Chinese or anti-China. </p>
<p>I knew that nothing I did would deter the party from its usual conflation of the party and the nation. And true to form its spokespersons in Canberra and Beijing have stuck to the party line, <a href="http://au.china-embassy.org/eng/gdxw/t1538617.htm">attacking</a> the book as “racist bigotry” and “anti-Chinese”. </p>
<p>If you just read <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/beware-fanning-flames-of-racism-over-silent-invasion-fears-20180228-p4z261.html">Race Discrimination Commissioner Tim Soutphommasane</a>, Chinese Embassy <a href="http://au.china-embassy.org/eng/gdxw/t1538617.htm">statements</a>, and Beijing’s trolls on social media, you’d think the danger we face in Australia is not Chinese Communist Party interference operations but the risk of inflaming anti-Chinese racism by calling out the party. </p>
<p>The problem lies not in Xi Jinping’s aggressive assertion of a newly risen China, but the stain on our own history. Our first goal must not be to resist growing foreign interference, but to keep the lid on fringe sentiments here.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/academic-chongyi-feng-profits-freedom-and-chinas-soft-power-in-australia-78751">Academic Chongyi Feng: profits, freedom and China’s 'soft power' in Australia</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>But what of China experts in Australia? Surely they can see what is happening. Most of the serious ones can and have been trying to draw <a href="https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/long-reach-chinas-united-front-work">attention</a> to it for some years.</p>
<p>Others, like the University of Sydney’s David Brophy, prefer to put their ideological purity on display. <a href="https://www.australianbookreview.com.au/abr-online/current-issue/4663-david-brophy-reviews-silent-invasion-china-s-influence-in-australia-by-clive-hamilton">In a ranting “review” of Silent Invasion</a>, he argued that when discussing the Chinese Communist Party’s interference operations in Australia, people like me and the string of China experts who take a similar view have got it all back to front.</p>
<p>For Brophy, when the issue of foreign interference arises, we must not “shift the blame onto China” but “confront our own failings”.</p>
<p>Concern about Communist Party interference in Australia, opines Brophy, actually “reflects a deep malaise in Australian society”. Really? Then Taiwan, Singapore, Canada, the US, New Zealand and several European countries, where the same debate is taking place, must be suffering from the same malaise.</p>
<p>In truth, when someone who is being bullied or violated is accused of just imagining it, we call it victim-blaming.</p>
<p>When Brophy dismisses the mountain of evidence of Communist Party interference in Australia as “imagined subversion”, he shares the assessment of his vice-chancellor, Michael Spence, who has <a href="http://www.afr.com/news/policy/education/sydney-unis-michael-spence-lashes-government-over-sinophobic-blatherings-20180128-h0pjc4">labelled</a> the mounting warnings by the government, based largely on ASIO reports, as “Sinophobic blatherings”. </p>
<p>As I suggest in Silent Invasion, Spence’s University of Sydney is among the most compromised of this country’s academic institutions.</p>
<p>It’s not Silent Invasion, but the reaction to it, that has highlighted something troubling in the intellectual life of the nation. The fault is not an incipient xenophobia ever-ready to burst forth in anti-Chinese racism, as if our universities inherited the culture of the gold fields.</p>
<p>No, the fault lies in the sacrifice of intellectual rigour to the guilt felt by politically correct academics for what happened on the goldfields. For the Chinese Communist Party, this fault is a rich seam to mine in its quest to exert its influence here.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94299/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Clive Hamilton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The author of the controversial Silent Invasion argues it’s not the book, but the reaction to it, that has highlighted something troubling in Australian intellectual life.Clive Hamilton, Professor of Public Ethics, Centre For Applied Philosophy & Public Ethics (CAPPE), Charles Sturt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/283222014-07-23T20:17:42Z2014-07-23T20:17:42ZEnvironmentalists have a right to protest – but not at all costs<p>Here is a tough question – what are the limits of legitimate protest? As Lord Keynes is famously reputed to have said, everything depends on everything else. What is protest? What is legitimate?</p>
<p>I’m going to take as my starting point that protest is legitimised by the rule of law. The kind of acceptable behaviour that one might observe in a liberal democracy is very different from that in a dictatorship. </p>
<p>Another way of stating the case is to argue that the social licence to protest varies in time and place.</p>
<p>Many protesters, however, are of the view that they have unlimited licence to protest. That once their intentions are self-declared to be noble that there can be no limit on their behaviour.</p>
<h2>Licence to lie?</h2>
<p>Take, for example, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/anz-whitehaven-coal-hoax">Whitehaven Coal hoaxer Jonathan Moylan</a>, who faked an ANZ press release stating that the bank had withdrawn a A$1.2 billion loan facility due to environmental concerns. He is currently awaiting sentencing after <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-11/jonathan-moylan-anz-hoax-sentence/5589512">pleading guilty to disseminating false or misleading information affecting market participation</a>. His actions were clearly illegal, yet there is <a href="http://www.standwithjono.org">a website</a> that describes his actions as being civil disobedience and an act of good conscience. Elected members of the federal parliament congratulated him on his actions.</p>
<p>Consider another example. Clive Hamilton <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-spying-on-anti-coal-activists-just-the-tip-of-the-iceberg-27570">recently complained</a> that Australian security agencies were monitoring anti-coal activists. Small-l liberal minded people might be horrified at that prospect – until we also read <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/comment/on-the-hot-road-to-cooler-highways-20140618-zsd94.html">Elizabeth Farrelly in the Sydney Morning Herald</a> telling us democracy has failed, and calling for a “people’s revolution”. </p>
<p>To be fair, Farrelly might be engaging in some hyperbole, but our security agencies are paid to be paranoid.</p>
<h2>The rule of law</h2>
<p>The thing is this: however noble “saving the planet” might be, in a liberal democracy, under the rule of law, protest must be conducted through both non-violent <em>and</em> non-coercive means.</p>
<p>Restricting violence and coercion is a legitimate function of government. As the great liberal economist Ludwig von Mises <a href="http://mises.org/liberal/ch1sec7.asp">indicated</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>One must be in a position to compel the person who will not respect the lives, health, personal freedom, or private property of others to acquiesce in the rules of life in society. This is the function that the liberal doctrine assigns to the state: the protection of property, liberty, and peace.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>We <em>might</em> want to believe that environmental activists should be able to issue false media releases, or even conspire to overthrow the democratically elected government without interference from the authorities. But the proper way to do so is to campaign for those changes at the ballot box. </p>
<p>As it turns out, the environmental movement is failing to convince voters or politicians of their cause. Last year the <a href="http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/media/weowebsite/2013/energyclimatemap/RedrawingEnergyClimateMap.pdf">International Energy Agency</a> reported “15% of global CO<sub>2</sub> emissions receive an incentive of $110 per tonne in the form of fossil-fuel subsidies while only 8% are subject to a carbon price.” With Australia about to abolish the carbon tax that 8% figure will be falling. </p>
<p>It’s not just Australia; the <a href="https://germanwatch.org/en/7677">Climate Change Performance Index</a> shows that “no single country is yet on track to prevent dangerous climate change”. </p>
<p>Small wonder the broader environmental movement is turning to non-liberal and non-democratic means to pursue their aims.</p>
<h2>Making environmentalists accountable for their actions</h2>
<p>The fossil fuel <a href="https://theconversation.com/search?q=divestment">divestment</a> campaign is a prime example. This is an internationally orchestrated, well-funded, and apparently sophisticated campaign against fossil fuel investment. Once you strip away the apparent sophistication of their argument you end up more or less with a call for a series of <a href="http://www.minerals.org.au/news/a_critique_of_the_coal_divestment_campaign">secondary boycotts of fossil fuel producers and their sources of capital</a>.</p>
<p>At the moment environmental groups are <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/companies-to-get-protection-from-activists-boycotts/story-fn59niix-1226724817535">exempt</a> from the prohibition on secondary boycotts. This is an astonishing exemption for a country that trumpets equality before the law.</p>
<p>The Abbott government has flagged that this exemption will be removed. There are some, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-24/berg-freedom-of-speech-means-freedom-to-boycott/4977410">like my good friend Chris Berg</a>, who argue that the whole notion of secondary boycotts are consistent with the right to free speech. </p>
<p>The fossil fuel divestment campaign, with its explicit aim of stigmatising Australia’s coal industry, might well fall foul of <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/ca2001172/s1041e.html">s1041E of the Corporations Act 2001</a>. The same section of the same law used to convict Jonathan Moylan. </p>
<p>The campaign to convince investors to divest from fossil fuels on the basis of an undefined “carbon bubble” that can only exist if and when environmental activists convince government to change the rules of the game – having failed up until now – is something the corporate and market regulators should be closely examining. </p>
<p>Environmentalists have the right to campaign for their policies, but they don’t have the right to provide misleading stock market advice.</p>
<p>The argument that fossil fuels have social costs does not undermine my position at all. Yes, the social costs of fossil fuels exceed zero – but it isn’t clear that these costs exceed <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/opinion/respect-the-science-and-dont-call-co2-a-pollutant/story-e6frgd0x-1226097849156">the social benefits of fossil fuel usage</a>. </p>
<p>Access to cheap and reliable energy will do more to alleviate global poverty and foster economic development everywhere than the environmental movement ever will. By agitating for a divestment from fossil fuels, the environmental movement are condemning millions of people to a lower lifestyle and standard of living than they would otherwise enjoy. </p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This story was updated on 25 July to correct a typo in this sentence: “There are some, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-24/berg-freedom-of-speech-means-freedom-to-boycott/4977410">like my good friend Chris Berg</a>, who argue that the whole notion of secondary boycotts are consistent with the right to free speech.”</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/28322/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sinclair Davidson is Professor of Institutional Economics at RMIT University and an honorary senior fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs. His opinion pieces have been published in The Age, The Australian, Australian Financial Review, The Daily Telegraph, Sydney Morning Herald, and Wall Street Journal Asia.
His report "A critique of the coal divestment campaign" was published by the Minerals Council of Australia.</span></em></p>Here is a tough question – what are the limits of legitimate protest? As Lord Keynes is famously reputed to have said, everything depends on everything else. What is protest? What is legitimate? I’m going…Sinclair Davidson, Professor of Institutional Economics, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.