Clive Palmer’s Bizarre Apology To The Nation Of China Is Flat-Out Bonkers

Earlier today, mining magnate and Tattooine-based crime lord Clive Palmer finally caved to pressure and apologised for calling the Chinese government “mongrels”. In case you missed that delightful little rant on last week’s Q&A, here’s a refresher:

In an open letter to China’s Australian ambassador Ma Zhaoxu, Palmer said he has “come to the realisation that what I said on Q&A was an insult to Chinese people everywhere”,  and offered a “most genuine and sincere apology”.

Okay, firstly, no shit it was an insult, Clive: people aren’t crazy about being called mongrels on their good days, let alone the Chinese government, which isn’t exactly known for its sense of humour.

But the rest of the letter is one of the most bizarre things you’ll ever read, let alone something that came from a senior politician’s desk. The whole thing is here if you’d like to read it for yourself, but let’s go through it line by line.

“We always must have an open mind; an open mind allows us to put ourselves in the other person’s position and bring greater understanding and less conflict to the world. An open mind at least helps me understand why people think the way they do and how we can avoid traps for better understanding.”

Besides being an English teacher’s definition of a bad trip, that second sentence reads like a letter penned by a sulky teenager forced to apologise in writing to the kid he gives nookies to at lunchtime. You’ve gotta watch out for those Better Understanding Traps; they’ll rip the misconceptions right out of your skull. They’re dangerous, those things. That’s why Clive always disables them with his patented Bigotry Stick.

“I have had a long involvement with China since first visiting the country in 1962”.

1962? Jesus Christ, Clive, you were eight years old in 1962! China in 1962 was no place for Chinese people to be, let alone an eight-year-old child from a country on the other side of the Iron Curtain. In 1962, China was going through a famine that killed between 20 and 45 million people, as well as reeling from the Great Leap Forward, a ridiculously misguided economic program that basically turned China into a super-sized North Korea. What were Clive’s parents doing taking him to China in 1962?

Maybe he just went there himself. Tried to sell them a palace made of waffles or something.

“As Chairman Mao said in Nanjing when celebrating the 45th anniversary of the 1911 Revolution, words to the effect that over 45 years have passed since the 1911 Revolution and China had only sought friendly relations with its neighbours. He went on to say that another 45 years would pass and China would continue to seek good relations with its neighbours and China has.”

None of that above paragraph is a mistake; I checked it. Besides picking the most obscure thing the leader of a major nation could possibly say, Clive’s somehow managed to quote them without ever repeating a word they actually said.

Even better, referring to Chairman Mao, the architect behind China’s worst economic catastrophes and most appalling human rights abuses, is basically a giant “fuck you” to the contemporary Chinese government; Mao’s rule over China was so disastrous that it took China a solid thirty years to reverse the damage he did; he’s literally been written out of Chinese history books. Clive quoting Chairman Mao in a letter to the Chinese government is like writing a letter to German President Angela Merkel praising her predecessor Adolf Hitler’s get-up-and-go energy.

Nonetheless, an apology is an apology, no matter how politically motivated or downright bizarre. Now the hardworking people of China can rest easy, knowing that some loon who lives in the giant quarry with kangaroos in it is sorry for calling them names. Now the healing can begin.

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Feature image via Q&A/YouTube.