An unexpected tweet from a senior Chinese diplomat on Monday 29 November provided a perfect excuse for the Prime Minister to divert attention from his domestic problems, to praise our gallant defence forces, to refer to our national values, and to stand up to the People’s Republic of China, who, as everyone knows from numerous press reports and commentaries in recent months, has been threatening our trade and undermining our public institutions.
This is the first week of December and Australians are counting down to the summer break. Only two more weeks of parliament and this week the Opposition was ready to get stuck into the Government over the appalling issue of Robodebt, which had driven some of the unfortunate sufferers to desperation and allegedly, even suicide. Scott Morrison had already apologised, cancelled the scheme and announced that wrongly issued debt notices worth over 700 million dollars would be repaid.
Zhao Lijian, Deputy Director-General of the Information Department of the PRC Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has been a prolific user of Twitter, particularly to criticise US foreign policy in Afghanistan and the Middle East. He once described race relations in Washington as “White Out, Black In”. He condemned Pompeo for claiming that Covid-19 originated in China. With his long-standing interest in Central Asia, it is not surprising that he followed the release of the Brereton Report into war crimes committed by Australian defence forces during the War in Afghanistan. This report, with evidence of 39 murders of civilians and prisoners, has shocked the Australian public and has been widely reported overseas. It was not just shocking reading for the PRC government and Party.
Locked in a downward spiral with Canberra of tit for tat accusations, the Brereton Report provides ammunition for another round and to some extent counters Western criticism of the treatment of the Uighurs in China’s Xinjiang Province. Zhao clearly intended to intensify the war of words because he wrote on Twitter, which is not available in the PRC. His words were relatively uncontroversial – he said that he was “shocked by murder of Afghan civilians & prisoners by Australian soldiers” – but the accompanying image was quite shocking.
That image was one already circulating on the PRC social media platform Weibo, created by “wolf warrior painter” Wuheqilin, who is very popular with young nationalistic netizens (and has said that China should use art to export its ideology). Wuheqilin was happy with Zhao’s use of the image and in turn took a screenshot of Zhao’s tweet, adding, “Deputy Director-General Zhao is formidable!! Smack those bastards!! Smash their defences!!!”
Some sort of response was clearly called for, but the way in which Morrison made it is very questionable. Speaking over a video link to Parliament House, he made three points: that the tweet was appalling and unacceptable; that an official apology must be made; and that China must return to dialogue at leader or ministerial level.
Let us take these three demands one by one. The tweet is shocking, but although the image is fake, the facts stand – atrocities were committed by Australian soldiers. I doubt that the PRC will be the only country to criticise our moral failings in this regard. Second, there is no chance of an official apology. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying rejected Morrison’s call the following day and said, “Is it reasonable to cruelly kill Afghan innocent civilians, but unreasonable for others to condemn such cruel crimes?” Finally, seeking to “reset” the relationship through dialogue (Morrison’s own word) after this vituperative spat seems highly unlikely.
Only a few days ago, Frances Adamson, Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, said that the PRC would be wrong to assume that it was so powerful that it could set its terms of engagement with the world. Now President Xi Jinping and his officials are determined to prove exactly this point.
Jocelyn Chey is Visiting Professor at the University of Sydney and Adjunct Professor at Western Sydney University and UTS. She formerly held diplomatic posts in China and Hong Kong. She is a member of the Order of Australia (AM) and a Fellow of the Australian Institute of International Affairs.
Comments
9 responses to “Challenging the wolves: how to reply to Beijing’s tweet”
it takes a very emotional and biased mind to call a digital painter’s work “faked”.
China missed its mark by its clumsy criticism of the government and the ADF over the Afghanistan atrocities because they are being dealt with publicly already. If the CCP was better at changing minds rather than imposing it on people (e.g., by running over them with tanks), it would be highlighting the government’s continued bullying of David McBride.
After all, we cannot thank any of our institutions or leaders for the disclosures.
Just admit it. You committed inexcusable war crimes in a extremely unhumane way in Afganistan.
It’s horrifying those soilders have done and are still doing!
Stop being hypocritic.
You are just a nobody-country, stop making yourself a laughing stock!
So disgusting!
Thank you for the content about the artist, Wuheqilin. I have said in other places that the use of the word ‘fake’ or ‘doctored’ to describe an image that has been deliberately crafted is troublesome. By this metric, one could call Picasso’s ‘Guernica’ fake because all the images are a form of phantasy, and not real. Some people might object to calling it an artwork at all, and would prefer to call it CCP propaganda. But the work was created separately to the use it was put to by Zhao Lijian, and there is nothing especially contentious or offensive in it except to Australians, for obvious reasons.
Just admit it. You committed inexcusable war crimes in a extremely unhumane way in Afganistan.
It’s horrifying those soilders have done and are still doing!
Stop being hypocritic.
You are just a nobody-country, stop making yourself a laughing stock!
The enterprising young Mr. Fu Yu has produced another work and no doubt the frenzy in Canberra will be uncontrollable. We now have a PM locked in a bitter twitter war with an IT artist with over a million followers on the internet. My money is on the kid from Beijing in this blue. In the interests of our nation’s Charle Hebdo principles i share Fu Yu’s latest art work. It is of a bloodied big roo with a knife and justice scales. Over to you Scotty.
Good olé Charlie Hebdo ..
Started a shit fight for Uncle Sam, then faked his own death for a grand resurrection.
Just admit it. You committed inexcusable war crimes in a extremely unhumane way in Afganistan.
It’s horrifying those soilders have done and are still doing!
Stop being hypocritic.
You are just a nobody-country, stop making yourself a laughing stock!
Mate i agreed with your comment the first time.