The enemy spin of the wheel begins when an Australian official or politician, pumped up with ‘Yellow Peril’ prejudices and US anti-China propaganda, sets out to condemn China and urge severe restraints on Chinese people working in Australia.
The Chinese must be surprised. Only a few years earlier the merry-go-round had stopped at a place where Australian officials and academics had queued up to gain visas, invitations, or other favours to visit or do business with China.
Now the same people seem to be queueing to sling insults.
The Chinese officials decide they have to respond in some way – a clamp down on visas, a threat to impose tariffs on some imports, and so on.
Outsider anti-China groups, mostly US-backed, tell us how brave we are in standing up against big, bad China to defend our country’s values and interests.
This sends the anti-China types into even braver anti-China exploits, and China into even stronger reactions – bringing up war crimes in Afghanistan, for example.
Ambitious academics, who earlier had been lavish with pro-China praises, begin to switch with mealy-mouthed, fence-sitting opinions, saying that while on the one hand China is very important we should also be on our guard against its various tricks and devices.
Some, especially ANU connected, have been anti-China from the start, promoting such groups as APEC and the Quad, which seek to isolate China in Asia.
How did we get into this mess?
The truth is that we were in it from the beginning. We never got rid of the White Australian prejudices, especially towards Chinese people.
From there it was a small jump to Vietnam War fantasies – that the anti-government Vietnamese were really Chinese puppets planning to move south into Asia and attack us.
In 1964 I sat beside an Australian External Affairs minister, Paul Hasluck, in a Kremlin conference room where he had demanded an urgent meeting to persuade Soviet prime minister Kosygin and foreign minister Gromyko that China was a threat to all of us.
Moscow, he said, should join us in Vietnam to help stop the Chinese onslaught.
The Soviet leaders had to tell him, in effect, to stop talking nonsense – that Moscow would, of course, continue to help the brave Vietnamese in their struggle against US imperialist aggression and that they hoped the Chinese would do more to help.
Seemingly unfazed, Hasluck still managed to return to Australia to continue to talk about Vietnam as the first stage in Chinese aggression towards Australia. But fortunately, talk about a Soviet-Australian alliance against China stopped.
The Chinese do not accept fools gladly. For almost a century they have had to put up with White Australia insults, the hysteria over Vietnam, and now what we see today.
Can any one be surprised if they react strongly?
True, there was a brief respite after the 1971 Zhou Enlai-sponsored pingpong breakthrough and the opening of relations with China. But as someone closely involved with those events I know just how superficial it was at the Australian end.
Even among the journalists covering these events, the racist undercurrent continued. Those who could speak Chinese were viewed with suspicion, as if they had some secret ability to communicate with the enemy.
One of their capers was to tell their hosts that in Australia the word for friend was ‘dickhead’. When they came to leave, the hosts lined up for the chance to say ‘goodbye dickheads’.
They were laughing a long time over that success.
Things never improved much after that. Most of the associations set up to create or improve relations with China in the wake of the pingpong breakthrough seem to have spent most of their time looking after themselves.
When the Chinese tried to reciprocate by sending a table-tennis team to Australia, the receiving group managed to exclude everyone from the original Australian team. They used the event mainly for their own interests.
It should have been the start of a nationwide publicity campaign, as the Chinese did for us in China.
One result is that today, with the exception perhaps of Kevin Rudd, no one with the prestige of the pre-war scholar and writer C.P. Fitzgerald has emerged to encourage Australians to take China seriously.
Like Rudd, most of the post-war generation of genuine China experts have found it easier to operate abroad.
We are left mainly with a strange collection of bigots and journalists who have little experience of China and cannot speak a word of the language but have been able to dominate the China commentary field for years.
Behind them is an army of ASIO, ASIS, military outfits, institutes and think-tanks only too happy to be paid for alarmist scenarios or to feed out tidbits about fantasy Chinese plots.
From my experiences with the alleged Russian experts employed by some of these outfits I am sure that their main qualification for employment is never to have sullied their super-Oz patriotism by ever having had anything to do with the people or language from the alleged enemy nation they are supposed to be dealing with.
They are joined by a handful of would-be China experts who, feeling they have been ignored by Beijing, have turned anti-China to make their reputations.
This is not to say there are no problems in dealing with China and Chinese. But given the unfortunate history of their nation, and its recent amazing growth, it is not surprising if some can be abrasive or arrogant.
And all Chinese regimes, whether communist or not, do try to keep tabs on their citizens abroad – something that feeds easily into Canberra’s anti-Beijing paranoia.
Those in business can be pushy and politically devious. But that is true for Overseas Chinese everywhere.
Even at their very worst, the Chinese people abroad do get to learn the language of the country in which they are working. The same cannot be said for Australia.
Thanks mainly to exchange programs and vastly improved university teaching, Australia is finally turning out some young people who do speak Chinese well and are able to take China seriously.
But they have little help from the top in getting to positions where they can be effective. It now seems very unlikely they will get that help in the future.
Gregory Clark was the first postwar Australian diplomat trained in Chinese, with postings to Hong Kong, Moscow and the UN before retiring in protest against the Vietnam War. After PhD studies at the ANU he became Japan correspondent for The Australian. A spell in Canberra’s Prime Ministers department led to professorships at Tokyo’s Sophia University and emeritus president of Tama University, Tokyo, before becoming co-founder of the very successful English language Akita Kokusai Daigaku. He has now retired to Latin America (Peru) and Kiwi fruit growing in Boso peninsular south of Tokyo.
His works include ‘In Fear of China’ (1969) and several books in Japan on education and foreign policy.
He used to speak Chinese and Russian with fluency. He now speaks Japanese and Spanish.
Comments
38 responses to “Here we go again – the anti-China merry-go-round”
Well said (and remembered) that man – up there! Thanks, Gregory Clark!
Im afraid P&I is at the fringe .
This is just a sample of the prevailing mentality in Oz.
[sic]
https://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2020/12/china-is-still-at-it.html
Its the same all across the [[[five liars]]] land, which boast
the highest percentage of sinophobes worldwide,
according to many polls done over this past decade.
Oz is in an uproar over the Chinese cartoon,
Classic [[[five liars]]] chutzpah.
IN Nam,…
https://zcomm.org/zcommentary/uncle-chutzpah-gets-back-into-the-ring-by-edward-herman/
The bRITISH BS corp to China
https://www.quora.com/Why-did-the-BBC-journalist-accuse-China-of-interfering-in-the-internal-affairs-of-Australia-on-the-recent-tweet-by-Zhao-Lijian
The brits deserve a Nobel prize for chutzpah !
Oz 14 points ‘civilising lecture’ over alleged /fabricated atrocities in Tibet, Xinjiang, HK etc is a gross interference in China’s internal affair by any standard.
Had China made the same demand to Canberra,
the Aussies would get into a hissy fit over ‘Chinese impertinence’
For years, the CCP rolled over to such hubris from the [[[five liars]]], offering only weak murmuring in return.
Even the Chinese netizens couldnt stand it any more,
BUt this 14 points inquisition must be the last straw ,
the Chinese are finally saying ‘dont get mad, get even.
GUess what, the Aussies do get into a hissy fit,
‘Those chicoms dare to talk back !’
You bet mate, the Chinese have had enough of
[[[five liars]]] hubris and hypocrisy.
They are gonna talk back, even hit back from now on.
They have decided not to roll over to [[[five liars]]]
bully.
The Chinese are wising up to their Confucius teaching,,,…
Its rude not to return a favor.
May be Oz should reflect on their anglo value,
Charity starts at home
and..
People living in glass house shouldnt throw stones
and…
Two can play at this game
and…
As for massacring Afghan children constitute an
‘internal affair’……
Oh god, Im lost for words.
The truth is that we were in it from the beginning. We never got rid of the White Australian prejudices, especially towards Chinese people.So true and then we can add the dream of the neocons and neoliberals to control the whole show and the Eurasian sovereigntists under China and Russia effectively blocking the global neoliberal squad from achieving their goal!
The propaganda machine is in full swing!
“There are several hundred languages in China.
Thase are spoken by 92% of the population.”
taken from wikipedia.
An Empire is always scared of dissolution. The newly conquered lands to the north and west of “China” have proven difficult to assimilate as has the taming of all the religions in “China”.
A NWO is desirable to eliminate poverty, famine, war and to minimise corruption. Change is necessary.
There are very few public discussions of the realities to do with “China”. None in Australia. But we are not a Res Publica. Policy formation and implementation is by those who control economies and media. That should change.
Greg, you continue to display a breast beating bitterness towards too many in Australia. Perhaps read more of what people write to this blog, perhaps consider aligning yourself with others for positive purpose.
I support you, Dennis, on this comment (too). The argument that Australian officials over the decades are altogether stupid is amusing but unhelpful. They are more aware than most (including Gregory Clark) of the power the Washington swamp has over us. Australia’s largest companies, including all the banks, are owned overwhelmingly by Americans. Our officials have a better idea of what could happen to us if we refuse to fill our ammunition pouches, fix our bayonets, put ten rounds in the mag, and go over the top.
It seems the bottom line is that Australia is now finally on its own at last, struggling in its own quagmire. While media proclaim the vast support we are getting from the ‘world,’ in the face of a ‘bullying’ China, the reality is that support is merely being imagined. I have indeed seen pictures of Trump quaffing our wine, and urging ‘Go Aussies, go. We have your back.’ Meanwhile the wines sales that were once ours have now shifted to California. Likewise our barley. And other global suppliers of lobsters are falling over themselves to fill the gap we have left.
Cotton is next. Morrison and the nutters in ASPI have made us a nation of mugs.
Yep. And let’s not leave Clive out of this equation. When the brickbats are being handed out, I wouldn’t want him to miss out.
Yes the famed author of possibly the worst book written on economics Affluenza. By the way i used to post under my real name Paul Matters and this afternoon for some unknown reason i am now posting under the great Bobby Skiltons nick name????? Fame at last.
Did Paul Hasluck in his concerns about China, ever visit the country? Where did he get the information that guided his paranoia about China? Was it just anti-communist ideology, with the assumption that Chinese and Russian communism were one and the same, as was believed by so many?
Mr C., While Paul Hasluck was foreign minister we established an embassy in Taipei, to the Government of the Republic of China [ROC], which is still located there. This was not an initiative of Hasluck. There was in Canberra a very smooth and charming ambassador of the ROC who collared Prime Minister Holt at a party and said hey, it’s a shame you haven’t got an embassy in my country. The 1966 Cabinet Decision to open the post in Taipei was one sentence long with an additional point in brackets: (without submission). We had of course maintained recognition of the Republic of China from pre-war, but our embassy did not follow Chiang Kai Shek when he fled to Taiwan in 1949, they just came home. The UK moved its embassy up to liberated Beijing, recognising the government of the Peoples Republic of China, the foreign office long having held the view that Britain has permanent interests, not permanent friends. Canada in 1970 began a move of Western countries to shift recognition from the ROC to PRC as government of China. Australia did so after Labor defeated the coalition in the December 1972 elections. There are some curious things written these days about Taiwan not having been part of China. Useful to go way back, research Koxinga and the fall of the Ming to the Qing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Tungning
… Long before Britain occupied Australia.
When Hasluck was announced to replace Barwick as Minister for External Affairs one morning in 1964, I was a boy in short pants in the department. Able nonetheless to observe senior officers, most of whom had served with Hasluck at the UN mission in New York in the late 1940s, as their hair fell out or turned white at the thought of working for a minister who knew everything and wanted to know every last detail of the least significant program in the department. The ‘containment’ of Red China was a given. In Barwick’s day, we had stood up against Kennedy and Rusk demanding that we not do as we planned (McEwen was determined) and sell wheat to starving China after the Great Leap Forward disaster and concurrent great droughts in China. Whether Hasluck would have done so, I don’t know. We sold the wheat and continued to do so. In 1971 Prime Minister McMahon announced to all that China did not mix trade and politics and it was ok for us to press on with strange demands for in effect half recognition. China promptly stopped a wheat purchase that year. Resumed under Whitlam. In Beijing in the 1980s the Chairman of the Cereals Import Export Corporation would, each time we met, quietly take my arm and smile and say “We will always buy wheat from Australia…. (Lesson for now; if we can shovel off Czar Morrison things might change easily… if any successor respected China. To respect another country is not a loss of anything) For some minutiae of the late 1960s research ASPAC, the Asia Pacific Council. There is a book Japan, Australia and Asia-Pacific Security by Williams and Newman; search for it plus the word ASPAC and find google books result.
So in short Hasluck knew everything.
Dennis, thank you from a fellow Novocastrian.
Coxinga – connections to Hirado in south-west Japan. Interesting!
Erh precisely which of China’s 14 demands to end Aussie democracy do you reckon we should roll over on?
Do you recommend muzzling the media?
Stuffing a sock into the mouth of parliament?
Allow CCP coercion and sell everything not tied down?
Roll over to all human rights abuses?
Sounds like a good idea to roll over and get our tummies tickled by a brutal dictatorship regime
Not one of the list of grievances was a “demand to end Aussie democracy”. Although “stuffing a sock in the mouth” of the current mob of morons in Canberra sounds an excellent proposal it wasnt sadly listed in the grievances.
Gom, the text of Chinese concerns I’ve seen is pasted into this page:
https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/if-you-make-china-the-enemy-china-will-be-the-enemy-beijing-s-fresh-threat-to-australia-20201118-p56fqs.html
If your long term partner brought such a list to marriage counselling, in what sense do your swiping remarks lead to restoration of harmony. Do you see no merit in any of the Chinese concerns? Have regard for the fact that together they represent part of a general concern of China at a perverse hostility that has sprung up quite quickly in Australia.
Well said, Dennis Argall . Tony Kevin.
I second Paul Matters’ comment. But going further, the media muzzles itself well enough in perpetual support of western powers’ interests – and manipulating ‘Aussie democracy’ – especially those of the US/UK axis, while screaming hypocritically often enough about ‘freedom of the press’; Australian governments have been selling off ‘everything not tied down’ for decades, but surprisingly for some it’s not China who’s been the chief purchaser; Australia rolls over to human rights abuses nearly everywhere including within its own borders and just beyond (and even commits some), but especially for wonderful allies like Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states and Israel, while making selective exceptions of Iran, Russia, Syria and of course China whenever it suits the internal politics but bugger the economic consequences. By the way, I don’t give a fig for the absurd ’14 demands’ and nor should you; I just think the situation in which Australia has been singularly placed is mostly the result of the venality and stupidity of its own government. Are countries like Canada and NZ fearing for their democracy while they eagerly occupy the trade gap? Their leaders seem a bit brighter than ours.
Sir,
There is a real difference between a list of grievances and a list of demands. Clearly, it suits the purpose of the”hate China” clique to turn a list of grievances into a list of demands. This strategy has been very effective in turning the table against the “enemy”. A list of “Don’t do this to me” becomes a list of “I demand that you do this”. The list of tricks up the sleeve of troublemakers is endless.
Sincerely,
Teow Loon Ti
“Stop punching me in the head” apparently is a demand.
You abetted Indonesia’s invasion of E Timor.
Roll over its genocidal wars, even colluded with Jakarta
to cover up the gruesome murder of the Balibo five.
Dont get me started on Iraq., when you followed the sheriff to
attack a country 2000 miles away from home, did you no harm and bought lots of your stuff.
Sounds familiar ?
Now you are doing your master’s bidding, piss off big time your biggest customer who means no harm !
Some times I wonder is there something in the water over there in Oz ?
It wasnt China that demand you to choose side remember ?
Ever occur to your ilks to stand up to that bully in Washington, to de-couple from USA, the global tyrant ?
White Australia policy, Yellow Peril, Domino Theory, and now Cold War 2. The Chinese has been thru all these events in Australia & are still standing up. Also endured similar anti-Chinese sentiments in the British colonies in SE Asia. These are bad aspects but there are also the good sides, education, democracy and wealth accumulation. The resilence of the overseas Chinese is a tested quality over 200 years and we will wear out the storm. Meanwhile fellow Australians who are not used to poverty many find it hard to survive in a great Australian depressiun caused by economic decoupling with China.
Resilience of overseas Chinese? Chinese immigrants across the world have been variously marginalised and discriminated, and in more than a few cases killed in widespread riots, such as the killings of half to 1 million of them in Indonesia in 1965, plus thousands also in 1998 in the same country. Today, people of Chinese descent are marginalised in Malaysia where they are legally discriminated against; underlying prejudice among the establishment in the America and Australia precludes their participation, with few exceptions, in national leadership roles. Chinese people outside China are not a ‘tested quality’ for 200 years. They are an example of a people who have suffered continuously in more ways than one since the first emigrants left China for the Philippines in the 16th century.
All the more reason why Chinese Aussies should stand up and cease behaving as though we are still complacent with being treated as not-quite-Aussies, under probation. Petitions in response to the covic inspired villification for instance! Made me weep. I feel that the comproador mentality of the huayi which the custodians of White Australia were so used to seeing almost exclusively, say until 2000, is still afflicting too many huayi “Chinese community” leaders.
The PRC emigre leaders are often too unaccultruated, a little brash, and sometimes burdened with a latent homeland separation complex.
Yes, we, the Chinese Australian community, are not in a good space now. Personally, what keeps me going is the knowledge that many many Australians from all walks of life are fair dinkum, and would do the right thing when required. At the same time, there is not much we can expect from ‘community leaders’, because as a community, we simply lack the intellectual ballast to provide any alternative narrative. I note you said ‘it made you weep’. Didn’t make me weep. Made my so outraged that I learnt how to do a YouTube vocal in 2 days. But as you can see, I did not get any traction at all in terms of the number of hits! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j788fePWS80
Unless you are the President of a high sounding Chinese community organisation you will not get heard. Unless you are a celebrity you are likely not to get traction in social media either.
I still hope that one day we will have an Institute for Chinese Australian Affairs where the presiding spokesperson is a Chinese Aussie with the requsite intellectual bacground, well-acculturuated to the ways of white Australia, and with a very good public speaking capacity. After some 40 years in the Chinese community I feel that this is the most likely way for us to have a voice. Until then the custodians of White Australia will always choose the compradors on offer to confirm the righteousness of their attitudes towards Chinese Aussies.
Write for P&I. It will be a start. That in part got me to my 30 seconds fame on 7.30 Report a few months back. Last week, one native born Chinese aussie, in a “high” profession, told me that 20 years ago he was given a copy of my 2001 book about the Chinese in Qld when he was 21. He was impressed by it. He is now in a “Chinese” committee. You never know when the seeds you saw will germinate.
Bravo, Chek Ling! I was living and teaching in western Japan when your book was published – I’ve not seen it. I will search for it! Thanks for the reference!
A little outdated now, Jim. Happy to send you a copy. Send me your address through facebook?
Yes many many Australians from all walks of life are fair dinkum but they are not the ones in power. If this government thinks there are votes to be had by attacking the Chinese Australian Community they will do so, just like they did with the Muslim community. The signs are already there with Abetz asking Chinese Australians to renounce the communist government of China. First they came for….
Peter,
I have to agree with your remark .Abetz had a wracking great hide to carry out that stunt!
Morrison’s dictum- divide and rule!
Man LEE: Bravo – your YouTube message! I’m in total agreement. The Nazi nature of Erica Betts (as my spouse once thought was the name of the Tasmanian Senator) – well – of his great uncle Otto – shines clearly from his ugly disposition/actions/abuse of those appearing in the Senate to speak on aspects of the Australian Chinese community. I am not ethnically Chinese – though a couple of brothers of my great x 2 grand-father were engaged in trade with “Canton”/Guangzhou in the first two decades of the 19th century – from Sydney Town – a far more diverse society and economy here then than is currently understood by many it seems! And cousins with Chinese spouses or years of study and work in China. And friends, past students here in Australia – of ethnic Chinese background – born here and overseas. If only this country had properly trained and accredited diplomats and trade and human rights officers – rather than megaphone-shouting ideologues of the Abetz, Morrison, Birmingham, Payne ilk! If only!
While Australia thumps its chest like a mouse and Australian coal is getting held on Chinese shores, the so called allies like Canada is laughing all the way to the bank.
https://www.reuters.com/article/mining-teck-resources-idCNL1N2IH1Q1
(Canada’s Teck looks to boost Chinese coal sales amid stalled Australian shipments)
Reminds me of what Jiang Zemin would say, “Too young, too simple, sometimes naive.”
Thank you Dr. Clarke for splashing some cold water on this now over-heated topic.
Like a number of commentators on P&I recently, I am nonplussed by the Australian genius to get into a situation with no exit strategy. For example we had no visible (or viable) exit strategy in Vietnam, Iraq or in Afghanistan and we now seem to be doing the same thing in our dealings with China.
Prior to the recent Chinese clampdown, almost 50% of our exports went to China. To now lose further export opportunities, especially in the agricultural sector, without having a backup or exit strategy seems to me to be incredibly short-sighted.
I can readily accept that we should diversify our export markets, but to have (almost) none actually in place before launching into sustained criticisms of China is … well … , it doesn’t make sense unless there are other interests in play . And so I have to ask: Whose interests are we really protecting in this campaign of anti-China rhetoric; it’s not our exporters, that’s for sure.
The “other interest” is the existing establishment that’s profiting from the existing political and financial system. Remember, China doesn’t play by Western rules. If China succeeds, the plebs in the Western hemisphere may question their own system and that would upset the apple cart for the likes of Soros et. al.
In the interest of protecting the existing establishment, China must be demonised especially she’s now reaching critical mass. Before, they could have laughed at China as she was too weak, now the table has turned, even though China has no interest in exporting ideology, her mere potential success is a threat to the existing establishment so on with the brainwashing of the masses.
For 200 years, the west’s playbook has been:
– Solve domestic problems internationally
– Solve economic problems militarily
Nothing has changed.
Good point about the lack of exit strategy. Forget future consequences our leaders can’t see past next weekend.