Commentary
Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong has discovered that while playing the colonial guilt card might work well with left-wing audiences, the use of such finger-wagging on the international stage may be a diplomatic failure.
Why Wong thought publicly shaming Britain over colonialism in London would be diplomatically sound is unclear. But unsurprisingly her call for Britain to share stories of its “uncomfortable” past with its former Pacific colonies was not well received.
In her speech, Wong portrayed her family as a victim of colonialism with her Chinese grandmother being a servant for British colonialists in Borneo.
Yet Britain’s foreign secretary was quick to respond pointing out that he was of African heritage, and that the United Kingdom’s prime minister and home affairs secretary were both of Asian descent….