It appears that underground North Korean nuclear test bombs are not the only thing exploding, as former Australian prime minister Paul Keating demonstrated during a tremendous brain explosion yesterday during a speech he delivered to a banking conference. He used the occasion to warn of the possibility of Japan developing its own nuclear weapons capability in response to the DPRK’s tests:

My great concern is that Japan may use the impasse of North Korea and this testing of its nuclear weapons to move into nuclear weapons itself, eschewing the nuclear protection provided to it by the United States under its umbrella. Such an outcome would be affronting and confronting to the Chinese, encouraging them to adopt an altogether different posture in respect of Japa. And if China adopts an altogether different posture in respect to Japan, the world we know today changes.

Mr Keating is certainly not alone in this fear and he should take some solace in Shinzo Abe’s Diet statement to the effect that Japan would not consider an independent nuclear capability.

While uncertainty surrounding a possible Japanese weapons program is nothing new, what Keating said next defies reality. He claimed that the Chinese government is “the most competent in the world” and “would leave any OECD government for dead.” What the…??!! Surely not more competent than your government was Mr. Keating?

Brain explosion number one complete, Keating continues:

It is my sincere hope that problems in the Korean peninsula can be satisfactorily dealt with and that Japan, despite its insularity and deep-seated problems… will find common cause with its largest and nearest neighbour in China.

BOOM!!! So it’s Japan that has “deep-seated” problems rather than North Korea or that fundamentally corrupt and authoritarian regime in Beijing? Has the whole world gone crazy? Has Keating completely lost it?

Not quite. A closer look at Keating’s life post-politics reveals that he derives “considerable income from his business interests in China” and “had a consultancy providing advice to companies in China.” He also had some involvement with an insurance brokering deal in China. Small wonder he’s keen to impress upon the Chinese government his ‘pro-Beijing’ line on Japan.