British Seaman’s Record R744269 -  Open Letter to PM File No 1 Alan Smith's Seaman. 

The Canadian Government and Its Moral Code of Ethics

By hovering your mouse over the Canadian flag image below, you can also learn about the strong ethical principles upheld by Canadian seamen. Despite facing significant challenges, they believed that sending wheat to Communist China — especially when that wheat was being redeployed to North Vietnam, a country at war with Australia, New Zealand, and the USA, where hundreds of troops were being killed or maimed — was immoral and unethical, and therefore should not have continued.

Yet the Australian Government made a conscious decision to maintain its trade relations with Communist China, despite knowing that a significant portion of Australia’s wheat was being diverted to North Vietnam. This wheat was not merely a trade commodity; it had the potential to sustain North Vietnamese soldiers who were directly engaged in combat against Australia and its allies during the conflict. The ramifications of this trade raised serious ethical questions about supporting a nation that was opposing Australian, New Zealand, and USA forces.

There is a striking and thought-provoking similarity between my narrative of the Chinese Cultural Revolution and the Canadian perspective on democracy, as well as the fundamental concepts of right and wrong that underpin them. This connection is compellingly illustrated in Tianxiao Zhu's meticulously crafted 2021 paper, developed as part of his PhD requirements at the University of Minnesota. During my extensive research for my first manuscript — which ultimately inspired the launch of the website absentjustice.com — I fortuitously discovered Zhu's insightful work. His paper sheds light on a significant trade that took place during the chaotic and turbulent period I was examining.

Among the many footnotes and references in his research, one stands out: the ship Hopepeak. This name resonates deeply with me, evoking memories tied to my own experiences. According to my British Seaman's Discharge Book, I served as a crew member during that harrowing era, navigating the treacherous waters of Red China. It was a time marked by widespread famine and profound suffering, creating a stark backdrop to the life-and-death decisions being made. Without the vital trade relationship with Australia during this perilous time, the starvation rates in China would have reached unimaginable levels.

In essence, the Australian government faced an agonising moral dilemma — weighing the lives of its soldiers engaged in the conflict in North Vietnam against the desperate need to provide sustenance for an entire nation teetering on the brink of starvation. This heart-wrenching choice highlights the often-unseen complexities of international relations and humanitarian crises, revealing the painful calculations made in the pursuit of survival.

Footnote 169 → FOOD AND TRADE IN LATE MAOIST CHINA, 1960-1978

Tianxiao Zhu's Footnotes 83, 84, 169:

In September 1967, a group of British merchant seamen quit their ship, the Hope Peak, in Sydney and flew back to London. They told the press in London that they quit the job because of the humiliating experiences to which they were subjected while in Chinese ports. They also claimed that grain shipped from Australia to China was being sent straight on to North Vietnam. One of them said, “I have watched grain going off our ship on conveyor belts and straight into bags stamped North Vietnam. Our ship was being used to take grain from Australia to feed the North Vietnamese. It’s disgusting.” 

84. The Minister of Trade and Industry received an inquiry about the truth of the story in Parliament, to which the Minister pointed out that when they left Australia, the seamen only told the Australian press that they suffered such intolerable maltreatment in various Chinese ports that they were fearful about going back. But after they arrived in London, Vietnam was added to their story. Thus the Minister claimed that he did not know the facts and did not want to challenge this story, but it seemed to him that their claims about Vietnam seemed to be an “afterthought.”

169. "...In Vancouver, nine sailors refused to work on a grain ship headed to China: two of them eventually returned to work, and the others were arrested. Just when the ship was about to sail, seven more left the ship but three of them later returned to work. In Sydney, six Canadian sailors left their ship; they resigned and asked to be paid, but the Australian immigration office repatriated them. At that time, a grain ship usually had crew members of about 40 people. A British ship lost the Chief Officer and sixteen seamen, who told journalists that if the ship were going to the communist countries, they would rather go to jail than work on the ship."

Examining this wheat agreement made with the People's Republic of China during the Menzies government in the mid‑1960s is essential. This controversial deal had significant implications that were obscured by a government campaign to discredit British and Canadian merchant seamen — including me. These brave individuals tried every conceivable legal way to expose this illicit diversion of wheat to North Vietnam.

Instead of receiving praise and support for their stance, they were slandered by the Liberal Coalition government of the time. Twenty-seven years later, the same government allowed five Australian citizens — out of twenty-one who had faced similar challenges with Telstra — to have their arbitration claims assessed by the Senate under a litmus test scenario. If the Senate ruled in favour of the litmus test case, the remaining sixteen claimants would be treated equally in that agreement. However, the Coalition government did not honour this understanding. (Refer to An Injustice to the remaining 16 Australian citizens).

The Coalition government followed with a similar campaign, reminiscent of the slanderous tactics they employed during the Communist China episode in 1967. They labelled the claims of the sixteen COT cases as frivolous and referred to the individuals involved as vexatious litigants.

A Far More Complex and Alarming Story
But let’s take a moment to consider the gravity of the situation: how does the author of this narrative — Alan Smith (me) — delve into a far more complex and alarming story that involves government officials who, much like those in the COT (Communications and Technology) story, were willing to jeopardise the lives of their fellow Australians?

These officials concealed even more pressing public interest issues that unfolded over thirty years before the events surrounding Telstra and the COT arbitrations. Indeed, some aspects of my story trace back to significant dates between 28 June 1967 and 18 September 1967, when the People’s Republic of China arrested me on dubious charges of espionage. My alleged crime stemmed from being seen with a notebook and a pen, in which I took meticulous notes on dates and times.

My presence in China was more accidental than intentional; I served as a crew member on the British tramp ship Hopepea

Our vessel was engaged in the humanitarian task of unloading Australian wheat, which we had loaded at the port of Albany in Western Australia. This shipment was not just ordinary trade — it was sent with the noble intention of alleviating hunger in the suffering nation of China.
However, a significant and troubling twist emerged: some of this wheat was redirected to North Vietnam, providing sustenance to the very Viet Cong forces who were at war with Australia, New Zealand, and the United States (refer to Chapter 7- Vietnam-Vietcong-2).

As a result, we may be left in the dark about the sheer volume of Australian wheat that found its way into the hands of Viet Cong guerrilla forces, who marched through the jungles of North Vietnam, intending to slaughter and maim as many Australian, New Zealand, and USA troops as possible.

The following three statements, taken from a report prepared by Australia’s Kim Beazley MP on 4 September 1965 (father of Australia’s former Minister of Defence Kim Beazley), only tell part of this tragic episode — the part I wanted to convey to Malcolm Fraser, former Prime Minister of Australia, when I telephoned him in April 1993 and again in April 1994 concerning Australia’s wheat deals, which I originally wrote to him about on 18 September 1967, when he was Minister for the Army.

📮 A Letter That Was Never Answered
In my letter dated 18 September 1967, addressed to The Hon. Malcolm Fraser and hand-delivered to the Commonwealth Police (now the Australian Federal Police), I reported a story strikingly similar to that of Tianxiao Zhu.

The sacrifice   

Feeding the enemy

1 July 2021 — The editorial in The Australian Financial Review of August 28, 1967, argues that Australia's position on wheat sales to China was rational: https://shorturl.at/90OoP.

While the Financial Review might argue in this 1 July 2021 editorial that supplying wheat to a starving China saved millions of Chinese lives, one must also ask how many  Australian, New Zealand and USA lives were lost after Australia's wheat fed the bellies of the North Vietnamese Vietcong guerrilla's before they marched into the jungle's of North Vietnam to kill and maim as many Australian, New Zealand and USA soldiers as they could.

I reported to the government that Australian wheat shipped on humanitarian grounds to the People's Republic of China was being redirected to another communist country under the cloak of humanitarian aid. This raises serious questions about the legitimacy of shipping food to a country under the guise of humanitarian assistance while that country is killing and maiming the soldiers of the country who are supplying this humanitarian aid.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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