How low can Albo go? After the humiliation of begging a fascist regime for a meeting, in which to beg them to take our non-essential products again, Albo immediately does the CCP's bidding by echoing China's call to ban Taiwan from joining a Pacific cooperation forum.

ABC: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has suggested Australia is very unlikely to support Taiwan's push to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) in a move which is likely to deeply disappoint Taipei.

The previous govt in Australia had indicated it would support Taiwan's push to join, as do other member states, including Japan.

Speaking at the APEC meeting in Bangkok, Mr Albanese said the agreement was only for "recognised" nation-states, rather than economies.

"The CPTPP is a relationship between nation-states which are recognised," he said.

That's a straight out lie. The CPTPP's own charter says: (An)y State or separate customs territory may accede to this Agreement.

Clearly that includes Taiwan. So what have we got here:

The head of Australia, lying to suppress a democratic country (Taiwan) - at the behest of a fascist regime.

Typical ABC drags out an expert to whitewash this gross immorality away:

Benjamin Herscovitch, Australian National University: There's the risk that his comments will look like a concession to the Chinese government. China doesn't want Taiwan in the CPTPP, and the prime minister's comments will probably be chalked up as a win in Beijing. But there's nothing to suggest that the prime minister made these comments at President Xi's behest.

Nothing to suggest - are you serious? Everything suggests Albo walked straight out of his meeting with Xi with a strictly-worded script prepared by the CCP, from which Albo proceeded to unquestionably perform. Then the experts, platformed by the ABC, pile-in to excuse/bolster the lie.

Once again we see the insipid reach of the CCP throughout the ranks of power influencers in Australia - especially in academia. All of whom are paid by the public.

Pretty sure that Albo is the most lily-livered PM Australia has had re the CCP since Paul Keating - that's a very high-bar. You could then feasibly argue he is the most lily-livered politician on the planet. With all the woke talk we hear now about supporting this and that social cause (most of which i'm fine with), we've then got our PM supporting global fascism! How does that all fit together?