How not to censor people in Australia

I just read this article in The Age about Chinese consular officials demanding the withdrawal of a film from the upcoming Melbourne International Film Festival. Such simplistic tactics might work in China, but telling a bunch of artsy types that they can't show some film, when they are clearly completely in their power to do so, is not a good way to stop the film being noticed in Australia. It will (hopefully) have the very opposite effect. If you're able, may I suggest you try to see the documentary mentioned just to prove me right! With huge resources contracts, the Chinese government may be able to make the Australian government and big businesses abandon any moral principles they might have had, but I'm pretty sure they won't be able to manipulate some good hearted film nerds.

As a side note, you may have heard of the buzz in Australia about some Rio Tinto executives being arrested for spying while in China to negotiate a deal between Rio and the Chinese government. Of course, it's possible that the accusations are true, but when you consider that people arrested for spying in China can be held for long periods without access to lawyers and be coerced into confessions, you start to understand the problem with dealing with totalitarian states used to exercising arbitrary power over their subjects. Maybe, just maybe, it would be a good idea to refrain from dealing with people with whom you have fundamental ethical disagreements. At least this is my instant reaction when I hear this stuff - if you don't want your employee's human rights abused, maybe don't deal with China. Of course this is 'economically out of the question' when there are mining contracts at stake. Turning a blind eye makes Rio, and all of us, complicit in the abuses that occur. This is a fundamental moral truth. If you can't conform to your own ethical standards, you can't really claim they are your standards.