By Peter Jennings*
When the People’s Liberation Army Navy flotilla berthed in Sydney in front of an adoring crowd of Chinese Australians, you can be sure that the timing and look of the event had been planned in every detail.
Right down to the professionally painted welcome signs, nothing is left to chance in the way the Chinese Communist Party commands the PLA Navy. The ships did not arrive off Sydney’s Heads by accident and the party would clearly get the diversionary value of making China’s biggest naval port call to Australia on the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.
