"China is simply too big and too central to be ostracised. My point is that China is now so big and it is going to grow so large, it will have no precedents in modern social economic history.... we haven’t come to a point of accommodation where it acknowledges China’s pre-eminence in east Asia and the Asian mainland, in which case we can start to move towards a sensible relationship again with China. The key point is – is the rise of China legitimate? Is taking 20 per cent of humanity – 1.4 billion people – from abject poverty something the world should welcome? And in our terms, it has completely remodelled the Australian economy. If we give China the recognition I believe it is due in terms of its legitimacy … then I think a lot of these issues, the so-called 14 points, sort of fall off the table.... We have no relationship with Beijing, so why would the Prime Minister of Malaysia or Singapore or Thailand talk to us about east Asia when we are non-speakers with the biggest power, the Chinese?"
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Social democratsCatholics from AustraliaPrime Ministers of AustraliaEconomists from AustraliaPoliticians from Sydney
Original Language: English
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Quoted in In the world according to Paul Keating, China deserves respect, Jennifer Hewett, Financial Review, 10 November 2021
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Paul_Keating
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Paul Keating
Paul John Keating (born 18 January 1944) is an Australian politician who was the 24th Prime Minister of Australia from 1991 to 1996. As member of the Australian Labor Party (ALP), he previously served as treasurer of Australia from 1983 to 1991 and as deputy prime minister of Australia from 1990 to 1991. As Prime Minister, he won an "unwinnable" election in 1993. He left school at the age of 14, joined the Labor Party at the same age, served a term as State President of Young Labor and worked as
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