From the Readers

Friends Down Under

(China Daily)
Updated: 2010-05-13 08:23

Comment on "Time to have a new view of China" (China Daily website, May 7)

We Australians view China not from a neo-Cold War perspective but as neighbors. It was Australia that opened the way for Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon to visit Beijing.

On the other hand, it was Mao Zedong who helped save Australia during World War II. My postgraduate thesis (written during the upheavals of the 'cultural revolution' in 1968) asserts that Mao and the 8th Route Army and the New 4th Army kept the Japanese forces tied to the north of China. This prevented the Japanese from moving into Southeast Asia and hence onto Australia where Japan's war aims included capturing Australia's great mineral wealth. It is a debt that has never been acknowledged.

Although it was never intentional, Mao's spirit imbued the Chinese guerrilla forces with enormous courage that enabled China to defeat Japan's imperialist aggression during World War II. Thus, we Australians can be thankful to China. Our own population is served by almost 1 million Chinese Australians. We benefit from being a friend of China.

Adrian Keefe, on China Daily website

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(China Daily 05/13/2010 page9)