Minister for Communications Malcolm Turnbull, speaking this week in Canberra at an international leadership forum at the Australian National University, which discussed amongst other issues the rising economic and military strength, as well as the possible future geostrategic aspirations of China, drew a lesson from ancient Greece in order to address the topic.

Malcolm Turnbull argued that China’s policy of toughing up to its neighbours has in turn forced them to come closer to the United States. The Communications
Minister, in order to make his point, referred to Thucydides’ fifth book on the History of the Peloponnesian Wars and especially the extract where the citizens of the ancient small island state of Milos complained to the then super power of ancient Greece, Athens, stating that they did not want to be enslaved.

“The Athenian ambassadors, led by Alcibiades, said ‘cut the crap. You know as well as we do that, in the real world, justice is to be found only as between equals in power. As for the rest, the strong do as they will, and the weak suffer as they must’,” said Malcolm Turnbull, retelling Thucydides’ story in his own words.

“If that’s the message that China is sending to its neighbours, they will say ‘we’d better get closer to the one guy that is as strong, if not stronger, than China. And we’d better make sure we’re strong ourselves’,” concluded the Minister for Communications.

Malcolm Turnbull was educated at Sydney Grammar School and the University of Sydney, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Laws.
He then attended Brasenose College, Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Civil Law. Prior to entering politics, he worked as a journalist, lawyer, investment banker and venture capitalist. In 1993, he became the chairman of the Australian Republican Movement, a position he held until 2000. He entered federal parliament as the federal member for the eastern Sydney seat of Wentworth in 2004.

It is not the first time the 60-year-old Minister for Communications has displayed publicly his knowledge of ancient Greek thought.