Australia’s Mandarin-speaking Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is having to fend off criticism that he’s too soft on China as anti-China sentiment grows at home. From Reuters:
With Rudd urging a greater IMF role for China at a meeting this week of major economies in London, Australia’s conservative Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull accused Rudd of having become a “roving ambassador for the People’s Republic of China”.
Even a shock decision last Friday to refuse a bid by Chinese state-owned Minmetals to buy Australian miner OZ Minerals (OZL.AX) on national security grounds appears to have backfired, with media accusing the government of belated chest-beating. [ID:nSYD387689]
“The government has thrown up a series of arbitrary investment barriers apparently to look like it is ‘standing up to China'”, the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper said on Monday.
“It has sent a message to the Australian public that Chinese money is inherently dangerous. The result is red peril hysteria.”
Here are two satirical videos about Rudd’s poltics, from YouTube:
