Manufacturing the fear of China

If there is a lesson in this whipped-up frenzy and controversy about China, it’s that Australia just needs to grow up on the world stage.

Last week marked the 80th anniversary of the defeat of fascism in World War II, an event that should have been an occasion for reflection on sacrifice, alliance and peace, and a defeat of one of the most insidious and repulsive ideologies that has ever afflicted the world. In Beijing, President Xi Jinping delivered his speech declaring that China is “a great nation that does not commit violence.” Yet in much of the Western media, this was mistranslated as “China does not fear violence” – it’s a subtle but big shift in meaning, and it was enough to transform a commemoration of peace into headlines portraying China as a belligerent threat.

In Australia, the reaction followed a familiar and all-so-tiresome script. This mistranslation was used to frame China once again as a looming menace, supposedly preparing to invade Taiwan and destabilise global security. It’s not new, but for decades, Australia’s mainstream media and conservative commentators have depicted China as an enemy, irrespective of the context. Each occasion becomes another opportunity to recycle Cold War rhetoric, exaggerate the threats and present a pantomime of paranoia as serious analysis. Instead of sober debate about diplomacy, trade or regional security, the Australian public is fed a steady diet of fearmongering that reduces China to a simple caricature.

Of course, it will always be legitimate to criticise China’s government and its policies – just as one might criticise the United States, Britain or Australia itself. Certainly, the issue of Tibet is unresolved, there is the treatment of groups such as Falong Gong and Uyghur Muslims that breaches human rights, and China’s record on these matters is far from perfect. But there’s an imbalance how the records of different countries are perceived.

America – the good guy – always has its wars, military bases, invasions and bombings downplayed or rationalised, while something as simple as the diplomatic events of China – the bad guy – are reframed as sinister and always bring discussions about an immanent invasion of Taiwan. But if China truly intended to take Taiwan by force, it would have found time over the past 80 years to do this yet, so far, it has not – and anyway, it’s more advantageous for China if the rest of world believes an invasion is imminent, even if the chances of that are quite remote.

The anti-China rhetoric in Australia also carries unspoken racist undertones. No one comes out to say outright that the “Anglo–European powers” are better suited to global leadership, but that’s exactly what the implication is. The selective outrage, the mistranslations, and the constant suspicion reveal more about Australia’s insecurity than what they do about China’s intentions. What comes out of this is not policy analysis but a cultural knee-jerk reaction: to cast China as the perpetual other, incapable of being trusted, always a threat to our way of life if we drop our guard, even if it is for just a moment.