As someone who worked in Australia-China relations in government, in the private sector and in my own company; having lived, studied and worked in China; here's what I think about this issue:
1. Beijing is indeed making aggressive moves in the region including unprecedented and troubling stakes into South China Seas islets and reefs
2. It does indeed have an aggressive "Belt and Road"'strategic plan that is as much about influence as about trade and economics. Imperium Sinica
3. It has a President in Xi Jinping who is a Mao wannabe: authoritarian, brooking no resistance, suppressing free speech, locking up dissidents (a million Muslim Uighurs...)
4. It does indeed use its diaspora to control the narrative about itself in other countries including Australia
5. Aussie business people living in China report ever nastier treatment by their interlocutors. Reciprocity seems ever further away
6. Therefore we are entitled to talk abut this without being accused - oh, so predictably and boringly - of being "racist" China haters
Tamara's article yesterday in the South China Morning Post relies rather too heavily on academics for her analysis, rather than business folks or politicians, but it's useful nonetheless.
2. It does indeed have an aggressive "Belt and Road"'strategic plan that is as much about influence as about trade and economics. Imperium Sinica
3. It has a President in Xi Jinping who is a Mao wannabe: authoritarian, brooking no resistance, suppressing free speech, locking up dissidents (a million Muslim Uighurs...)
4. It does indeed use its diaspora to control the narrative about itself in other countries including Australia
5. Aussie business people living in China report ever nastier treatment by their interlocutors. Reciprocity seems ever further away
6. Therefore we are entitled to talk abut this without being accused - oh, so predictably and boringly - of being "racist" China haters
Tamara's article yesterday in the South China Morning Post relies rather too heavily on academics for her analysis, rather than business folks or politicians, but it's useful nonetheless.
The commenters predictably criticise Australia, call it the US' "deputy sheriff". Racist. Yawn. Oh, yes, and of course this sort of narrative is what leads to Christchurch massacres, don't you know...
What's behind China conspiracy theories in Australia?
Two of Australia's leading daily newspapers The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age launched an advertising campaign recently to demonstrate their commitment to investigative journalism.
Headlined "It's Your Future, You Deserve to Know", the campaign featured four broad areas of coverage, including one titled "China's Growing Influence". Articles in that category were described as revealing the "true scale of China's ambition for power" and examining if Beijing's ambitious Belt and Road infrastructure initiative was a "benign economic plan or the rise of a new empire.
The descriptions reflect how deeply concerns about China's rising influence in Australian politics and society – thrown into the open in December 2017 by then-leader Malcolm Turnbull when discussing new laws against foreign interference – have taken root.
~~~~~~~~
