It’s a disgrace that after half a century or so of multiculturalism, it is still possible that Australian Chinese can be made to feel disloyal merely on the basis of their ethnic background. That’s exactly what happened when right-wing Senator Eric Abetz asked three Chinese-heritage Australians before a Senate committee whether they were willing unconditionally to condemn the Chinese Communist Party.
The three took Abetz’s interrogation as questioning their loyalty to Australia, which it was. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has on occasion stated that he distinguishes between the Chinese Communist Party and Chinese Australians, praising the latter. However, when asked on 16 October about his attitude to Senator Abetz’s performance he refused to criticize it directly, in effect contributing to anxiety among concerned Australians that being Chinese means your loyalty is under suspicion.
There is plenty of evidence that anti-Chinese racism has increased along with the rising tensions in Australia-China relations. One survey with results published in the Sydney Morning Herald (7 June 2020) “documented 386 racist incidents, including abuse, physical intimidation and spitting” against Chinese in Australia and the situation has probably worsened since then. Chinese authorities used this racism to argue against sending Chinese to Australia. It’s all very well to sneer at this attitude, as many have done. However, it is reasonable if you look at the situation from China’s point of view.
Surveys tell us that images of China have worsened greatly. A recent Pew Research Center poll found 81 per cent of Australians viewed China unfavourably, a 24 per cent increase in a year. And the Lowy Institute poll of 2020 found trust in China (23 per cent) at the lowest in history.
I’m not denying that the situation in China itself contributes to how Australians (or anybody else) view it. But politics in the West itself is also crucial. The mainstream media rarely has anything good to say about China. The Murdoch media is generally hostile (and to judge from the blogs on articles about China, most of its readers obsessively so), while the Fairfax stable is not much better. Even the ABC tends to focus on the bad things, and a couple of “Four Corners” programmes have done quite a lot to stoke negative views.
While aware that knowing a lot about a country doesn’t necessarily mean a positive view, it’s my strong impression that ignorance means less wish to engage. As one involved for decades in trying to promote Asian and especially China studies, I find it alarming and horrifying that knowledge and appreciation of China, its people, its language and its culture are so low.
As early as 1994 the federal, state and territory governments set up a body with some decent funding to promote Asian languages and studies in Australian schools. There have been various iterations of this work, though none as well funded or carried out with such enthusiasm as that early attempt. These programmes made a difference, and Asian languages and studies are more prevalent in the Australian education system than they were in the old days.
Yet I have to say that the results are overall disappointing in the extreme. I never imagined that in 2020 Australia would be back to the situation where for an Australian to be Chinese could make their loyalty suspect. Have people like Eric Abetz remained so immune to multiculturalism, at least as it concerns Chinese?
In a report by Anne McLaren of 22 November 2019 and published by the Asian Studies of Australia the next year, one unnamed “seasoned” academic was reported to have said the following: “We have seen the gradual hollowing out of the deep language and cultural expertise on China in Australia. Increasingly those Australians who speak to us about China don’t know the language, nor have they spent extended time studying its history, culture and politics” (http://asaa.asn.au/chinese-studies-in-australian-universities-a-problem-of-balance/).
That comment accords with my own impressions. Just at the time of China’s rise when we need expertise most, the country doesn’t have the will to invest in knowledge of our biggest trading partner. That is not only stupid but verging on suicidal.
As for the sub-tertiary level, the situation is mixed. In Victoria, which has long been the main centre for Chinese language learning at primary and secondary level, there has been a rise in the number of schools offering the language and the number of students taking it.
Obviously, that is positive. Most of the students, however, are themselves background speakers of Chinese. Of course, it is good that they learn their own language. But it is very unfortunate that so few whose background language is not Chinese want to learn the language. One 2016 report found “an overall drop over the past eight years of some 20% in the number of [students] taking Chinese as a second language” (https://www.crikey.com.au/2019/06/25/fact-check-mandarin-speakers-china/). If young people think there are no jobs in Chinese, obviously they are not going to learn it.
The number of second-language learners who can use Chinese at a really professional level is extremely small. This impacts on mutual trust. I regard this as very important, because trust has now completely disappeared in Australia-China relations and that is a disaster. Trust takes years to build, but can be destroyed in minutes.
The deterioration of Australia-China relations and the decline of China literacy in Australia are both unfortunate trends that reinforce each other. Our government is focusing less on China and allowing reactionary trends in the United States and elsewhere to undermine not only relations with China but even understanding and knowledge about it. Just when China is most important, we are least in a position to deal with it.
I remain an advocate and lover of Western culture, especially music. However, I also believe passionately that Australia must study China, its language, people, history and culture not only because they are also worth study and appreciation, but because they matter more and more in our contemporary world. The cost of ignorance of China could be high.
COLIN MACKERRAS, AO, FAHA is Professor Emeritus at Griffith University, Queensland. He has visited and worked in China many times. He is a specialist on Chinese history, theatre, minority nationalities, Western images of China and Australia-China relations and has written widely on all topics. His many books include Western Perspectives on the People’s Republic of China, Politics, Economy and Society, World Scientific Publishing, Singapore, 2015.
Comments
7 responses to “Our ignorance of China is a disgrace”
‘a couple of “Four Corners” programmes have done quite a lot to stoke negative views.’
These programs and similar on SBS had significant footage featuring content linked to ASPI – the Australian Strategic Policy Institute – though you needed to watchful to catch the credits. ASPI enjoys much foreign funding from western arms groups and governments and is the source of much negative material about China.
For a most informative take on ASPI, go to
https://www.michaelwest.com.au/independent-think-tank-aspi-behind-push-for-more-defence-spending-rakes-in-advisory-fees/
Sir,
Over the months that I have been reading this journal, I have been participating (as have a number of other Chinese Australians) in discussions on Australia/China relationship, motivated mainly by the hope that I can contribute towards ameliorating the palpable increase in misunderstandings and hostilities toward China and people of Chinese extraction here. I too believe that prejudice comes mainly from the lack of cultural understanding. Above all, I am concerned for the economy of the country. For at least three decades, we have enjoyed unprecedented prosperity because our trade with China. Yet for no good reason other than geopolitics, our government seems to be willing to compromise this relationship amid a recession caused by the Covid19 pandemic. I have to say “no good reason” because the charges against China was mainly premised on “human rights” which is equally lacking in the finger pointers. We see ill treatment of illegal migrants, an obvious example of which is the separation of children from their parents in the US – as if the politicians responsible for it do not have little children of their own and thus unable to empathise. The tragedy now is that the American authorities are unable to trace their parents.
Many who allow their impulses to prevail over their prejudices and fear seem to be wiling to sacrifice their economic well-being on the premise of their distinctive values, as if values are only worth noting if they come from the “coalition of the willing”. They forget that values are common to all humanity; that some values are a luxury that mainly the wealthy can afford. They do not seem to note that values can come in order of priorities; that in many countries, the basic human rights of food on the table, decent shelter and education come first before other rights. We see in many poor countries the lack of discipline in the rulers that have denied their people the basic rights of food, shelter and education; that have contributed the bulk of the illegal migrants to the wealthier countries. We see foreign interference in their local conflicts that are escalated and prolonged because of support or sale of arms to the different factions. We often create the problems that plague us and blame the hapless people for it. I have stated elsewhere that if we were to decouple our trade with China, we have to do it on our own pace and expediency. Otherwise our economy will decline to the extent that will affect future generations.
Worse of all, I see an intemperate mainstream media casting aspersions and creating in its wake an ill-informed and petulant following; among whom the word China or Chinese has become increasingly used as a pejorative. I also see the increasing use of the word “diaspora” instead of the simple word “migrant” (of which are all are), to distinguish those are are the target of derision or of statistical discussion. For those derided, feelings are denied. Criticise China and Chinese people by all means if they have done something wrong, but provide real evidence and proper rationale to back your criticism; not the stuff gleaned from the roadside campaigns of the likes of Falun Gong. There are many things wrong about China but there are equally many things right about China. The same goes for the US and any other world powers.
When a country is suffering economic stress, it is common to see the leaders responsible for it externalising blame. Often those that are picked upon are not the militarily strong foreign adversary but their look-alike minorities. This happens often enough in countries from where many ethnic Australians have migrated. Unfortunately, we have to bear witness to the early signs of such a scourge in the attempt by Eric Abetz to coerce the three young Chinese to denounce China, when our foreign minister herself was reluctant to do so openly in her recent trip to the US for fear of further jeopardising our exports to China. This was not withstanding the fact that only one of them was born in China.
Presently, we are still relatively wealthy. Therefore, wounded pride and grandstanding seem to take precedence over pragmatism and moderation. The rice bowl is more easily broken than made.
Sincerely,
Teow Loon Ti
I have just spent much of three months in hospital where offered diet of what must be conventional news intake and ideas intake. Daily offered the Daily Telegraph, the TV laden with opinion of retrograde character, negligible information about the world, fictional material largely very old and American. A diet of white people on the screen, a diet far from any demographic assessment of Australia. Mercifully I had some internet connection, to sources beyond this diet.
Colin covers the laudable virtue of study of China. I am concerned about wider absence of knowledge of the world. There is a pervasive desire to describe Australians being hurt, as with impatient attacks on the Victorian premier and COVID-19, laudably defended by Duckett and Crowley in the Conversation and P and I. There is also, for example, a readiness to rage against Qatar government and airline for their anxious and perhaps shocked response to finding a premature baby in an airport washroom… If they had not done any check Qatar might well be now raged against for allowing a mother to flee. There is little consciousness of problems of cross cultural communication, just an expectation that everything should be made clear to the ABC/Murdoch, etc. I am wishing to make the point that the absence of concern to understand China is just part of a wider pattern of stubborn commitment to ignorance and self-importance, lack of perspective and empathy.
The national broadcaster lets the nation down by only reporting and promoting attitude, particularly as regards China. Which is much like the historical tabloid newspaper pattern of selling copies by the naughty bits of girls on page 3. Lazy sensationalism.
Whatever attitude people want to take towards whatever China-related issue, there needs to be an underpinning of knowledge of China. We have lost track more broadly of the importance of knowledge, in obsession with attitude driven by smug sense of moral superiority, unearned and untrue.
I am pleased to support the comments by my old DFAT colleague and mate Dennis Argall on Colin Mackerras’s good essay. Things have never been worse than now in our Australian elite . These words of Dennis resonated with me :
“I am wishing to make the point that the absence of concern to understand China is just part of a wider pattern of stubborn commitment to ignorance and self-importance, lack of perspective and empathy.“
I have seen this particularly in regard to Russia , a country with which Australia should be mutually respectful friends.
How did our promising multicultural society regress so swiftly to xenophobia and prejudice in our public life at the elite level? I see two mutually reinforcing debasing influences: Murdoch press dominance , and Five Eyes US/UK unashamed foreign interference in our politics. I was happy to sign Kevin Rudy’s timely petition on the former . The latter is a boil yet to be publicly lanced by those who dare.
Tony Kevin, Canberra
Hi Kevin. I am sort of trapped in Nowra, let me know if you wander to the coast. ….
I think it’s not just an elite leaders thing, it’s the way the general public drifted since Howard encouragement of small minded selfishness. There was also a remarkable shift in or away from community mindedness (from 2003 I was for half a decade in a village here) with the arrival of new generations of TV, wide-screen, flat-screen plus since then online entertainments diverse. So to hell with the world for most people, I’ll just react when something bites me. So the entrenchment of narrow politicians and the popularity of junk TV is audience driven too. Does this make me elitist?
Here’s a relevant bit of the puzzle
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/28/the-abc-must-be-relevant-to-all-but-that-doesnt-mean-telling-people-what-they-want-to-hear
Sir,
Its good to note that you are back and sharing your thoughts and experience in P&I.
Thank you. I look forward to your contributions.
Sincerely,
Teow Loon Ti
And Teow Loon Ti it is wonderful to have your company again. Thank you for your kind wishes
Dennis