The arrest of Stern Hu, an Australian citizen working for iron ore exporter Rio Tinto, confirms that in non-democratic states like China “there is no clear border between the economic and the political”, writes Michael Danby, a Labor member of the Australian parliament and chair of its Foreign Affairs Sub-Committee.
Dealing with China, an “assertive Communist power” and unavoidable economic force, requires tactful diplomacy says Danby, a member of the steering committee of the World Movement for Democracy:
Australia — like Indonesia, Japan, South Korea and other Asian democracies — has to live peacefully in Asia with an authoritarian one-party state that routinely disregards the rights of its own people, but which is also one of Australia’s most important economic partners, and a rising power in terms of regional security.
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