It's normally bad policy to begin a political article with an anecdote, but this one time I will indulge in it. In the Autumn of 2016 I was teaching a 6th grade ESL class at an expensive bilingual private school near Dongba subdivision in Chaoyang District, Beijing. Our textbook had a unit focused on the Age of Exploration, and of course our principal (a former Red Guard whose alleged qualifications for running an English-language-oriented school did not include the ability to speak English), in typical Zhonghua hyper-nationalist fashion, insisted we must alter the textbook to (and I quote this verbatim from the translation of her memorandum) "debunk the Western Colonialist lies about Columbus, and teach the truth: that the Chinese explorer Zheng He demonstrated the supremacy of the Great and Glorious Middle Kingdom by discovering all continents of the world first, and that all nations of the Earth paid tribute to the Yongle Emperor, and to the glory of Ancient and Mighty China, the world's one true leader and the proven ruler of ‘All Under Heaven.' " The fact that a statement this ridiculous, this filled with revisionist fringe history sprinkled with unabashed Jingoism dressed up in the language of a Bronze Age imperial proclamation, came down the chain of command in the first place should already tell you everything to know about China, but I digress. Anyway, I rolled my eyes and said "okay, let's throw in a 20 minute reading passage about Zheng He (with the damned drippingly self-praising adjectives omitted from it) and get on with course material that actually matters."
Since my class was the "A1" class, a designation for the highest stream in their grade, I gave a weekend writing assignment to research Zheng He's trip and write 3 paragraphs about where he went and when, citing at least two sources. Of course, being Chinese, more than four fifths of the reports I got back were one hundred percent copied and pasted from the internet (one student didn't even have the damned common sense to make sure the report she was copying and pasting was English, but rather turned in a report in Italian), but there was one that stood out. It was by a kid who went by the Western name "Jim," the shortest one in the class and usually something of a class clown (who got away with it because his father was a high-ranking PLA Officer). His report, which was actually his own work (as was evident by the grammar errors) ended with the following sentences.
"What I am not understand is this. Why if Zheng He discovered it is no belong to China?"
I did not bother to explain that there were already people living there. I did not bother trying to explain that this is a fine example of the very same Imperialism his class was being taught to constantly thump their chests about being victims of in their Chinese History class. I did not bother explaining that even if such a claim had been made then it would not be valid this many years hence. It is beginning to look like I should have, because while Jim's question could be dismissed as a 6th grader's whimsy if it stood alone, it is becoming increasingly clear that many in the upper echelons of the Chinese Communist Party share his belief that China has some kind of right to exercise dominion over Australia (Chan, Business Insider, "How China Tried")
The "Meddle Kingdom"
China's attempts to boss Australia around are nothing new (Hill, China Daily Mail, "China's Bullying Tactics"). For the past several years Australia has been dealing with a mix of thinly-veiled threats by top brass in Beijing (Gao, The Diplomat, "Australia and China Spat") and shadowy infiltrations by the Chinese government (Pomfret, Washington Post, "China's Meddling"), mostly under the auspices of the "United Front," as Professor Anne-Marie Brady outlined in her report at the 2017 Conference on The Corrosion of Democracy under China's Global influence, entitled "Magic Weapons." To summarize, the Chinese government funds Chinese-language media networks and publications in areas of Australia with large ethnically Chinese populations, and uses these funded sources to distribute propaganda that is favorable to Beijing while appealing to the nationalistic sentiment of ethnic Chinese youth to stir up protests and public pressure against any official or politician who does anything Beijing does not like. Basically, take everything that the BDS crowd accuses Israel of doing in the US, multiply it by the necessary scale to account for China's economy and population, and imagine that the government under pressure is Australia, a significantly smaller population (and economy) than the US. When this doesn't work (or when the state being targeted this way dares to not go the way China wants them to go), the next step is targeted violence (Nippert, New Zealand Herald, "University of Canterbury Professor"), followed by threats against the entire nation (Global Times, "Paper Cat""). No matter the issue, whether it is Australia's response to China's unmasked aggression in the West Philippine Sea, or Australia having the unmitigated audacity (sarcasm apparent) to not support China's litany of Human Rights abuses and Imperialism when they come before the UN, China has made plain that they feel their national interest not only supersedes that of Australia, but the very right of Australia to even speak up about it.
When those threats fail to intimidate the target and instead drive them to stiffen their resistance against such overtly draconian tactics, as has obviously been the case with Australia (see previous article re: "Quad Alliance"), then the Chinese machine proves that they have no idea what to do next, and that desperation has led to quite an intriguing show lately.
You Think You are Allowed to Criticize Us? Silly Laowai!
To begin with, relations between China and Australia have turned sour when Australia called out China's aggression in the South China Sea (Needham, Sydney Morning Herald, "Australian White Paper"). China's response was to use those "Magic Weapons" Professor Brady talked about to try and manipulate Australian politics back in a direction Beijing liked. When Australia refused to roll over and accept this and put measures in place to limit foreign interference in their elections (Packham, Reuters, "Australia Amends"), China responded with... well, "outrage" would be giving them too much credit; I don't want to portray a toddler throwing a tantrum as if he was the Incredible Hulk. I think "petulant juvenile butthurt" is probably a more accurate description. It began with refusing to grant visas to Australian Officials, (Bolt, Herald Sun, "China Bullies"). Then came the Chinese Embassy's rather sad attempt at a retort, warning Chinese students who go to Australian universities (because they want to escape China's backward university system but they did not have high enough IELTS scores to get into the US or the UK and Australia's standards are more forgiving) to "watch out for those eeeeeeeeeevil Australians who might try to attack you" and (get this) "report any problems or threats to the embassy." (Asian Correspondent, "China Issues Public Safety Warning). According to the Communist Party's daily propaganda faucet People's Daily, the warning was issued because "attacks and insults" at Chinese students had made the Chinese government very worried (People's Daily, "Chinese Consulate").
Excuse me if I find that a bit difficult to take seriously, especially considering the timing.
What this was, frankly speaking, was an attempt to tap into China's already present victim-mindset, fueled by decades of Communist Party rhetoric about "never forget what those evil foreigners did to us! Never trust any foreigner" and drum up more nationalistic fervor. I would surmise the recent wave of violence against Australian expats here in Beijing (which the Chinese government denies of course) had something to do with this, as did the increase in Chinese students in Australia committing crimes against their teachers in recent months (Fernando, News.com.au. "China is Waging").
The pressure from China did not stop with this. Up next came a series of articles from allegedly "Australian" sources (most of whom were rather conspicuously co-opted by the Chinese Communist Party long ago) attempting to warn Australia "don't buck against China. We need them too badly." One of these came from Jane Golley, a professor at Australian National University who rather bluntly warned (with very little veiling) "China can do whatever they want and we must obey them or be punished (Graham, news.com.au. "China Must Warm")." It seems China, whose culture has been built on authoritarianism since antiquity (see previous article re: "Don't Blame it All on Mao"), has not quite grasped that telling a Liberal Democracy "you will obey us or be punished" gets a less than positive response.
Now, to my Aussie readers, if this servile talk about "we must obey or be punished" hasn't already made you sick, then wait until you hear that another wumao wrote similar thoughts, and published them in a Communist Party-owned Chinese publication no-less; Hong Kong's South China Morning Post. Here, the author again uses rather openly authoritarian rhetoric, saying Australia should "refrain from challenging" the Asian Imperialist (Valencia, SCMP, "Australia Should Refrain"), but they dress it up a little by trying to paint Australia as the aggressor with the trite little Chinese catchphrase "gunboat diplomacy." For this to be Beijing's official line should come as no surprise. Not even their government-issued textbooks make any attempt at objectivity. Yang Mifen's Opinion of China, for example, does not even bother hiding the CPC's slant on the issue of what it calls "attempts of the US, Japan and Australia to stir up troubles (pg 119)." What was a bit out of the ordinary was for them to hire foreigners to make the claim for them, and then go so far as to tell their citizens to beware of aggression from the country they were trying to bully.
But ah, China... just when we think you could not put on a more narcissistic, stuffed-shirt, swaggering display of pompous arrogance, you love to prove us wrong. Chinese Foreign Minster Wang Yi, who has a history of losing his cool on camera when reporters dare to actually gasp question the absolute rightness of 'the Great and Mighty China (Wen, Sydney Morning Herald, "Chinese Foreign Minister"),' had a meeting with Australia's Foreign Minister, Julia Bishop, to discuss this (Bolt, Herald Sun, "Chinese Dictatorship"). In this meeting, Wang did not bother hiding his attitude that it was all Australia's fault that ties were frayed (presumably because Australia was out of line for daring to speak up against China).
“Due to the Australian side, China and Australia are encountering difficulties in the relationship, and communications and co-operation have been affected recently..."
He doubled down on this smug portrayal of China as a superior speaking to a subordinate with an impressive arsenal of high-handed repetitions of the phrase "Australia must." For example...
“What I want to emphasise is: if Australia really hopes the relationship to return to the right track and develop in a healthy way, Australia must get rid of traditional thinking, put down their coloured glasses and see China’s development in a more positive perspective..."
He also did not bother hiding the tone of a superior who feels certain a subordinate has accepted correction with appropriate contrition.
"Mr Wang said he had 'noted an improvement in tone from Ms Bishop and the Australian government,' according to Beijing’s version."
However, despite being apparently satisfied that their "subordinate" had been "chastized" enough, Beijing decided to change their mind. Less than a week ago, an article ran in China Daily's printed edition (Shi Yu, China Daily, "Onus") declaring quite flatly that it was Australia's job to make concessions to Beijing in order to improve relations, not the other way around (and let's not even speak of the tired notion of "compromise," shall we?). The article includes one of the most bafflingly obtuse editor's notes I have ever seen, even from the Zhonghua. In case the picture below is not clear enough, here it is.
Editor's note: Some Australian politicians have made it a habit of accusing China of meddling in Austrlian politics. What they forget while doing so is that such baseless accusations are not conducive to healthy ties, which are necessary for boosting bilateral trade. Two experts share their views on the issue with China Daily's Pan Yixuan. Excerpts follow.
From the out-of-hand dismissal of the (proven) allegations as "baseless," to the haughty "some politicians have made a habit of accusing" line to the mafia-boss-esque threats veiled within "what they forget while doing so," this note makes it plain that impartial objectivity is not considered a necessary quality in Chinese "journalism."
Oh, and of course the "experts" happened to confirm exactly what Xi Jinping's government wants the world to think, complete with a blanket characterization of the Turnbull Administration's refusal to kowtow to China as a "hostile policy toward China" which he must "totally abandon," in classic all-or-nothing Zhonghua fashion. I'm sure that the threat of being fired and arrested as an "enemy of the people" for not doing so, had nothing to do with it this result.
However, alas and alack, it seems those pesky Australians haven't quite given up their silly ideas of having a free press, as they proved again last week, prompting a furious tirade by one Chinese embassy official who seems to have forgotten that her authority ends at the Chinese border.
You Will Not Use That Footage!
The latest (and most desperate and undisguised) egotistical bullying tantrum from the self-proclaimed "Rulers of Tianxia" came in the form of a phone call recently received by Kirsty Thomson (Fernando and Chang, News.com.au. "The Story China Went to Furious Lengths to Stop from Airing"), the executive producer of Australia's "60 Minutes," in regard to an article the program was preparing that cast China's debt-trap diplomacy in a less than positive light. Oh, now who could possibly have a problem with China loaning money at extortionate interest rates to countries that are on the verge of bankruptcy and then seizing huge swaths of territory as compensation when the cash-strapped countries inevitably default on the high-interest loan? Clearly the article must be biased, right? In any case, the phone call came from Saixian Cao, the head of media affairs at the Chinese Embassy to Australia. In it, Cao reportedly took Wang Li's habit of thinking foreign countries are subordinate to China, and carried it to a shrieking new level, shouting imperiously "you will listen" and "you will not use that footage!" over and over in a manner Thomson described as unusually aggressive.
Of course, as is typically the case with China, when browbeating and threats failed, accusations followed, including allegations that the article included aerial drone footage obtained by illegally flying camera drones over the Chinese embassies in China and Vanuatu (Chan, Business Insider). I think we can rest quite well assured that Beijing will echo this line, and conjure up some fabricated "evidence" to prove it, as a means of taking attention off of the fact that their diplomatic officer just committed an act that would get her thrown out of most countries (be thankful, Cao, that Australia is more patient than we Americans would be after a tirade like that). It must be asked, "where did Cao get the notion that this was acceptable? Where did she get the notion that sh can, in someone else's country, presume to not only tell the press what story they can or cannot run, but to do it this brashly?" The answer to the former question is easy. In China, that's how it's done. The government tells the press what is and is not acceptable to air, and immediate obedience is expected without question. But have the Chinese truly gotten so full of themselves that they think they can do the same thing abroad? Do the Chinese think so highly of themselves that they think media outlets not even remotely related to China are subject to Chinese jurisdiction?
If one takes the condescending tone employed by Xi Jinping, Wang Yi, and now this Cao creature all into account, the answer becomes obvious. The answer, as incomprehensible as it seems, is "yes, they do believe that. They truly are that arrogant."
Works Cited
Books
Yang Mifen. Opinion of China: Insight into International Hotspot Issues. Beijing: China Renmin University Press, 2016.
(ISBN 978-7-30024623-9-)
Periodicals
Shi Yun. "Onus of Improving Relations on Australia." China Daily. [Beijing]. Wednesday, 19 Ju, 2018. Page 16
Academic Papers
Brady, Anne Marie. "Magic Weapons: China's Political Influence Activities under Xi Jinping." 2017 Conference on the Corrosion of Democracy Under China's Global Influence. Taiwan Foundation for Democracy. Arlington, Virginia, US. 16-17 Sep, 2017.
https://wilsoncenter.org/article/magic-weapons-chinas-political-influence-activities-under-xi-jinping
From the Web
"China issues public safety warning to its citizens in Australia." Asian Correspondent. 22 Dec. 2017. Web. 26 Jun. 2018.
https://asiancorrespondent.com/2017/12/chinese-embassy-australia-safety/#ahRzmxcizmUGIU7y.97
"Chinese consulate issues warnings of anti-Chinese attacks in Australia." People's Daily. 19 Dec. 2017. Web. 26 Jun. 2017
http://en.people.cn/n3/2017/1219/c90000-9306237.html
"Paper Cat Australia will Learn its Lesson." Global Times. 30 Jul. 2016. Web. 26 Jun. 2016.
http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/997320.shtml
Bolt, Andrew. "CHINA BULLIES: NO VISAS FOR OUR MINISTERS." Herald Sun. 12 Apr. 2018. Web. 26. Jun. 2018.
https://www.heraldsun.com.au/blogs/andrew-bolt/china-bullies-no-visas-for-our-ministers/news-story/66874977f17074e4bd37966170986151
Bolt, Andrew. "CHINESE DICTATORSHIP TELLS AUSTRALIA TO BEHAVE." Herald Sun. 23 May, 2018. Web. 26 Jun. 2018.
https://www.heraldsun.com.au/blogs/andrew-bolt/chinese-dictatorship-tells-australia-to-behave/news-story/5dd33c98918f38173ac613646e8c7d81
Chan, Tara Francis. "How China Tried to Shut Down Australian Media Coverage of its Debt-trap Diplomacy in the Pacific." Business Insider. 21 Jun, 2018. Web. 25 Jun. 2018.
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-china-censors-media-it-disagrees-with-australia-2018-6
Fernando, Gavin. " 'China is Waging a Campaign of Psychological Warfare Against Australia,' Expert Warns." News.com.au . 29 Apr. 2018. Web. 26 Jun. 2018.
https://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/world-economy/china-is-waging-a-campaign-of-psychological-warfare-against-australia-expert-warns/news-story/5e7e296f78d87c6210cee994ca79d7a6
Fernando, Gavin and Chang, Charis. "The story China went to furious lengths to stop from airing." News.com.au. 23 Jun. 2018. Web. 26 Jun. 2018.
https://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/world-economy/the-story-china-went-to-furious-lengths-to-stop-from-airing/news-story/3bfaac36ec964211874c3bf8626cf0c5
Gao, Charlotte. "Australia and China Spat over Foreign Intereference Escalates." The Diplomat. 15 Dec. 2017. Web. 26 Jun. 2018.
https://thediplomat.com/2017/12/australia-and-china-spat-over-foreign-interference-escalates/
Graham, Ben. "Australia must warm to China or face economic punishment, expert claims." news.com.au. 10 Apr. 2018. Web. 26 Jun. 2018.
https://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/world-economy/australia-must-warm-to-china-or-face-economic-punishment-expert-claims/news-story/b79f5b01d08abbe18993a2029c6eada5
Hill, Craig. "China's Bullying Tactics Backfire in Australia." China Daily Mail. 25 Jun, 2013. Web. 26 Jun. 2018.
https://chinadailymail.com/2013/06/25/chinas-bullying-tactics-backfire-in-australia/
Needham, Kirsty. "Australian White Paper 'irresponsible' Says Chinese Foreign Ministry." Sydney Morning Herald. 23 Nov. 2017. Web. 26 Jun. 2017.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/australian-white-paper-irresponsible-says-chinese-foreign-ministry-20171123-gzretp.html
Nippert, Matt. "University of Canterbury Professor Anne-Marie Brady Concerned Break-ins Linked to Work on China." New Zealand Herald 16 Feb. 2018. Web. 26 Jun. 2018.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11995384
Patriam Reminisci. "Confronting the Dragon Part 2: the Quad Alliance." Steemit. 3 Mar. 2018. Web. 26 Jun. 2018.
https://steemit.com/news/@patriamreminisci/confronting-the-dragon-part-2-the-quad
Patriam Reminisci. "Don't Blame it All on Mao - China Has Always Been This Way (Part 1)." steemit. 28 Mar. 2018. Web. 26 Jun. 2018.
https://steemit.com/china/@patriamreminisci/don-t-blame-it-all-on-mao-china-has-always-been-this-way-part-1
Packham, Colin. "Australia Amends Proposed Foreign Interference Law to Offer Protections for Journalists: Minister." Reuters. 8 Feb. 2018. Web. 26 Jun. 2018.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-australia-politics-foreign/australia-amends-proposed-foreign-interference-law-to-offer-protections-for-journalists-minister-idUSKBN1FR39S
Pomfret, John. "China’s meddling in Australia — and what the U.S. should learn from it." Washington Post. 24 Jun, 2017. Web. 26 Jun. 2018.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2017/06/14/how-should-the-u-s-deal-with-chinas-rise-look-to-australia/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.e22493ac7232
Valencia, Mark. "Why Australia should refrain from challenging China with gunboat diplomacy in the South China Sea." South China Morning Post. 13 Mar. 2018. Web. 26 Jun. 2018.
http://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2136948/why-australia-should-refrain-challenging-china-gunboat
Wen, Phillip. "Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi flies off the handle on video." Sydney Morning Herald. 2 Jun, 2016. Web. 26 Jun. 2018.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/chinese-foreign-minister-wang-yi-flies-off-the-handle-on-video-20160602-gpabjo.html