2021-05-02
China is getting increasing bad press, but it is wise to critically review what is being said and by whom to avoid going down a pathway towards armed conflict
By Chris Johansen, GI Co-editor
These days, China is shaping up as Australia’s Enemy No.1, despite the substantial trade ties between the two countries. China receives increasingly bad press, via topics like human rights suppression in Hong Kong and Xinjiang, increasing belligerence in the South China Sea and towards Taiwan, generally expanding military might, dissemination of “Wu Flu”, alleged cyber-hacking, attempted undue influence on Australian political parties, sudden bans or restrictions on Australian imports (e.g. barley, crayfish, wine, etc.), and so on. The sort of language that would be a precursor, and provide justification, to armed conflict in the not-too-distant future.
But, wait a moment, judging China from the outside is fraught with danger, and likely to lead to impressions divorced from reality. I learned this lesson nearly 40 years ago when I went there to work on a pasture development project (1982-4), based in Kunming, Yunnan Province. I was offered the job in mid-1982 but had to remain in Australia for several months while clearances and assorted paperwork were finalized. Wisely, I thought, I used that delay to beef up to the extent possible on what China was really like then. As there was no internet then (which may not have helped anyway – see later) I accessed whatever I could that was written about China in various books, magazines, newspapers, etc., and broadcast on radio and TV.
However, my conscientious “homework” turned out to be of little use once I finally arrived in my workplace, in Yunnan Province. In the following, I list the conclusions derived from my “homework” (in italics) and underneath what I actually experienced.
Homework: The Chinese people are suspicious of, and unfriendly towards, westerners due to China’s horrible history of foreign colonization, exploitation and humiliation and the ongoing cold war.
Experience: Almost everywhere I went throughout the large Yunnan Province I was courteously welcomed and offered assistance as required. The only exception was in the mountainous region in the north-west, adjacent to Tibet, where the Tibetans living there were not so welcoming – but that was more directed towards our Chinese counterparts than the foreigners (see later).
Homework: Everyone, including women, is forced to wear blue “Mao suits” with peaked caps.
Experience: Most men, but not all, were still wearing “Mao suits” but they differed among individuals, from pastel blue to dark blue, with all different styles of collar design and button arrangements (analogous to the infinitely different styles of jeans available in the West over the last 60 years). Most women, in larger towns and cities at least, wore slacks with brightly coloured blouses (mostly floral pattern) and, increasingly, frocks. This was a tell-tale sign of emergence from the “Cultural Revolution” from the late 1970s – the relatively remote western province of Yunnan was a bit delayed in this process compared to coastal provinces.
Homework: The Chinese people are like-minded automatons.
Experience: Among our Chinese counterparts on this project I have never come across a group with such a wide range of personalities – from introvert to extravert, cautious to care-free, critical to all-accepting, depressed to full-of-life, etc. This is in comparison with the many groups of people I have worked with in various countries.
Homework: Criticism of the regime or its agents is not allowed.
Experience: I heard many instances of open criticism of superiors and of the system, with no apparent constraint on those criticizing.
Homework: The Han Chinese (major ethnic group of Eastern China) dominate and supress the other ethnic groups of China and their religions.
Experience: It was regularly boasted by the local Chinese that there were some 25-28 ethnic groups in Yunnan. There were frequent holidays and festivals catering for the various ethnic groups (to the point of annoyance in that they regularly interfered with our work program). Several of these groups seemed to be unencumbered in practicing their, mainly Buddhist, religion. Only the Tibetans seemed to be less than welcoming of the Chinese Government efforts, the project I was in, to improve their pasture lands for their yaks, cattle and yattle (yak-cattle hybrids). This was based on their obvious resentment over the Chinese annexation of Tibet.
Homework: The Chinese Government encourages self-sufficiency in economic development and is wary of foreign technologies, preferring development of their own technologies.
Experience: Firstly, the existence of our project rendered that untrue as the Chinese Government obviously welcomed what (foreign) input we could provide in pasture science and animal husbandry. My main task was to assess pasture soils for their nutrient status in order to determine fertilizer requirements. This involved mass screening of soils and pasture plants in pot culture to detect nutrient deficiencies. For that a glasshouse was required, a structure not then available in Yunnan. I quickly designed one and, to my amazement, our counterparts had it constructed, improving upon my specifications and beyond my expectations, in about one month – so much for suspicion about foreign technology! Willingness to adopt foreign technology was so enthusiastic that in my farewell speech I felt the need to say words to the effect: “don’t necessarily believe all these things the foreigners are telling you, please do your own assessment before adopting”.
So far, you may be thinking that I gained a favourable impression of China – and you would be right. So why did I leave within two years? To reach some project sites involved regular travel on narrow, winding mountain roads with trucks careering down them laden with logs from the ongoing, rampant deforestation in the mountains. The truck drivers relied on pumping their brakes rather than using low gears to regulate their speed, resulting in brake failure with trucks regularly crashing down mountain precipices. I had many close calls and, on doing the statistical calculation, concluded that my luck wouldn’t last too much longer.
Fast forward forty years!
With the help of the internet, and particularly Messrs Google and Bing, am I better prepared in finding out what China is really like than I was in 1982, before the internet? Probably not, considering all of the fake news, dubious commentary, misinformation, etc. that is characteristic of the internet, and magnified by social media, today. Especially when the loudest criticism of China is coming from the Murdoch media and other ultra-conservative sources.
Also, that age-old political ploy is now coming into plain sight – the best way to deal with political problems at home is to seek or create problems with external entities. But, for the more discerning viewer, in the case of Australia (and western allies) vs China this brings to mind another old truism – “people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones”.
There is increasing concern that China is an autocracy, with the current president likely to be there for a long time. Well, Australia is still a monarchy, which is essentially an intergenerational autocracy, with its elected government still at the mercy of an unelected monarch (e.g. dismissal of the Whitlam Government in 1975). Any left-of-centre federal government elected in future would need to keep looking over its shoulder!
And there are claims that China is endangering world peace by threatening Taiwan. Well, this is an ongoing civil war, continuing since 1949 when the Chinese Nationalists, fighting the Communists, moved to Taiwan. That is, really an internal matter for China, somewhat analogous to the ongoing (since 1860s) civil war in the USA between those believing in racial superiority of “whites” and those not – recently manifested by militias bearing “confederate” flags storming the US congress.
Then, there is the professed concern for human rights violations in China. Er … the subjugation of Australia’s indigenous peoples proceeding over centuries, ongoing treatment of “illegal maritime arrivals”, attempts to cover up war crimes in Afghanistan, etc. Those tainted by human rights violations themselves really don’t have much credibility in criticising the human rights violations of others.
But if there is anything to the alleged suppression of Uyghurs in Xinjiang, then those with a consistent human rights record do need to speak up, but based on factual, on-the-ground, evidence. What makes me more concerned that something is amiss in Xinjiang are the recently shown Chinese Government films depicting the province as a paradise – suggesting to me that something is being attempted to be covered up.
And then there is Hong Kong. The “one nation two systems” settlement was agreed between China and UK, the former colonial master of Hong Kong, in 1997. So it’s a bit late to argue for independence for Hong Kong. If China is changing the “two systems” component then it is incumbent upon the UK to hold China to the 1997 agreement. When I was in China there was discussion of how and when China would take over Hong Kong. But with observations on how China was opening up after the Cultural Revolution my prediction was: “China will not take over Hong Kong but Hong Kong will take over China”. This turned out to be true in that over subsequent decades China adopted a capitalist system similar to that in Hong Kong. Who then would have thought that there would be Chinese citizens as billionaires and oligarchs blessed by the Chinese Communist party by the early 21st century?
Although, a fan of genuine democracy I must confess that the one-party system of China has been more successful than the multi-party systems of South Asia in raising the masses from abject poverty, a question I have pondered since my high school days. I visited China again in the 1990s, for a conference in Qingdao (famous for Tsingtao beer!) on the east coast. In comparison with Kunming, Yunnan Province, where I was based in 1982-4, I was gobsmacked. An ultra-modern city with people living a relatively luxurious lifestyle. Apparently, that now also applies to Kunming (see header photo).
In the present atmosphere of increasing bad press for China, I think it wise to step back a bit and critically examine some of that press and why it is being published. If you really want to understand the thinking going on in China, or any other country, it is best to listen to foreigners actually living amongst the people there. Relying on information coming from the cloistered confines of embassies or fleeting visits by journalists, or even worse by shock jocks who have never visited the place, in my experience, can be misleading.
Header photo: Left ‒ Kunming as I knew it 1983-4 Credit: ChinaTravelSavvy.Com, Wikimedia Commons. Right ‒ Kunming in 2009 Credit: Brücke-Osteuropa. Wikimedia Commons
[Opinions expressed are those of the author and not official policy of Greens WA]