Overthrow Xi? Hostility towards China is on the rise, but Aussies’ extraordinary demand for a coup is a step too far

A highly provocative article in Australia’s Murdoch-owned press has called on the Quad to support a coup in the Chinese Communist Party and end Xi Jinping’s reign. Are the Aussies getting tough, or is this personal for Rupert?

Anyone who has ever worked for the Murdoch press, like me, knows one thing: nothing big goes to print without the boss’s final okay, particularly where the political or business interests of his global media empire are concerned.

So it cannot be too far wide of the mark to suggest that an article published in The Australian newspaper, Murdoch’s national title Down Under, which called for a coup in China’s Communist Party and the ousting of leader Xi Jinping, was published with a nod of assent from the billionaire nonagenarian.

Because ever since his divorce from his third wife, Chinese-born American Wendi Deng, after 14 years of marriage back in 2013, China has been something of an itch that needs scratching for the media magnate. In fact, Rupert’s biographer, Michael Wolff even tweeted that, “Since their divorce, Murdoch has been telling anybody who would listen that Wendi is a Chinese spy – and had been throughout the marriage.”

The Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal ran reports that US government officials had warned Jared Kushner, former President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, about his close friendship with Deng over suspicions that she was using her network of connections to lobby for the Chinese government. No way did her ex-husband miss that.

That animosity, however, has stepped up a level. Quite a few levels in fact. Under the headline ‘China’s the main game. Removing Xi is how to play it’ commentator Paul Monk, writing in The Australian, speculated that the only way to avoid a devastating conflict with China is to facilitate a coup and suggested it should be on the agenda at the upcoming Quad conference between Australia, the US, India and Japan – described as Asia’s NATO.

“Xi needs to be removed from power and a broad path to democratic reform opened up at long last in China,” says Monk. “The Communist Party must make the shift to democratic rule that Taiwan and South Korea made from the late 1980s. The Quad should openly call for such a transition.”

In support of his suggestion, he cites a recent article from former Aussie PM Kevin Rudd in which he suggested the Quad could “provide a rallying point for all those concerned about Xi’s jingoism and arrogance”.

Warming to his topic, Monk declares, “Xi must go, and with him the reactionary dictatorship and hubris he espouses. This must be our stance. It must be the stance of the Quad. It must be the mantra of all those seeking a peaceful, prosperous future for Asia and the world.”

Heated stuff, indeed, from a serious newspaper that attracts and reflects a serious audience among the Australian establishment of which Murdoch, despite his US citizenship, remains a central figure.

And this is not an isolated incident of Beijing-baiting. In the past week alone, Australia has signed the security pact with the US and UK – AUKUS – and confirmed the purchase of eight nuclear submarines from their new BFFs, much to the chagrin of the French who were under the impression they’d already secured that order.

Both acts have upped the ante against China considerably. Why would Australia need nuclear subs? For a war against New Zealand?

Just in case any clarification was necessary about the call for transition to democracy, The Australian spelt it out: “We had clung to the hope – for 40 years, despite the shock of Tiananmen in 1989 – that our generosity and the energies of the Chinese people would bring such a transition in due course. The Communist Party has failed to effect it. Xi embodies that failure. Therefore, he must go.”

Beijing? Looks like it’s your move.

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