American talk show host Jimmy Fallon humorously remarked, “Americans would literally rather learn Mandarin than use Instagram Reels!” Recently, more than 700,000 users who call themselves “TikTok refugees” from the United States flocked to a popular Chinese social media app named RedNote (or Xiaohongshu). This unexpected “migration” has connected netizens from the two great nations like never before. (more…)
Category: China
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Trump’s Gaza grab shows America is no better than China
Australia’s former top diplomat says Donald Trump may achieve what 75 years of post-war anti-Americanism could not: concede the case for moral equivalence. (more…)
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Why Trump 2.0 still can’t win the trade war with China
On the third day after Donald Trump announced the imposition of 25% and 10% tariffs on imported Canadian and Chinese goods respectively, Canada yielded and co-operated with Trump’s demands, in exchange for a one-month suspension of the agreement by the US. (more…)
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Renewed US-China tensions are trouble for Australia’s economy
Trump 2.0 is in full swing, and tariffs are emerging again as a policy of choice for the president. Trump has imposed or threatened tariffs against all of the US’s top trading partners, including Canada, Mexico, and the European Union. (more…)
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Silence on ‘evil’ China: Anti-China Media Watch
While the big China threat remains AI platform DeepSeek, The Australian reminds us that the true “evil” is Canberra not doing anything about China’s threat to national security, and Nine Newspapers remind us that LNP politicians taking money from rich Chinese-Australians are good, while their benefactors are likely up to no good. (more…)
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Western commentators still unable to see the advances in China
China today is not the China of the pre-COVID age, but many commentators think it is still an economy based on cheap manufacturing. (more…)
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DeepSeek’s success challenges assumptions about Chinese tech companies – and the US-China competition
The release of the new DeepSeek-R1 artificial intelligence (AI) model has shocked the tech world. (more…)
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Does CHINA really want to invade Australia?
That China may want to invade Australia is a silly idea promoted by certain people in Australian media. For example, in early 2023, Sky News Australia published an hour-long documentary claiming China’s “aggression” could start a new world war. This may be linked to the huge $1.5 billion fund set aside by US Congress to project China in a bad light, the sum including $500 Million for media outlets to produce journalism critical of China. Nevertheless, as shown in a Lowy Institute Poll in 2024, its influence is clear; two-thirds of Australians think China will become a ‘military threat’ in the next 20 years. (more…)
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Is an ‘antisemitic’ CCP DeepSeeking Aussie data? – Anti-China Media Watch
This week’s big China threat story is DeepSeek, an Open-Source AI (artificial intelligence) platform that the alarmists are signalling is further proof China is stealing our personal data. Those shouting loudest are the right-wing free marketeers but what are we to make of Wall Street greeting the rise of DeepSeek by wiping $1 trillion off the value of, chip maker, Nvidia in just one day? (more…)
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Is America marching in the final footsteps of the British empire?
Yu-Book Lim used to head a Singapore think tank and was Executive Chairman of IMC Plantations before that. He has just published an extended, thought-provoking essay: “Xi Jinping’s “Once-in-a-Century Upheaval” Prophecy. (more…)
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Hugh White is stirring the China pot again
For more than 40 years Hugh White has been an important analyst of Australian defence and foreign policy. (more…)
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Only pathetic bootlickers spend their energy criticising China
The buzz around Xiaohongshu and then DeepSeek has had an unusually high volume of westerners speaking positively about China for the last couple of weeks, which of course means we’re also seeing many westerners falling all over themselves to say “Well actually China is actually quite bad actually” in response. (more…)
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The Year of the Snake: unseen bogs; unbridled good-luck
Amidst colourful lion dances and whatnots, many Chinese community leaders will, once again, fete their white guardian angels at fanciful Chinese New Year banquets, at one venue or another, throughout this wide brown homeland of their heirs. These felicitous communions no doubt lend weight for many Aussie pollies to boast about ours being the most successful multicultural nation on earth. (more…)
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How the Chinese beat Trump and OpenAI
The hype around Artificial Intelligence, the now failed U.S. attempt to monopolise it, and the recent counter from China are a lesson in how to innovate. They also show that the U.S. is losing the capability to do so. (more…)
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1st call between Marco Rubio and Wang Yi
Neither State Department nor MOFA is gonna like this piece.
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Donald Trump’s return: gloves off reset
Donald Trump’s return to power for a second term has sent ripples across the globe. On his first day in office, he wielded executive authority with vigour, signing many executive orders, including withdrawing the US from the Paris Agreement for the second time. This move reversed the country’s climate commitments yet again, signalling Trump’s prioritisation of energy dominance and domestic interests. (more…)
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China Media Watch
Reports of Uyghur forced labour imports to Australia: The mainstream media continues to produce China reports that are agenda driven, biased and based on poor or no research. There is no balance and rather than be constructive, there’s an all-out determination to be destructive. (more…)
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US “blunt force trauma” trade strategy treated with Chinese acupuncture
At this time it seems impossible to avoid discussing President Trump and his approach to China. What is less often discussed is China’s approach to Trump. (more…)
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Under Trump, the US and China may be greater friends than ever
Much has been said about the impending trade war amid Donald Trump’s threats to implement new tariffs against China, Mexico and Canada. But while many fear this could exacerbate tensions between China and the United States, we could find China is not as impacted as first thought. (more…)
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Australia must choose between economic prosperity and subservience to the US trade and military agenda
Australian Government cabinet papers from 30 years ago show that Australian leaders suspected that the claims of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq were probably false. However, Australia committed troops because Australia wanted to ingratiate itself with the United States and was prepared to break international law to do so. This sets the standard for Australia’s willingness to co-operate with any Trump-led escalation of efforts to undermine China economy with tariffs and sanctions. (more…)
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Elitists touched up by one of their own – The Callick case
The Murdoch Press sure knows how to whip up an eye-catching headline – it may be its longest suit. True to form, on 19 January 25 The Weekend Australian ran a corker – “HOW THE AMERICAN HATERS IN OUR MIDST GO EASY ON CHINA.”
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Will Trump’s hard line on Beijing ‘blow up’ Canberra’s China policy?
Canberra insiders fear the second coming of Donald Trump could bring pressure on Australia to disown its “stabilisation” policy with Beijing. (more…)
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Thanks Trump, for helping make China great again
Donald Trump’s second term may not be all bad for all nations, including and especially China. For many Chinese internet users, Trump’s policies have unwittingly strengthened their country. This is why he has earned the popular nickname “Chuan Jianguo,” which means “Make China Great.” (more…)
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“Black Myth” in the Festive Season: Write your own journey to the East
Dumplings on the dinner table, festive greetings everywhere, and an intriguing online adventure that keeps you hooked from start to finish. (more…)
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Can Trump trump China (or vice versa)?
Gaza, Haiti, Iran, Israel, Lebanon, Russia, Syria, Ukraine, and Venezuela: President-elect Donald Trump will face no shortage of foreign-policy challenges when he assumes office in January. None, however, comes close to China in scope, scale, or complexity. No other country has the capacity to resist his predictable antagonism with the same degree of strength and tenacity, and none arouses more hostility and outrage among MAGA Republicans. In short, China is guaranteed to put President Trump in a difficult bind the second time around: he can either choose to cut deals with Beijing and risk being branded an appeaser by the China hawks in his party, or he can punish and further encircle Beijing, risking a potentially violent clash and possibly even nuclear escalation. How he chooses to resolve this quandary will surely prove the most important foreign test of his second term in office. (more…)
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A garden of civilisations
Humanity stands at a crossroads, its future bound not to conquest but to synthesis. The world before us is not one of irreconcilable opposites locked in perpetual conflict but an intricate ecosystem of human Adaptive Systems, each defined by its strengths and vulnerabilities.
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President Trump and Australia’s National Security
Australia needs to try and persuade the Trump Administration that no country can expect to dominate our region and the benefits of cooperation. But if, as is likely, Trump refuses to accept a multipolar region then Australia must be prepared to act on its own and seek its security within Asia. (more…)
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All at (sixes and) sevens and eights: Taiwan policy
The fate of the world may well rest on Taiwan but our policy is at sixes and sevens, or rather, according to recent statements in the Australian press, at sevens and eights. (more…)
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Comparing the Chinese fight against corruption to the West’s
Government corruption is, or should be, a scourge in any government. We’re faced with it on a daily basis, we know it exists and we know something needs to be done. What is done and how it is done, determines the validity of our government’s commitment; if they are not stamping it out or at least attempting to reduce it, then they are failing the people who put them there – the voters. (more…)
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The US is upset China wants to be self-reliant in producing chips
Having denied Chinese firms access to advanced foreign semiconductors, Washington is launching probe into ‘subsidised’ domestic production. (more…)