China’s punishing trade war against Australia, in open retaliation for the Morrison government’s backing of an independent international investigation into the origins of the Wuhan virus, is but one face of the reality of dealing with a bullying communist dictatorship. Just as China openly told New Zealand to mind its place as a “puppet” of bigger powers, Australians are being told in no uncertain fashion who Beijing thinks is boss.
Not least in our own country. As greedy local and state governments blindly sell off more and more key Australian assets, the signs are going up: Australians Keep Out.
The war over a pristine piece of Australia’s paradise is intensifying this week as locals and their supporters plan to occupy a beach in the Whitsundays that a Chinese developer wants them banished from.
This is not just private land: the Chinese company is asserting its dominance over public land and dictating what Australian locals are allowed to do even with their own private property.
Wealthy developer China Bloom ha[s] closed beaches, parts of the national park and the airstrip and had banned short term accommodation and rentals.
The tiny island in the Coral Sea at the bottom of the Whitsundays is being controlled by the developer after it signed a 96-year lease for 117 hectares with plans to develop a tourist resort to accommodate 3000 people.
3000 people with Chinese passports. No foreign devils allowed.
The small community that calls the 530 hectares of Keswick Island home has been banned from accessing large parts of public land, including the national park (which accounts for 400 hectares). The track to beautiful Basil Bay is blocked with rocks and “permit only” signs.
“I’m gobsmacked that it’s happening in Australia,” local Julie Willis told news.com.au after she was given three days to evacuate a rental property she had lived in for five years.
Northern Beaches local Deb Lawson is capitalising on the media attention. She has planned a “peaceful protest” at Basil Bay, where the Queensland Government told news.com.au locals are not allowed to go “past the high tide line”[…]
“China Bloom don’t have ownership below the high tide mark,” she told 7 News. “So, technically, they can’t stop us getting on to the beach.”
The member for Whitsundays, Amanda Camm, told reporters this week: “This is not Communist China, this is Australia. This is Queensland and this is the Whitsundays.”
Other local politicians are more focused on getting their greedy paws on that sweet, sweet Yuan.
News.com.au approached Mackay Regional Council about the issue earlier this week. They refused to comment, instead handballing the issue to the Palaszczuk Government on the grounds that “the long-term lease is between them and China Bloom”.
A Queensland Government spokesman told news.com.au the developer is being urged to do the right thing.
Oh, well, that’s that then: because asking communist dictatorships nicely “to do the right thing” always works out.
Part of the national park has been closed off, including an area that was known as a turtle nesting habitat.
It comes after one of the island’s shorelines was excavated during turtle nesting season in 2019.
Maybe they’re planning to build a “wet market”.
Ms Willis says Airbnb operators were forced to cancel bookings, including those with international tourists who were a week away from arriving, after China Bloom decreed an end to short term accommodation.
“Suddenly we were letting international visitors know, ‘Sorry, you can’t come here.’”
Ms Willis says a husband and wife team who ran a block maintenance business were given seven days to wrap things up and a local who had flown his plane from Mackay to Keswick Island more than 1000 times was given 12 hours to get it off the island’s runway.
The airstrip closure means travel by boat is now the only way on and off the island. But even the jetty, provided by the previous head lease holder, was removed and never replaced[…]
“It’s like they want it as a private island for Chinese tourists.”
News.com.au
Because that’s exactly what it is.
China has a thing for acquiring islands and declaring them off-limits, after all.
