Osmond Chiu is a researcher with the progressive think tank Per Capita and editor of the Labor Left magazine Challenge. A couple of weeks ago, as he was giving evidence to a senate inquiry into issues facing diaspora communities, Osmond was asked by Liberal Senator Eric Abetz to "unequivocally condemn" the Chinese Communist Party. It was very weird and bad and Abetz has since refused to apologise and only doubled down.
Here I ask Osmond about why that incident was so demeaning, why it matters and how we might consider Australia's relationship with China in a serious, critical but definitely not-racist way.
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My conversation with Max Chandler-Mather has been written up for Jacobin magazine
ARTICLE: Locking Out The Left: The Emergence of National Factions in Australian Labor
ARTICLE: I was born in Australia. Why do I need to renounce the Chinese Communist Party?
ARTICLE: Abetz's questioning tests our democracy
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ARTICLE: Seeing red: Labor's China problem
Cause of the Week: Union Aid Abroad (apheda.org.au)