Penny Wong is well-suited for all these roles, alternating between the higher-intensity Peking opera, the low-intensity Kabuki form, and the diplomatic shirtfront. Thus, she said she was disturbed by China’s confronting behaviour in the South China Sea, concerned about China’s human rights abuses and “shocked” by the suspended death sentence meted out to Australian citizen Yang Hengjun for allegedly spying.

Having got that off her chest, she was also pleased that relations between Australia and China had “stabilised” under the Albanese government, enabling the resumption of what diplomats call a high-level foreign and strategic dialogue. That process had fallen into disuse under the more combative and, as it turned out, less constructive approach taken by the previous Australian government.

As for Wang Yi, the Chinese foreign minister provided a relatively enigmatic foil in his public encounters with Australian leaders, including Wong and prime minister Anthony Albanese. In private, he will no doubt have given as good as he got: as a long-serving foreign minister he is no stranger to difficult encounters triggered by China’s  assertiveness.

Wong and Wang won’t have neglected the implications of an extremely unstable global security environment for regional peace and stability. While they may not have dealt directly with a possible return of Donald Trump to the White House, it will have been part of their calculations about what lies ahead.

Offstage we had a staple of Peking opera, with a villain in the shape of Paul Keating, whose meeting with the Chinese foreign minister was portrayed in some excitable media quarters as treason. In a world of high-stakes diplomacy in which one of Beijing’s stocks-in-trade is divide and prevail, the meeting with a former prime minister who is a critic of Australia’s China policy will have served a symbolic purpose.

What was achieved by all this activity?

The answer is straightforward. The Wong–Wang meeting served both countries’ interests. For Australia, it demonstrated that relations with its cornerstone trading partner are in mutually beneficial shape. For China, it suggested Canberra had not moved irredeemably into Washington’s orbit.

The encounter was realpolitik writ large in preparation for a visit to Canberra later this year of Chinese premier Li Qiang. To use a phrase borrowed from Chinese leader Xi Jinping, it had a win–win outcome for the two countries, though not for Australia’s China hawks.

Much of this movement, including an easing of restrictions on Australian exports to China, would have been off limits under Scott Morrison’s government — a time when Australia’s trade minister could not get his counterpart on the telephone.

In the eighteen months since Labor took office, bilateral encounters have occurred monthly at least, and with increasing frequency more recently. Contrast this with the paucity of meetings, invariably restricted to encounters on the sidelines of international gatherings, under Morrison.

Absent from Wong’s remarks about the relationship on this occasion was the bromide that Australia would disagree with China where it must, and agree where it can, or words to that effect. Increasingly, we now have Wong saying that Australian wants a “stable and constructive” relationship with China “in the interests of both countries.”

This might be bad news for those critics of China who have put us on a “red alert,” as a febrile newspaper series in Age and the Sydney Morning Herald described it last year. A “constructive” relationship would seem to be in Australia’s own interests, though it shouldn’t be at the expense of Australia’s treaty arrangements, its national interest or its values — a fact that shouldn’t need to be repeated ad nauseum.

In their quite lengthy talks Wong and Wang will have dwelled no doubt on a trading and people-to-people relationship that has rebounded since the Covid crisis subsided. Goods and services exports to China gained 13 per cent to A$203.5 billion in the 2022–23 financial year, with China accounting for a shade over a quarter of total exports. Service exports to China were up 27 per cent as a result of the return of students and tourists. The country is far and away Australia’s biggest export market.

If there is an impediment from China’s point of view, it is the obstacles facing Chinese enterprises attempting to gain a foothold in Australia’s investment market by the Foreign Investment Review Board. China’s investment stock in Australia stands at just A$44 billion, or 4 per cent of total foreign direct investment. It ranks sixth among foreign investors, far behind the United States, the European Union and Britain.

Among jarring aspects of Wang Yi’s visit, and one that raised questions about China’s willingness to engage more broadly, was the foreign minister’s unwillingness to avail himself of the opportunity to answer questions from the Australian media. Wang and his advisers won’t have overlooked the hostile tenor of some of the reporting ahead of his visit, and the near certainty that this hostility would have permeated an encounter with an Australian media loaded for game.

In all of this, participants in the diplomatic jousting will continue to play their roles for both a domestic and a wider audience. Senator Wong is proving quite good at it. The question, as always, is how much substance is there behind the shadow play. •

The post Shadow play appeared first on Inside Story.

In Australia it is available only on YouTube, with sometimes hilarious computer-generated subtitles. As long as viewers bear in mind that “the cavalry in the birch wood” means “Captain Ma in the town of Hualin” the story will carry them effortlessly along from its gentle beginning to its bitter-sweet ending.

The Long Season is based on an even bleaker novel, Yu Xiaoqian’s The Cutting Edge of Winter. The story centres on an elderly man’s dogged search for whoever killed his son nearly twenty years earlier. The cold case investigation, with its post-industrial social criticism and #MeToo edge, mixes grim subject matter with moments of levity and ends with a message of hope. Imagine the cast of the BBC’s New Tricks in a Ken Loach movie and you’ll get the picture.

The setting is a rustbelt town in northeast China called Hualin, hometown to our ageing hero, Wang Xiang (Fan Wei), and the site of an ailing steel factory. The series is filmed in split time, the events of 1997–98 shown in flashback from 2016. Wang, once a “model worker” who drove a freight train for the factory, is now a taxi driver. His college-educated brother-in-law, Gong Biao (Qin Hao), used to work in the factory’s office; he drives a taxi too. When a chance event involving Gong’s taxi leads Wang to suspect that his son’s killer has resurfaced, the two men join forces with retired cop Captain Ma (Chen Minghao), who investigated the original case.

Much of the series’ popularity rests on the relationship between these three characters. Their dealings with each other range from bumbling strategising to resigned philosophising. Variously single, widowed and on the edge of divorce, they are in the process of coming to terms with the lives they’ve had. Their pursuit of the case, and its link with Gong’s taxi, seems at one level like a dramatic realisation of this process.

They all struggle to maintain control over their lives. Wang has prostate problems. Gong is diabetic. Health problems among people in the town and the cost of treating them make up a minor but persistent refrain. Director Xin Shuang’s father was dying while he was making the series. His close observation of the challenges of old age and the cost of hospital care may have informed his treatment of these topics.

Juxtaposed with the character-driven treatment of the three men — middle-aged in 1997, getting old in 2016 — is a plot-driven story about the younger generation. Wang’s son Yang (Yitie Liu) is a budding poet. The girl he loves, Shen Mo (Teresa Li), is a medical student with a troubled background who plays piano in a nightclub to support herself. Shen’s deaf-mute brother and his business partner run a home-made cinema showing videos on a clapped-out television. Their lives interact, often violently, with those of other young people adrift in the ruins of socialism.

Confronted with the fraying of the social fabric, the parents cling desperately to the known world of lifetime employment in a factory where workers were the masters. In one of many references to that disappearing world, episode six has Yang’s mother, Meisu, reflecting on how different life was for them.

“Our generation was used to being organised,” she says. “At home, there were lots of children, and we obeyed our parents in everything. In the collective when we grew up, we had to listen to our leaders. We’ve always felt that there’s a circle surrounding us. All our lives we just walked in that circle and no one stepped outside of it for any reason, not even to put a foot on a coin.”

By 2016, the lives of the young people have either come to an end or come to nothing. With its focus on older men struggling on in a landscape significantly devoid of women and children, the series forces reflection on what the society has done to itself.

Out of this Pandora’s box hope wings its way in episode twelve. There is justice — the corrupt manager of the steel factory gets his comeuppance — and there is a woman, a former factory worker, who offers Wang the possibility of someone with whom to “pass the days.” In a remarkable scene performed by the accomplished Fan Wei, Wang talks to her indirectly about that possibility, glancing at her occasionally in the rear mirror of the taxi he is driving.

There is also a child: Wang’s younger son, born in 1997, his origins unexplained until the very end of the series. And there is a future that lies in (where else?) Beijing, China’s centre of wealth, culture and politics, as Wang more than once states. The long-dead elder son never got there but the younger son will.

Reviewing the series for Foreign Policy, James Palmer asks “how did this brilliant Chinese rust belt noir get made under Xi?” The answer surely lies in its redemptive conclusion. At the end of the final episode the camera returns viewers to the cornfields that greeted them at the beginning of the series. The narrow-gauge railway along which the factory train once ran is still there. Wang stands by the track with a beatific visage as the train once more chuffs into view, his younger self at the controls. “Look forward,” old Wang calls to him. “Don’t look back!”

The media in the People’s Republic of China has tried to make this the central message of the series. For the Global Times, The Long Season “meets Chinese people’s demand for quality productions that deliver positive messages, such as the theme of the show: ‘Move on, don’t look back.’”

Yet the ending doesn’t feel quite right. With its series of betrayals, the story’s logic points to an alternative conclusion, the one Yu Xiaoqian wrote for the novel. There, readers discover that decades earlier, on the very day he was to be nominated a model worker, Wang witnessed the sexual abuse of a minor. Like a time-delayed bomb, his failure to report the crime precipitated the series of events that led to his son’s death. The novel ends not with him smiling in the cornfields but being forced to jump to his death.

Viewers can be grateful to the scriptwriters for leaving them with a gentler final scene. But the benign ending suggests, if not the hand of the censor then at least a process of self-censorship.

The fact that Yu Xiaoqian himself was one of the scriptwriters brings to mind the fate of Lao She’s 1939 novel Rickshaw Boy. In 1945 this profoundly pessimistic story about the failure of Republican-era Beijing to meet the modest aspirations of a rural migrant was issued in English translation with the unauthorised addition of two extra chapters and a happy ending.

Lao She was disheartened by the bowdlerisation of his work in the United States, but worse came when the Chinese-language original was savagely redacted during the revolutionary upsurge under Mao in the 1950s. The 1955 edition omitted one and a half chapters of the original, all sexual references, and some other incidental material. Lao She approved these alterations and apologised for the novel’s lack of optimism.

Optimism — “joyful socialism,” as it has been termed — is a hallmark of Chinese communism. On the small screen it is better expressed by China’s top-rating series in 2022, Daughter of the Mountains, the dramatisation of the true story of Huang Wenxiu, a village girl who makes it all the way to university in Beijing before returning home to participate in programs of poverty alleviation.

Unlike in The Long Season, where the Communist Party is hardly evident, in Daughter of the Mountains it is front and centre. Huang is a party member who rises to the position of local party secretary. She meets her death tragically in a car crash on a mountain road, one of the many slated for repairs under infrastructural plans for the region. But this is by no means a devastating finale, for Huang leaves a legacy of hope for a better future. In real life, her father paid tribute to the Communist Party for all the opportunities it had offered his daughter.

That two such very different series should have received equally high ratings in China says much about the divided self that China is today. •

The post Life and death in China’s rustbelt appeared first on Inside Story.

Australian citizen Yang Hengjun’s arrest, imprisonment and suspended death sentence for espionage could draw comparison with the case of Francis James, the eccentric publisher of the Sydney church newspaper the Anglican, who Gough Whitlam managed to spring from a Chinese jail in 1973 after convincing Beijing he was a harmless prankster.

But the two cases are quite dissimilar, especially as the comparison doesn’t give Yang credit for his genuine efforts for liberal reform in China.

As recounted by Japan-based ex-diplomat Gregory Clark, who covered the Francis James case for the Australian, James had concocted an entirely fictitious account of travelling to the Chinese nuclear test site at Lop Nor in Xinjiang and sold it to the London Sunday Times in 1969. After he was exposed by Derek Davies of the Far Eastern Economic Review as having skirted around rather than visited China, James invented another preposterous story and then went openly to China in November 1969. He was promptly arrested as a suspected spy.

Why so reckless? Getting arrested was deliberate, Clark conjectured. “Get into China via the Canton Fair, behave suspiciously, get arrested dramatically and mysteriously, and the world will have no choice but to believe that here indeed is a person who could once have roamed the secret nuclear installations of northwest China,” he wrote.

“True, being arrested by the Chinese police in those days was no joke,” Clark went on. “But he has a plan. Because he behaves outrageously and courts arrest, the Chinese will quickly realise he is a harmless eccentric playing games and throw him out of the country. Being expelled from China will add even more to the James legend.”

But things don’t quite work out that way. “The Chinese decide that he is not mad or playing games, that he really is on some secret spy mission. What James thought would be a short-term escapade ends up as incarceration and interrogation for four years. The joke very nearly ends up as a tragedy.”

Yang’s case could very well turn into a tragedy. His death sentence has been suspended for two years on condition he doesn’t re-offend. How he might spy from a prison cell is a mystery, but Chinese security would no doubt find some evidence if it wanted to. And Yang, fifty-eight, has a large lesion on one of his kidneys that could be renal cancer, treatable if operated on in time. In a previous high-profile case, that of detained Nobel Prize winner Liu Xiaobo, Chinese authorities allowed liver cancer to develop beyond hope of treatment.

Despite five years of detention and hundreds of interrogation sessions, China’s Ministry of State Security could only come up with one plausible accusation of espionage. This involves an operation thirty years ago, in 1994–97, when Yang was working for the ministry itself as an undercover officer in Hong Kong as the territory’s handover from Britain to China was approaching. Back then, according to the limited summary of evidence released with the verdict, Yang passed on forty documents containing Chinese secrets to Taiwan’s intelligence service.

But Yang had long told confidants that his superiors in State Security gave him the job of opening contact with Taiwan operatives to help ensure a smooth transition and had been happy with his trading some low-level information to win confidences. So pleased with his performance had his superiors been that they let him go to Washington with his then wife for two years as a visiting fellow at the Atlantic Council, a think tank, while still on the ministry’s books.

The resurrection of the Hong Kong episode suggests that Yang’s interrogators found no evidence of espionage in the decades since, unless it has been withheld. So the arrest must have been for something else. And the answer surely lies in the evolution of Yang’s career as an academic researcher, popular fiction writer and political blogger, and how State Security, as guardian of the Chinese dictatorship, saw his work as a challenge and threat.

Early on, Yang certainly teased the ministry: not something that should be done lightly given it is perhaps the largest intelligence agency in the world, with an estimated 110,000 staff encompassing foreign intelligence, domestic counter-intelligence and increasingly cyber and industrial espionage. It even has its own think tank, the Institute for Contemporary International Relations, to engage with foreign counterparts and release open-source assessments. At its favoured hotel in central Beijing, troublesome figures are invited in for a “cup of tea” as a warning.

Reflecting the ministry’s staid, bureaucratic character, its cadres are supposed to be pillars of communist rectitude. At the insistence of its former political master, premier Zhou Enlai (the leader Whitlam prevailed on to release James), it has forsworn “honey traps” (sexual entrapment) and doesn’t seem to go in for overseas “wet jobs” (assassinations), at least according to John Byron, the pseudonymous co-author of Claws of the Dragon, a book based on the personal papers of Kang Sheng, Mao Zedong’s spy chief and orchestrator of his purges.

Yang tried to liven up that dour image with a trilogy of spy novels published in Hong Kong and Taiwan around 2004–05. According to those who’ve read them, they contain the mix of sex and murder found in spy books about Western intelligence services. The hero, a Chinese named Yang, is a double-agent in a vicious war between the State Security and the CIA. Smuggled copies gained a wide readership in China.

Yang joined the ministry’s elite intake as a brilliant graduate of Shanghai’s Fudan University, one of the country’s best foreign-studies schools. He received the Hong Kong assignment after a posting to the foreign department of Hainan’s provincial government.

But his role ended with his Washington sojourn. In 1999 his then wife, a professional interpreter and translator, gained a skilled migration visa for Australia. Yang emigrated too, as her dependent. The move appears not to have been a “defection.”

In Australia, as well as writing his spy books, Yang plunged back into academic study, supported by his wife, first at the University of New South Wales and then at the University of Technology Sydney, where he gained a PhD in 2007 for a thesis on political messaging on the Chinese internet, then subject to tightening surveillance and blocking.

Research contacts enabled Yang to develop a huge following for his Chinese-language blogs discussing political reform, says his UTS doctoral supervisor, Feng Chongyi. The large following gained him some income but he also relied on hospitality from friends and contacts. At some point his marriage broke up.

Although his spy books had been “too sensitive for China,” Feng tells me, Yang continued to travel in and out of China, by then as an Australian citizen. One awkward moment came on a visit to Guangzhou in 2011, when local police officers detained him. Uprisings were then sweeping the Middle East in the Arab Spring and China’s security apparatus had been told to nip any local buds. With help from Julia Gillard’s government, Feng got Yang released after four days on the condition that his detention was not publicised.

At their peak, says Feng, Yang’s blogs were followed by about a hundred “Yang Groups” in some fifty Chinese cities. But with Xi Jinping’s ascension as Communist Party secretary in October 2012 the atmospherics started changing. Xi methodically purged all rival factions, including the Shanghai faction of former leader Jiang Zemin and the Communist Youth League faction of predecessor Hu Jintao (who was later frogmarched out of the 2022 party congress that gave the green light for Xi’s indefinite rule).

Xi also cracked down on civil society: lawyers, academics, media outlets, non-government organisations. With his blogging career faced with ever-tightening controls, Yang became noticeably more cautious in what his writing and speaking, according to a foreign correspondent he used to meet in Beijing. His high-level party contacts, including former vice-president Zeng Qinghong, a key lieutenant to Jiang Zemin, were themselves on the outer.

Yang had also embarked on a relationship that raised questions among his following. His new wife, Yuan Ruijuan (also known as Yuan Xiaoliang), had been labelled a “patriotic blogger” — or, more disparagingly, a wumao (fifty-cent warrior) for the half-yuan these bloggers were supposedly paid for each post supporting the official line. Her reputation sat uneasily with Yang’s long-time aim of political opening. Some wondered whether Yang had been playing both sides of China’s internal divide.

Nonetheless, Yang was in the sights of State Security. The contacts he had made with Zeng Qinghong, a former vice-premier who had been a key lieutenant of Jiang Zemin, would have been enough to ensure that. “The CCP reforming wing under Zeng embraced globalisation whole-heartedly and pushed for alliance with the West,” says Feng. “Zeng even went so far as to find an exit for the CCP.”

In March 2017 Feng Chongyi was himself detained during a research trip in Guangzhou. Before pressure from Canberra and his university secured his release, Feng says he was questioned intensively about Yang’s activities and connections. “They said: Women hui shoushi ta! We will get rid of him!” Feng recalls.

Feng then helped Yang get a two-year visiting fellowship at New York’s Colombia University, his income to be augmented by informal daigou trading of American luxuries to China. After the fellowship ended in January 2019, Yang and his second wife, heading back to Australia, made the fateful decision to visit relatives on the way. Unlike Francis James, it was not a showdown gesture: Yang must have thought the State Security officers in his intake, by then in senior ranks, would keep a lenient eye on him.

“I told him not to go back to China,” says Feng. “He said, if they want to take me, they would have done it long ago.”

Yang’s arrest may partly have been precautionary, aimed at silencing a potentially influential figure ahead of two big anniversaries coming up in 2019: the centenary of the 4 May 1919 student uprising over the foreign concession ports reaffirmed in the Versailles Treaty, and the thirtieth anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre.

China’s relations with US-aligned nations were already spiralling downwards. A month earlier, Canada had arrested Huawei’s heiress-apparent Meng Wanzhou on a US warrant for breaking sanctions on Iran. In return, two Canadians working in China had been arrested, effectively as hostages. Members of the Five Eyes intelligence group, which includes Australia, were blocking Huawei from their 5G mobile networks on suspicion the technology could be used for Chinese espionage or sabotage. The party and State Security had added to the deteriorating atmosphere with a new intelligence law requiring all Chinese citizens and enterprises to cooperate with intelligence services when asked.

In Australia, Malcolm Turnbull’s government had enacted new laws on foreign influence while Yang was in New York. A month after his detention Canberra blocked the Chinese businessman Huang Xiangmo, a permanent resident, from re-entering Australia because of payments to politicians allegedly to build pro-China sentiment.

Yang was in contact with Australian officials preparing the anti–foreign influence crackdown. In New York he appears to have engaged with Boxun, a US-based website and news aggregator that promotes democracy and human rights and exposes alleged corruption in China. Blocked in China itself, Boxun has been subject to cyber-attacks attributed to Beijing. Its founder, Meicun “Watson” Meng, has strongly defended Yang against his latest charges.

Yang’s harsh sentence has undermined the feeling in Canberra that relations with China, though never expected to be warm, were at least unlikely to deliver more shocks. The hope, no doubt, was that Yang would be released after sentencing for time served.

To Canberra’s China hawks, the sentence suggests that Beijing wants Australians to be a bit afraid. And the court’s two-year good behaviour: did that apply to the Australian government, they wonder, as well as Yang?

But Richard McGregor, the China specialist at Sydney’s Lowy Institute and author of widely praised book, The Party, plays down the idea that Beijing is sending a message to Australia. “It’s less about Australia and more about them,” he tells me. “On the one hand, the MSS [State Security] is likely largely indifferent to the deleterious impact Yang’s verdict will have on relations with Australia. But you could imagine that State Security deliberately demanded the harshest sentence possible as a warning to pro-democracy activists that they are risking their lives.”

For State Security, foreign relations are mere collateral damage. So is economic confidence. After a revised anti-espionage law introduced last July expanded the range of activities that can be considered espionage, raids targeted US-linked consultancy and due-diligence firms.

As the well-informed Hong Kong journalist and academic Wang Xiangwei has pointed out, State Security has gone public with its warnings, launching a WeChat account last August. “Since then, it has boldly asserted itself not only on espionage matters but also on national and international topical issues ranging from China–US relations to economic subjects, including one in which it warned against badmouthing China’s economic growth prospects,” Wang wrote.

Then, late last year, State Security put out posts blasting people who were bearish about China and “badmouthing” China’s economic growth prospects, Wang said. A few weeks later, in late January, it laid out ten conditions — mainly concerning national security, state secrets and anti-espionage law — that could lead to questioning by its agents.

State Security is unlikely to be doing this without Xi’s firm approval. Minister Chen Yixin is a longtime associate of Xi — so close that he is believed to be working on a new chapter of “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era,” the official ideology that ranks Xi with Mao. A “pillar” of state security seems likely to join existing pillars of the economy, diplomacy, military, environment, legal affairs and culture in the official document.

Without a signal from Xi, no one in Beijing is likely to resist the expanded ministry. “In any political system it’s difficult to push back against the internal security service,” says Lowy’s McGregor. “Eventually with wolf-warrior diplomacy there was a top-level political intervention and it largely stopped. So far, the MSS’s role seems very much in line with the direction Xi Jinping has set for the country. The only incentive in China is to exceed what you think the leader wants.”

In the meantime, Anthony Albanese is no Gough Whitlam, and Xi Jinping is no Zhou Enlai, and for the China of 2024, unlike in 1973, the Russians are its second fiddle and the Americans fearful of its rise. The best hope for Yang appears to be an effort to stress his precarious health and, unfairly as it may be, downplaying the seriousness of his challenge to the Party.

The MSS cadres are unlikely to know James Thurber’s 1939 story “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” or the 1947 Danny Kaye movie, but they might have seen the 2013 remake with Ben Stiller. •

The post Collateral damage appeared first on Inside Story.

Accompanying Jimmy on the journey were sundry family members, including three sons and two nephews. They were in search of the family home that Jimmy’s father, Mar See Poy, had left in 1914 and to which he returned after being deported from Australia in 1926. The moment when Jimmy approached the front door, recalls his nephew Phillip, “was remembered [by all] as an emotional ‘high point.’”

Jimmy’s is one of several stories about Chinese immigrants and their hometowns told in a new collection of essays, The China–Australia Migration Corridor. The corridor in question is a virtual one, constituted by the movement of people to and from Sydney and what is now the municipality of Zhongshan, in Guangdong province, where Sha Chong village is located. The stories have a number of common elements: more than one generation, an extended lapse in time between migration and return, a “house-hunting” quest — which is central to the book’s heritage theme — and the “affect,” or emotional content, of the journeys. Jimmy’s has all these characteristics.

The book is an outcome of the Heritage Corridor project, launched in 2017 by Ien Ang and Denis Byrne at the University of Western Sydney. Ang brings to this project a long history of engagement with migration, race and identity. Byrne is an archaeologist working in the field of critical heritage studies. Together with anthropologist Phillip Mar (Jimmy’s nephew), historian Michael Williams, research fellow Alexandra Wong and PhD student Christopher Cheng (now graduated), they have been collecting stories of return as part of an investigation of Australian-Chinese built heritage. The nine chapters in the book, to which the entire research team has contributed, are concerned with memories and material remains almost in equal measure.

The book’s publication follows closely on that of Byrne’s 2022 monograph, The Heritage Corridor: A Transnational Approach to the Heritage of Chinese Migration. Both books are concerned with the migration corridor “as a transnational field of material heritage.” With the concept of the corridor, Byrne takes aim at both the idea of a national heritage bounded by the nation-state and the related top-down definition of heritage. Focusing on the flow of people and money between Sydney and Zhongshan, the project’s researchers have kept an eye on grassroots heritage-making at both ends of the corridor.

Zhongshan, which covers an area considerably larger than Sydney, is part plains, part hills. It used to be called Xiangshan, meaning “fragrant hills”: hence the title of Michael Williams’s informative opening chapter, “Villages of the Fragrant Hills.” Its present name, as a footnote by Williams tells us, is a legacy of its most famous emigrant, “Father of the Republic” Sun Yatsen (1866–1925), also known as Sun Zhongshan. Sun was founder of the Kuomintang, or KMT — the Chinese Nationalist Party, to give it its English name — which was China’s governing party in the years 1928–49. The place that bears his name is the only one of 2000 or so Chinese counties to have been named, like Sydney, after a historical figure.

Zhongshan was a major source of migrants to Pacific Rim countries in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, accounting for perhaps a plurality of Chinese residents in New South Wales and Queensland before and during the White Australia era. In their chapter “Zhongshan in Sydney’s Chinatown,” Ang and Wong note the dominance of Zhongshan natives in the Sydney branch of the KMT, founded in 1921. KMT party members met (and still meet) in built-for-purpose headquarters at 75–77 Ultimo St, Sydney, constructed in 1921 by Robert Wall and Sons. Locally, the party probably served in lieu of a native-place association for Zhongshan people; internationally, it was also headquarters of the Australasian KMT, the party’s regional branch.

The Sydney building has a counterpart in the party’s Victorian state headquarters in Little Bourke Street, Melbourne, which features a facade designed by Walter Burley Griffin. Support for the KMT was strong in both cities but rested on different native-place foundations. In Melbourne, Zhongshan immigrants were well outnumbered by natives of See Yup, a cluster of four districts geographically contiguous with Zhongshan but distinguished by language sub-group and local-place networks.

With strength in numbers, high profiles in Sydney Chinatown’s commerce and politics, and considerable prominence in the business history of China itself, the Zhongshan migrants and their descendants were a natural focus for the Heritage Corridor project. The decision was facilitated by the fact that Michael Williams’s 2018 book, Returning Home with Glory: Chinese Villagers Around the Pacific, 1849–1949, also focused on Zhongshan, provided ready-made foundations for this differently themed project.

Like Williams’s pioneering book, the project foregrounds the home district of the migrants — the place to which they sent money and letters and to which, before the second world war, they not infrequently returned. They typically came from the poorer villages of the hills, which in the first half of the twentieth century sent abroad up to one in every three of their able-bodied males. With their skewed sex ratios and untended fields, these “sojourner villages” (qiaoxiang) became the beneficiaries of overseas remittances and the source of further migration.

A high degree of mobility is a well-known feature of Chinese migration in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Emigrant men periodically returned home for family reasons; a son born in China might then, in his turn, come to Australia as a student or to help in the family business. This was partly an effect of White Australia–era immigration restrictions, which produced a strange pattern of migration in which a family might be in Australia for three generations before anyone was actually born there. The Ma (Mar) family, represented by several people interviewed for this book, is an example.

If these accounts of comings and goings are the warp of the book, then “heritage-making” is its weft.

Byrne distinguishes rather sharply between “heritage from above” and “heritage from below”: the former is evident in the national and state registries of heritage sites; the latter is exemplified in the “quest for the ancestral house” in the course of which “old houses are brought forward into the landscape of the present.” But something exists between “heritage from above” and “heritage from below.” The examples of Sydney’s Kwong War Chong building, discussed by Ang and Wong, and the Ma and Kwok family mansions of Zhongshan discussed by Byrne himself, show that local government in both countries has a significant role in preserving historical buildings, even if — in the case of Sydney at least — the intervention followed community lobbying.

Nonetheless, the book’s accounts of heritage-making as a grassroots social process are persuasive. Returning to the ancestral village and finding the ancestral home, Byrne argues, means inscribing the past in the present. This reading is given force by the fact that the process, in very many cases, involves communicating meanings from one generation to the next. When Mabel Lee went to Zhongshan in the late 1970s it was because her father wanted to go: “He would say, ‘If you don’t take me, I’ll be dead.’” Gordon Mar and his brothers took his mother back in 1997, at her insistence, after she was diagnosed with terminal cancer: “She felt it was her duty to bring her sons back to the village to be acknowledged.”

The other aspect of heritage-making concerns the material sites of meaning: the village, the house, sometimes even objects within the house. The buildings described and discussed range from commercial buildings in Dixon Street to “remittance houses” and schools in Zhongshan, built with money sent or brought back to China. Byrne presents a useful typology of these houses, which at the upper end were palatial. The same is true of schools, the focus of Christopher Cheng’s PhD research. Photos of multistorey buildings with porticos, columns, and cupolas show the ambitions of the donors.

Read from cover to cover, The China–Australia Migration Corridor leaves a strong impression of buildings in Sydney, on the east edge of one continent, juxtaposed with buildings in Zhongshan, in the southeast corner of another. For Byrne, these two clusters represent the two ends of the transnational corridor. Yet they also seem to define a period of history. In her chapter on “(Un)making Transnational Identities,” Ang repeatedly refers to a sense of closure in the Zhongshan–Sydney connection. Kam Louie, born in Zhongshan in 1949, is the only one of a family of many siblings ever to have returned to his home village, and his own children show no interest in going. For Gordon Mar, a one-off visit “seems to have reinforced his Australianness rather than his Chineseness.”

Like everyone else interviewed for the book, Louie and Mar are at the tail-end of a history of chain migration and eventual settlement that began under the Qing dynasty in the middle of the nineteenth century. The return to Zhongshan, accompanied in some cases by renewed investment in the ancestral village, followed the huge historical rupture created by war and revolution in China. When a new history of Chinese-Australian journeyings is written to cover subsequent migration, it will mostly be about people from other parts of China whose lives have been shaped by different historical circumstances.

This is an engaging collection of essays that makes an important contribution to the field of Chinese-Australian history. Like all good scholarly books, it opens up new research questions. The concept of “corridor” powerfully evokes the historical connections between Zhongshan and Sydney, but a corridor has walls. Who benefited from Zhongshan networks? Who was left outside those notional walls? How did other native-place connections operate in Sydney’s small Chinese community? Did native-place cleavages inform political cleavages? And in this small community, with its limited number of women of Chinese birth or parentage, who married whom? •

The China–Australia Migration Corridor: History and Heritage
Edited by Denis Byrne, Ien Ang and Phillip Mar | Melbourne University Press | $40 | 288 pages

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China has long sought diplomatic relations with Tuvalu. Individual officials at various levels in Tuvalu have reported frequent offers of aid if their island state makes the break with Taiwan, and international media raised the potential of a switch after Tuvalu’s 2019 election.

Why might Tuvalu decide to switch to China? And does it matter?

Personal connections, leverage and ongoing aid projects all provide insight into the first question. In a political system without parties or clear pro- and anti-China factions, personal connections matter. Two members of Tuvalu’s parliament are elected from each of its eight islands to make up the country’s sixteen-member parliament, and the prime minister is then elected by MPs from among their number. Some parliamentarians are friendly towards China (and others supportive of Taiwan), and if a pro-China MP were to gain the prime ministership they would certainly have the influence to push for a switch. This alone may have prompted Paeniu’s warning that Tuvalu could switch relations after the upcoming election, but this has potentially been true after any of Tuvalu’s elections.

Leverage is also important. Taiwan is heavily aligned with the United States and Australia, and Washington has pushed Tuvalu to maintain relations with the government in Taipei. Ironically, Tuvalu’s acquiescence has put it at a disadvantage, for the United States tends to focus its attention and aid on Pacific nations that have relations with China.

Tuvalu has recent experience of how leverage can work. In 2021, when Tuvalu was in full Covid lockdown, the state-owned China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation, or CCECC, helped transport Tuvaluan ministers via Guangzhou to COP26 and other meetings. The result — a sudden renewal of aid promises by the United States — showed that China could not only provide substantial aid to Tuvalu itself but also prompt the United States to increase its assistance. The fact that Taiwan, with its close ties to the United States and Australia, could never enable such leverage was suggested just this week by Tuvalu’s finance minister, Seve Paeniu, who is guaranteed a seat in the new parliament.

How was CCECC able to transport Tuvaluan ministers out of Tuvalu during Covid? The tendering methods used by the Asian Development Bank, or ADB, and the World Bank to award development projects, especially cost-based tendering, often favour Chinese companies and contractors. Although Tuvalu is allied with Taiwan, CCECC workers and supervisors were stationed on some of Tuvalu’s outer islands until 2022 as part of a major ADB-funded project to improve harbours. CCECC’s state ownership demonstrated firsthand for Tuvalu what cooperating with China on aid or development might look like.

For companies like CCECC, there is literally no political or financial downside to lobbying on behalf of China. If Tuvalu switches, they win political capital in Beijing and contracts for work on the ground. While many Chinese company managers resist the embrace of China’s party-state because it’s a bad look or it’s simply not their main priority, CCECC is a pure state-owned enterprise, unfettered by complex ownership structures or the need to please foreign stock exchanges.

When the Solomon Islands government was considering its diplomatic switch in 2019, CCECC’s regional manager visited Honiara to lay out US$500 million worth of development assistance on offer if Solomons leaders showed the wisdom to change their allegiance.

If Tuvalu’s new parliament chooses Beijing over Taipei, CCECC’s fingerprints will undoubtedly be visible. Yet research also indicates that the decision to choose one or the other allegiance often comes down to highly local and pragmatic choices. Tuvalu’s original decision to go with Taiwan had nothing to do with democracy or freedom: at the time, Taiwan was still enduring the longest period of martial law the world has ever seen. Tuvalu chose Taiwan because it had a problem with illegal Taiwanese fishing vessels and reasoned it would have more leverage if it recognised the Republic of China.

The same logic of better futures — the prospect of future investment, aid and diplomatic attention — will doubtless be used by Tuvalu’s next leader, regardless of whether the choice is to stay or to go.

The second question — whether Tuvalu’s decision matters — produces a different answer depending on where you’re sitting. Along with Taiwan, Australia is the only country with a diplomatic mission in Funafuti, and our diplomats would clearly prefer the status quo to continue. The Solomon Islands’ switch — facilitated by a leader with a longstanding history of bad blood with Canberra — represents the extreme end of possible outcomes, but Australia can also do without clumsy attempts by Chinese diplomats to influence local media or provide inducements to politicians to keep Tuvalu in Beijing’s column. It could also do without any impact a switch might have on finalisation of the Australia–Tuvalu Falepili Union.

In Beijing, another diplomatic switch so soon after Taiwan’s presidential elections would be welcomed, although you’d have to spare a thought for whomever they send to Funafuti. China’s Pacific diplomats look a harried bunch at the best of times; being under so much scrutiny in such a small town is not an enviable assignment. Taiwan’s new government, meanwhile, would find the question of why they continue to invest limited resources in a losing hand hard to avoid. For Tuvalu, the choice is theirs to make, and we should all respect their decision. •

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The DPP’s main opponent is the Kuomintang, or KMT, a party with roots deep in pre-revolutionary China and members that are far more inclined than their DPP counterparts to claim Chinese heritage. The KMT’s presidential candidate, New Taipei mayor Hou Yu-ih, is a centrist pragmatist from a local Taiwanese family, but both his running mate and the first-placed candidate on the party’s list are “deep blue” — strongly pro-Chinese figures from families that fled to Taiwan after the communist victory in 1949. Intra-party tensions reflecting these different views could complicate legislative processes after the election.

The third party fielding a presidential candidate, the Taiwan People’s Party, is predicted to retain its present strength in the legislature. It has feistily courted younger voters during the campaign.

On current predictions the next president of the legislature will be the KMT’s Han Kuo-yu, whose position on the party ticket assures him of a win despite his having made history in 2020 as the only mayor ever recalled from office by popular petition.

Outside Taiwan, the election is attracting interest more for its international than its domestic repercussions. The war in Ukraine alerted the world to the possibility of a matching war on the opposite side of Eurasia. The dramatic increase in incursions by Chinese fighter jets into Taiwanese airspace over the past two to three years resonates with the build-up of Russian forces on the Ukrainian border in the months ahead of its February 2022 invasion. From London to Tokyo, commentators have been speculating on the potential for a bellicose response to the election in Beijing.

Not surprisingly, the prospect of war has been a theme in the election campaign. KMT posters show Hou Yu-ih declaring “Peace on each shore; we don’t want war.” The fact that all candidates agree with this sentiment doesn’t stop it being invoked as a point of difference between the DPP on the one hand and the Kuomintang and the Taiwan People’s Party on the other. A widely read article by influential American commentators advocating greater restraint in Washington’s approach to Taiwan has been weaponised by the opposition parties to attack the DPP for a China policy they portray as flirting with war. China’s defence ministry has weighed in, criticising the DPP for “deliberately hyping up the so-called ‘military threat from the mainland’” for electoral purposes.

In fact, says the DPP’s Lai Ching-te, “In the eyes of Beijing, the three of us [running for president] are all supporters of Taiwan’s independence.” In this sense, Taiwan seems to have passed a point of no return in its journey towards resolving its political status. China’s claim to Taiwan is grounded largely in the historical struggle between the Communist Party and the Kuomintang, a struggle that culminated in the flight of the Kuomintang to Taiwan and its reconstitution there of the shattered government of the Republic of China. The government in Taipei has now long since ceased to be a government-in-exile, waiting for the Communist Party of China to collapse.

People in Taiwan have also stopped thinking of themselves as Chinese. Mostly, they don’t know very much about China. Research by Chinese social scientists suggests that the more they know the less they like it. Taiwanese businesses are withdrawing from China, taking their money and nous elsewhere.

All this has had a profound effect on electoral politics in Taiwan, where there is next to no interest in becoming part of the People’s Republic of China and no advantage for politicians in pro-China policies. At best, critics of the DPP can claim they will manage relations with China better than has Tsai Ing-wen, who has presided over extremely frosty cross-strait relations.

But when Hou Yu-ih’s “deep blue” running mate Jaw Shau-kong declared himself and Hou at one in their rejection of Beijing’s “one China, two systems” policy, the legacy of Tsai Ing-wen was apparent. “Regarding the ‘one country, two systems,’” said Tsai, ahead of the 2020 election, “our answer is: that is not possible.” Tsai won that election in a landslide. Now, all three current presidential candidates have put defence as their top priority.

Neither US restraint nor Taiwanese domestic politics necessarily have much bearing on the prospects of war or peace in the Taiwan Strait. If the Kuomintang were to be victorious in the presidential election, Beijing would be gratified but might not greatly alter its present course. On the 130th anniversary of the birth of Mao Zedong on 26 December, and again five days later, on New Year’s Eve, Xi Jinping declared yet again what he has often stated before, that the reunification of Taiwan with China is a historical necessity.

On this point Xi is in no danger of outraging China’s netizens, who naturally share his conviction that Taiwan belongs to China. A majority, though not an overwhelming one, supports “recovery” of the island by force. Xi has reassured Taiwanese that “Chinese people will not strike Chinese people” but left himself with a way out: “if [Taiwanese] don’t want to be Chinese, we just can’t look on and do nothing.”

Voters in Taiwan display a remarkable insouciance in face of such threats. While jets scramble overhead they go about their daily lives with barely an upward glance. They are nonetheless alert to the need for skilful management of Taiwan’s international relations. If the DPP retains the presidency despite the electorate’s favouring a rotation of power, it will be partly because Tsai Ing-wen’s assertion of the sovereignty of Taiwan and its separateness from China satisfies the views that most Taiwanese hold of themselves and their country.

Opinion polls also suggest that voters have confidence that Lai Ching-te, at heart a strong supporter of independence, will adhere to the status quo in cross-strait relations. And they have a high opinion of Lai’s running mate, Hsiao Bi-khim, who performed spectacularly well as Taiwan representative in Washington during 2020–23. With Lai focusing on domestic issues on the campaign trail and Hsiao responding on international issues, the electorate has been presented with an image of complementarity and compatibility that distinguishes the DPP’s candidates from their rivals.

Yet, in the final analysis, maintaining the status quo in Taiwan — by far the preferred option among Taiwanese voters — is likely to depend more on Xi Jinping than on the election. Xi’s dream of national rejuvenation, articulated at the beginning of his time in power, has a territorial aspect that is manifest in tensions on many of China’s borders. The conflict over Taiwan is significant partly because China’s entire diplomatic relations framework is premised on the accommodation of the politically powerful claim of “one China.”

War games conducted in the South China Sea by China and by a US–Philippines alliance just a week ahead of the Taiwan election are a reminder, however, that Taiwan forms part of the “First Island Chain,” which includes islands of Japan in the north and of the Philippines in the south. Control of the chain would give China a commanding position in the Pacific. More than Taiwan is at stake in any change in the status quo.

There are many reasons why Xi might hesitate to start a war in the Taiwan Strait. These include the dispiriting example of Russia in the Ukraine; the People’s Liberation Army’s lack of combat experience, flawed missiles and corrupt generals; the potential loss through wartime casualties of tens of thousands of “only children,” the products of China’s former one-child policy; and the parlous state of the Chinese economy in combination with the impact of the inevitable trade sanctions.

Weighed against Xi’s personal ambitions, however, all these might count for nought. Last year, Xi turned seventy. In Chinese lore, this is the age for “pursuing the heart’s desire,” but by anyone’s calculation the window of opportunity for doing so is shrinking. He has time to play with: his father lived till eighty-nine and his mother is still alive. But Mao Zedong, born an auspicious sixty years before him, died at eighty-two. Xi will want to achieve his heart’s desire before he reaches a comparable age.

A shrinking population, a slowing economy, and an underperforming global infrastructure project — the Belt and Road Initiative — mean that much on which Xi has staked his prestige is beginning to slip away. It is not impossible that he will see the election in Taiwan as offering an opportunity to respond to the call of history, reunify the nation, and establish an enduring legacy for himself. •

The post The call of history appeared first on Inside Story.

A famine that killed tens of millions of people? Blame it on natural disasters and that damn Khrushchev. Political campaigns that became wildly murderous? Not our fault — those excesses were the work of overly zealous, even rogue, local officials. Any awkward truths that can’t be swept under the carpet must be explained away, woven together with half-truths and lies into the fringe of the carpet itself.

Journalist Ian Johnson’s new book, Sparks: China’s Underground Historians and Their Battle for the Future, relates the stories of people, extraordinary in their tenacity and courage, who persist in peering at the mess under that carpet and unpicking the tightly knit threads. They sneak their cameras into former labour camps to reveal human bones still protruding from the soil, interview the last survivors of famines and massacres, and create online archives and offline samizdat journals to record their findings. Among their number are the “citizen journalists” who record history in the making, including those who documented scenes in hospitals and elsewhere in Wuhan during that city’s draconian Covid-19 lockdown in early 2020.

For thousands of years, as Johnson notes, history has been “inseparable” in China from the concept of moral instruction. The independent researchers devoted to historical investigation he is writing about believe that “a moral society cannot be based on lies and silence.” But to refute the lies and break the silence, these intrepid men and women, sometimes armed with little more than curiosity, a smartphone and internet access, must play a dangerous cat-and-mouse game with security forces.

Many do their work under suffocating levels of surveillance. Others have been put under house arrest or worse, with some prison sentences longer than those handed out to convicted rapists. If they risk their freedom and even their lives to shine a light into some of contemporary Chinese history’s darkest corners, they do so because they believe that “the party’s monopoly of the past” is “the root of their country’s current authoritarian malaise.”

These “counter-historians” are generally less interested in the elite machinations behind catastrophic events than the “degradation of the individual” after the events have been set in motion. To discuss the culpability of party leaders would be asking for even more trouble, of course. But they are genuinely devoted to recovering and honouring the stories of ordinary people. At the same time, Johnson writes, they tend to avoid “heroizing” the victims. The histories they produce may necessarily be incomplete, but they are persuasively nuanced.

The carefully constructed official history, by contrast, is intolerant of nuance or deviation. Engraved in textbooks, promoted in films, enshrined in museums and embodied in the sacred sites of “Red tourism,” it lies at the heart of the party’s legitimacy. It narrates the story of how the communists saved the Chinese people from a “feudal” past as well as the Japanese enemy without and the class enemies within. It tells how the party has kept China safe in a hostile world, governed it wisely and justly, and raised it from poverty to prosperity and power.

Over the past eighty years the party has produced three historical resolutions, “each a cartoonish version of history” intended to justify the rule of the latest leader. The official history endorses the party’s right to rule China today, more than seventy years after the revolution that brought it to power. It paves the way for that rule to continue into the future without any need for checks and balances or popular elections.

To raise questions about the great famine or the systemic nature of the violence during the land reform era or the Cultural Revolution is to ask, in effect — why are you still the boss of us?

The party watched with apprehension and then with horror as the policy of glasnost (transparency) championed by Gorbachev in the mid 1980s led to a rush on the Soviet Union’s historical archives. Soviet citizens were suddenly free to remember and discuss the savagery of the Stalinist era: the political purges, the famines, the midnight knocks on the door, the desolate and murderous gulag of labour camps, the ruined and wasted lives. Just six years later, the Soviet Union collapsed.

Lesson taken. The Chinese Communist Party’s post-Mao leadership, also shaken by the mass pro-democracy protests of 1989, tightened control over political and intellectual discourse. Yet independent thinkers, many of whom had personal experience of upheavals like the famine and Cultural Revolution, both as participants and victims, were compelled to record, research and analyse. Work that couldn’t be published in the mainland was frequently published in Hong Kong.

Among those who laid the path walked by the generation described in Sparks were the oral historian Sang Ye, the writer Liu Binyan, the historical investigator Dai Qing and the journalist Yang Jisheng. If there is one criticism I have of Sparks, otherwise an exemplary, well-researched and vital book, it’s the author’s failure to mention these pathbreakers, the post-Mao pioneers of the movement to which the people he writes about belong. Another curious omission is Wang Youqin, whose epic archival work on the victims of the Cultural Revolution was published in English in an abridged and edited form in 2023.

Johnson’s focus, however, is on more recent times. He observes that a confluence of events and trends in 2003 led to a surge in grassroots history writing. Contributing factors included popular outrage over the government’s suppression of news about the SARS epidemic that year and the application of market forces to Chinese media, which led to a partial liberation from direct control by the party. Xi Jinping’s ascension less than a decade later marked the end of this brief golden age and the beginning of what Johnson describes as Xi’s “forever crackdown” on “historical nihilism.”

And yet the independent historians persist, driven by the importance of what they are doing. The focus of their work may be as narrow as the experience of a single county in a single month of the Cultural Revolution or as broad as the question of guilt and the value of apologies. Collectively, their work reveals that even when the Communist Party shifts the blame for mistakes and crimes onto a few bad eggs, it rarely punishes them, and if so, even more rarely to any degree commensurate with their crimes. They also demonstrate that violence has always been far more pervasive and systemic than the official story suggests.

It’s not just the Communist Party that resists telling these stories. Many of those who have suffered through the events these historians are studying don’t want to talk about them. Some just want to put the trauma behind them. Others don’t want to get in trouble or jeopardise their children’s futures. They have buried the past to rebuild their lives as though, Johnson writes, “The suffering somehow cheapened this world of newfound prosperity, a reminder that it was built on violence.” In a different context (the Wondery podcast Ghost Story) the British historian Nicholas Hiley has discussed the “destabilising” nature of revealed historical truth — the past is not always a happy place and the truth does not always set people free. And yet we carry that past around with us — and it informs the present whether we like it or not.

Ian Johnson is a veteran, Pulitzer Prize–winning China journalist and a Sinophone whose work balances academic rigour with good storytelling. Sparks is the culmination of years of meeting with and even going on reporting trips with the underground historians he profiles here. He inserts between the chapters short vignettes, “Memories,” that offer, in his words, “sketches of people, places, and iconic works of counter-memory that demonstrate the ambition of China’s underground historians: to write a new history of contemporary China in order to change their country’s future.”

Sparks takes its title from a samizdat journal from the 1950s whose history has been uncovered by one of the historians Johnson profiles. The book joins a growing list of publications in English that together are creating a far richer picture of China’s history than that to which non–Chinese speakers have previously had access. They include works like Yang Jisheng’s Tombstone and Wang Youqin’s Victims of the Cultural Revolution, both of which were edited and translated by Stacy Mosher and Guo Jian; Louisa Lim’s brilliant Indelible City, about Hong Kong; Jonathan Clements’s essential new history of Taiwan, Rebel Island; and Tania Branigan’s Red Memory, in which Wang Youqin features heavily.

Johnson contends that the “vibrancy of China’s counter-history movement” — which also includes creative reconstructions of historical events and personages by artists and writers — “should force us to retire certain clichéd ways of seeing China.” These include the tendency to see its authoritarianism as successfully monolithic. While not denying that “these are dark times,” he champions the counter-history movement as a significant form of resistance. As one of the young members of the group behind the original samizdat journal Spark put it back in the 1950s, “If you do not break out of silence, you will die in silence.” •

Sparks: China’s Underground Historians and Their Battle for the Future
By Ian Johnson | Allen Lane | $55 | 400 pages

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In an election noted for the number of male candidates promising to take on a female running mate, Hsiao was not the first woman to make an appearance. In September, independent presidential candidate Terry Gou, billionaire founder of Foxconn, made headlines with his choice of running mate: actress and motivational speaker Tammy Lai, familiar to Taiwanese Netflix subscibers as the fictional presidential candidate in the series Wave Makers. Gou has withdrawn from the race but Terry and Tammy posters can still be seen on buses all over Taipei.

In contrast to Tammy Lai, Hsiao Bi-khim’s political experience is firmly grounded in Taiwanese party politics. She first came to prominence in 1999, when at the age of twenty-seven she was invited to serve as international affairs director for the DPP. Appearing on television for the first of many such interviews, she explained who she was: born in Japan in 1971 to a Taiwanese father and American mother, educated in the United States, Taiwanese in her heart. In transliterating her personal name into English, she uses the Taiwanese pronunciation, Bi-khim, not the Mandarin.

Her career unfolded within the occasionally uncomfortable embrace of the DDP. She grew up under martial law in Taiwan, before multi-party elections were a possibility, and left for the United States in 1986, the very year the DPP was founded. By the time she returned as an adult, Taiwan was in transition to democracy and the DPP was beginning to challenge the ascendancy of the ruling Kuomintang, or KMT.

Hsiao was working for DPP leader Chen Shui-bian in 2000 when he inflicted on the KMT its first crushing defeat in a general election. She surrendered her American citizenship that same year in order to qualify for public office. The following year, aged thirty, she was herself elected to the Legislative Yuan, Taiwan’s parliament. She has now spent close to quarter of a century working in political or para-political roles in or for Taiwan.

This second homecoming comes at a crucial time in the political cycle. The 2024 election is less than two months away. President Tsai Ing-wen, who brought the DPP back to power in 2016, has completed two terms of office and by the terms of the constitution is ineligible to stand again. Next May she will hand over to whoever wins the 13 January election. The DPP will be hoping that it is Lai Ching-te, and so far opinion polls have him in the lead.

Although the lead is steady, it is slim, and popular sentiment favours a change of government. If Taiwan had a two-party preferred system of voting, Lai would be staring at defeat. Last week that possibility seemed closer to realisation when the dynamic new Taiwan People’s Party, or TPP, signed an agreement with the KMT to run a unity ticket. In the lead-up to the agreement, support for Lai dropped to well below the 35 per cent “safety bar.” This marriage of convenience quickly collapsed, but with Lai’s approval ratings so low, even a victory in the presidential election would mean political chaos if a correspondingly low number of DPP legislators were to be returned.

Under these circumstances, Hsiao Bi-khim’s appearance at Lai’s side on Monday could not have been better timed. For the preceding five days, the media had been in a frenzy first over the deal between the KMT and the TPP and then over its spectacular collapse. For longer still, the potential deal and its brokers had dominated the local political news. The DPP’s loss of visibility over this period contributed to its decline in opinion polls. With the deal in shambles, the sight of the high-achieving and well-regarded Hsiao standing alongside the current vice-president should have been reassuring to more than simply DPP supporters. That has yet to show in the polls.

Disaffection with the DPP government in the electorate is attributable to Taiwan’s economic slowdown. Projected growth this year is the lowest in eight years — since Tsai Ing-wen took office, that is. Outside an enviable high-tech industry, manufacturing on the island is disappearing. Salaries are stagnant and prices are rising. The workforce is ageing. Youth unemployment is high and job security low. A young male “precariat” is flocking to alternative parties.

Adding to the malaise are sanctions by China, including bans on tourism to the island and imports of Taiwanese produce, which are slated home by critics government to the deterioration of relations with China under Tsai Ing-wen. Markets responded positively to news of the opposition unity ticket — while it persisted — last week.

If the economy were booming, other things would matter less. As it is, opposition parties have found plenty of other targets for attack: the government’s handling of Covid; corruption on the part of legislators; incidents of sexual harassment and their cover-up (not limited to the DPP but particularly damaging to it as the party in office); food safety; energy security; sleeping with the enemy; and even the shelf life of eggs.

Hsiao, who is close to the current president as well as the wannabe future one, can’t avoid being associated with the DPP’s failures, such as they are. But she has a strong record as a legislator and political campaigner, and strong ties to the south and east, important factors in a country where the capital and much of the population are in the north. She grew up in Tainan, where her father served as pastor in the Presbyterian church. Between 2012 and 2020 she was the DPP representative in Hualien, on the east coast, once a “deep blue” KMT stronghold. Hsiao is credited with weakening the KMT’s grip there in 2012 and breaking it in 2016, when she won the seat.

In the Chinese press she stands accused of serving American rather than Taiwanese interests: the expression “running dog of the Americans,” so often used in Mao’s time, has been used of her. But in a country with a favourable view of the United States, her native-level English, American heritage and strong performance as Taiwan’s representative in Washington all count in her favour. Her commitment to Taiwan is unassailable. She speaks Taiwanese as well as English and Mandarin.

True to her Presbyterian upbringing (Presbyterian being synonymous with progressivism in Taiwan), she stands for progressive politics. Taiwanese society is socially conservative and in a referendum in 2018 a majority voted against marriage reform. When the legislature nonetheless passed the reform bill, Hsiao didn’t brush over the contradiction but pointed to the responsibility of a government to all its citizens. “We need to take responsibility for the referendum last year,” she declared, “and we need to take responsibility for people who have suffered from incomplete laws or faced discrimination.”

If she is more progressive than the majority of her compatriots on social issues, Hsiao is at one with them on the issue of Taiwanese sovereignty. A majority of people in Taiwan now identify as Taiwanese rather than as hybrid Chinese–Taiwanese and hostility to China is deep-seated among DPP supporters.

It follows that China regards the DPP in general as anathema. As de facto ambassador in the United States, Hsiao was subject to vitriolic attacks in the Chinese media. News of her pending appointment as presidential running mate was criticised as portending a phenomenon of “independence on top of independence” in Taiwanese politics. Ever responsive to signals from China, the KMT called the announcement a recipe for disaster, bringing “troubles at home, perils abroad.”

It is difficult to tell how greatly China features as a factor in the minds of electors. Taiwanese have virtually no appetite for unification under the Chinese Communist Party but they have lived for a long time with the threat of forced unification hanging over their heads. It is impossible not to be struck by a certain sangfroid in the attitudes of people on the street. As they will point out, they have no means of preventing a war. While they wait for the threat either to eventuate or to evaporate, they want to be able to buy fresh eggs, see a doctor when they need to, and house their families if they have them. The birth rate in Taiwan has itself become a political issue, with rival candidates offering rival policies to get women to have more babies (KMT) or get more women to have babies (TPP).

The dangers of provocation posed by the DPP’s leaning towards independence nonetheless make cross-strait relations an obvious issue for opposition parties. Accordingly, KMT campaign posters are running the slogan “We don’t want war; peace on two shores.” Both the KMT and the TPP have promised to resurrect the Cross Straits Services Agreement in the interests both of boosting the economy and easing political tensions. This very agreement inspired a massive protest in 2014 and helped to bring down the KMT government in 2016. During the 2014 student occupation of the Legislative Yuan, Hsiao Bi-khim was one of the legislators who supported the protestors by keeping watch at the premises. But times have changed since then, as everyone knows. One of the leaders of the 2014 protest is now himself running for the TPP.

Hsiao won’t be able to avoid talking about cross-strait relations in the lead-up up to the election. At an international media conference on Thursday she had to field a barrage of questions on exactly this issue. Contrary to statements from China, however, she is not one of the independence diehards of the DPP. To the extent that Lai is regarded as leaning just a bit too far in that direction, Hsiao may help give balance to his campaign and claw back some middle ground. This would be true to her established image as a “cat warrior” who — in contrast to China’s “wolf diplomacy” — treads a delicate line between self-determination and confrontation.

Election campaigns in Taiwan are restricted by law to a period of twenty-eight days counting backwards from the eve of the election day. The pre-campaign has been rumbling on for most of this year, pending the formal registration of candidates on or before Friday 24 November. Lai Ching-te and Hsiao Bi-khim registered on Tuesday.

On Wednesday and Thursday this week it still seemed possible that the KMT and TPP would patch things up, but the chance was faint. TPP presidential candidate Ko Wen-je had said publicly that he hates three things: “mosquitoes, cockroaches, and the KMT.” Granted that he was in a bad temper, it was a difficult statement to unsay. A poll taken in the middle of the week showed, moreover, that the gap between the DPP and KMT had narrowed to less than one percentage point, reducing the KMT’s incentive to seek an alliance.

On Friday morning, all speculation ended when separate TPP and KMT tickets were announced.  Ko Wen-je would team with TPP legislator Wu Hsin-yeh — a woman, as he had promised. The KMT candidate Hou Yu-ih had also said he provisionally favoured a woman as running mate, but in the end he came up with senior party figure, Jaw Shaw-kong. If the mid-week poll is right, the contest will boil down, again, to a two-party race between the DPP’s Lai-Hsiao team and the KMT’s Hou-Jaw.

Seventy-two years old, the son of a KMT soldier and an advocate of unification, Jaw could hardly provide a starker contrast to Hsiao Bi-khim. More clearly than the presidential candidates themselves, the two symbolise the different choices facing the electorate in January. •

The post Taiwan’s cat warrior to the rescue? appeared first on Inside Story.

From the stand, Manasseh Sogavare, the Solomon Islands prime minister, looked on with relief and satisfaction. “Sports is the glue that holds the nation together,” he had told local reporters earlier. “It binds and unites us. It brings out the best of us, as individuals and collectively as a nation.” Regardless of “misinformation and shallow opinions” about the Pacific Games, “especially by a few foreign media,” Solomon Islands was united and proudly telling its games story to the world.

The games, which kicked off at that ceremony last Sunday night, have lifted the mood here after three years of turmoil and hardship. A dispute in November 2019 over Sogavare’s switch of diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing led to ethnic-influenced rioting that trashed Honiara’s old Chinatown — the unrest ended, Sogavare’s government saved, by Australian troops and police flown in from Townsville. Then came Covid-19 and two years of isolation that shrank the economy by around 5 per cent.

Economic growth returned this year, but the mood was still gloomy. Along with the daily struggle for their livelihoods, people were mostly concerned about how their home provinces were doing, rather than the Solomons more widely, says veteran Honiara journalist Dorothy Wickham. “The only time you see Solomon Islanders proud of their own country is when there are things like this,” she says, referring to the games.

“I think that was one of the reasons the government wanted to go ahead,” Wickham adds. “They felt this country needed a unifying event. Even though it has come at a big cost, it was needed at this time. Especially after we’ve come through the ethnic crisis and people are fragmented.”

The cost of building facilities and hosting 5000 athletes is a big one for a country of 720,000 people with a per capita GDP of about A$3500, its deficit in trade and government spending covered largely by foreign aid and growing remittance flows from the 7000 seasonal workers now in Australia and New Zealand.

But the games have also became the focus of another competition that Solomon Islanders sum up in one word: geopolitics. China spent around A$120 million building playing courts, pools and the main stadium. While some feared that Honiara would be left with facilities unduly expensive to use and maintain, the stadium is far from grandiose — more like a typical Australian sporting club’s home ground than a grand final venue. New or improved halls of residence for visiting athletes are attached to seven colleges and schools around the city and will be a legacy for Solomon Islands students.

In the lead-up to the games, Chinese chargé d’affaires Ding Yonghua was dispatching influential Solomon Islanders off for tours of his country: all the provincial premiers for two weeks in October, a group of journalists for nine days in November. Two ambulances and four dental chairs arrived from a city in Guangzhou that has old trading links with the South Seas. In mid November, a squad of Chinese police installed metal detectors and video cameras at the games venues. Though only about fifteen-strong, their presence led to some overheated reports of Chinese police “patrolling” the city.

Big projects are being rolled out by Chinese contractors. One has just completed a new terminal and tarmac resurfacing at the airport in Munda, a tourism hub in the country’s west, which will enable direct Airbus flights from Brisbane. Huawei, the much-suspected Chinese telecommunications giant, will build 161 new mobile telephone towers funded by a A$96 million soft loan.

Not to be outdone, Australian high commissioner Rod Hilton has been in diplomatic overdrive, dispensing A$17 million in games assistance, including teams of sports medicine specialists. Together with Sogavare, he flew to Taro, the main town in the prime minister’s home province of Choiseul, to mark completion of the local airport’s hard surfacing and night-landing lights.

The Australian navy’s amphibious ship Choules arrived in early November to deliver two 4WD ambulances, vast numbers of uniforms and much other paraphernalia for the games, along with rolls of newsprint to keep Honiara’s two papers on the streets. A hundred Australian Federal Police officers flew in, on top of the fifty stationed in the Solomons since the 2019 troubles. New Zealand brought in two helicopters. The day the games opened, the US navy hospital ship Mercy arrived as part of the United States’ annual Pacific Partnership exercise, its great white bulk anchored off the city.

Australia won the VIP stakes at the opening ceremony, fielding governor-general David Hurley, who also used the opportunity to open new Australian aid projects. China came up only with Cai Dafeng, an architecture professor who is a vice-chairman of its National People’s Congress and leader of the China Association for Promoting Democracy, one of the eight tiny parties allowed in the NPC alongside the Chinese Communist Party. Despite the mission implied in his party’s name, Cai figures in the US sanctions list of officials alleged responsible for subverting Hong Kong’s limited democracy.

“The switch to China? I see some benefits in it,” Wickham says. “The best thing is the Americans have come back in, and the Australians are making more effort now. They are falling over themselves.”

Sogavare has played a hard game to fight back from his troubles of four years ago. Those troubles were driven by Daniel Suidani, then premier of Malaita, the country’s most populous island and historically the one that has sent out the most ambitious people to take advantage of the modern world.

Suidani, alone of the premiers, refused to back the switch to Beijing and cultivated continuing links to Taiwan. At one point he talked of a referendum about seceding. Sogavare’s supporters in the provincial government put up three motions of no-confidence to unseat him. The first failed. Street protests in the Malaita capital Auki prevented the second from getting to a vote. Early this year, though, the third was passed. Soon after, the central government used its supervisory powers to banish him from the provincial assembly, a move Suidani is still contesting in the courts.

While it lasted, Suidani’s defiance won support from anti-China hawks in Washington and Canberra. In a perhaps ill-judged move, the US government announced a US$25 million aid program for Malaita focused on sustainable village and forestry development. Honiara insisted such aid had to come through the central government, and when the US tried to send the funds via a civil contractor posing as a non-government organisation, the central government delayed work permits for its managers and experts.

Though some of those projects are visible in Malaita, Sogavare’s relationship with the Americans is still testy. A proposal from Washington in 2019 to resume sending Peace Corps volunteers, after a twenty-five-year absence, is still awaiting approval by Sogavare’s cabinet.

Although accusations of bribery have flown thick and fast around the votes of no-confidence that kept Sogavare in office and unseated Suidani — with sums of up to A$10,000 allegedly offered to MPs to switch sides — Ronnie Jethro Butala, the speaker of the Malaita assembly, says he saw no evidence of corruption. The explanation, he tells me, was simpler: Malaitans could see they were losing out.

“A lot of the Malaita public were getting tired of geopolitics,” he says. “No more funding was coming from the national government, and also the national government diverted all the projects from Malaita to other provinces. So it came to a stage where a lot of people said, ‘Okay, we are fed up of geopolitics, politics of different countries. We want the [provincial] government to go back to joining the [national] government so they look to ways to improve Malaita, especially with the roads and infrastructure.’”

As well as lacking development funding, Malaitans were being passed over for senior positions in the central government. Officials from the island used to be strongly represented among departmental secretaries, police commissioners and heads of authorities. Under Sogavare, preference has gone to officials from the Western and Choiseul provinces, the prime minister’s home ground. “A lot of experienced Malaitans now, most have found their way back to the village,” says Butala.

Still, Malaitans were used to being singled out and resented for their pushiness. “The black sheep within the flock,” he says. The idea of withdrawing from the Solomon Islands and going it alone isn’t dead. “My private view is that when you look at the resources in Malaita, [it] can become a very rich country if we have our independence,” he says. But a huge improvement in infrastructure would be needed first.

If the Pacific Games conclude successfully, Sogavare still faces the challenge of a severely stretched government budget and looming national elections, which have been postponed six months until next April. At sixty-eight, he is in his fourth period as prime minister and said to be anxious to finish his career with big achievements in infrastructure to bind the islands together.

The son of a Seventh Day Adventist pastor, Sogavare is admired for his discipline and focus. His main problem, says Wickham, is that his parliamentary supporters have little understanding of economics. “That’s his biggest downfall: he’s surrounded by politicians who just want to get rich out of the system.”

Like elections in surrounding Melanesian countries, next year’s vote  will be a contest of personalities and patronage networks. Formation of government will start only after results are declared in the country’s fifty electorates (fourteen of them in Malaita, where Suidani is forming a ticket) and MPs arrive in Honiara.

As for the geopolitics, voters will no doubt be swayed by the projects they see being built in their provinces and electorates. A good Chinese-built project would overcome the widespread antipathy this highly Christianised population feels towards China, says Wickham. “It’s like throwing a coconut into the sea — it will roll with the waves. That’s how we are reacting now.” •

The post Rolling with the waves appeared first on Inside Story.

But it is complicated by social and economic inequalities, as Wanning Sun explains in her new book, Love Troubles: Inequality in China and Its Intimate Consequences. And in the case of China’s migrant workers, it can’t be considered apart from broader issues of history, politics and economics. Reading this important, pathbreaking study of the personal lives of the new Chinese proletariat, we might well conclude that if love really is chicken soup for the soul, those at the bottom of China’s social and economic heap struggle for a sip.

For most of Chinese history, parents arranged their children’s marriages, a deal typically cemented by either a dowry or bride price, depending on local custom. Men of means were free to seek romance outside the home with professional courtesans or bring choice into the home through concubinage. Women enjoyed no such second shots at happiness.

Beginning in the late nineteenth century, progressive and revolutionary thinkers advocated for an end to arranged marriages. The end of dynastic rule and the birth of a modern republic in 1911 created the opportunity for change, with rising educational rates for girls, industrialisation, the entry of more women into the work force, and exposure to Western ideas and culture all playing a role. The wild popularity of a sentimental literary genre known as “Butterfly and Mandarin Duck” fiction over much of the first half of the twentieth century reflected widespread yearning for relationships based on romantic love.

When it came into being in 1949, the People’s Republic of China abolished arranged marriages and other “feudal” customs such as bride prices. Yet its new, purposeful culture subordinated romantic love to revolution and comradeship. By 1966, when Mao launched the decade-long, ultra-left Cultural Revolution, the only sanctioned passion was for revolution itself. With the arrival of the Reform Era in 1978, love quickly divorced revolution to flirt with freedom and eventually marry the market.

Fast-forward to the 2010s, the decade when China’s economy roared past Japan’s to become the world’s second largest. Sun, who provides a brief overview of the history, picks up the story here. If revolutionary China had never been quite as egalitarian as it claimed to be, by the mid 2010s, she notes, it was “one of the most unequal countries in the world.” The new urban middle classes — including, with some caveats, those in the LGBTQI community — enjoyed relative freedom in their romantic and sex lives. Those with more precarious social status and economic stability, such as the migrant workers who are the focus of Sun’s study, faced a very different situation.

The legacy of the decades-long one-child policy, particularly in rural areas has been an outsized gender imbalance. Which is why so many of China’s internal migrants who travel from the countryside to the cities to seek work — its “migrant workers” — are male.

Unlike in nations where people are free to settle where they find work, the People’s Republic has a strictly managed system of urban residence permits called hukou. These permits define who may reside legally and permanently in a city and enjoy its hospitals, schools and other social services. The hardworking villagers who build China’s fast trains and gleaming office blocks, keep its assembly lines humming, deliver its meals and packages, and cook, clean and otherwise serve the middle classes and their businesses don’t for the most part have the right to settle in the city or send their children to schools near where they work.

They’re not an insignificant portion of the population. Before pandemic lockdowns returned most of them to their hometowns for a spell, they numbered 286 million. That’s about a fifth of China’s population. This makes Sun’s close look at how social and economic inequality affects their lives — and at the interdependent structures of capitalism, patriarchy and state socialism that reinforce these inequalities — essential reading for anyone interested in a deeper understanding of China today.

By the mid 2010s, when Sun began her field research, many of the migrants she met belonged to a second generation, born in the 1990s. The first, born in the eighties or earlier, typically retained stronger ties to their home villages, to which they planned to retire. Many were already married when they set out for the cities. The second generation, which includes children of the first, enjoy a less certain identity, caught between home villages to which they lack strong emotional connection and the cities whose urban and consumerist dreams they have absorbed while lacking the means to realise them.

They are thus more or less permanently migratory, mobile mainly in a lateral, geographic sense. With hard work — and most of their work is punishingly hard — they can improve their situation. Buying a flat in a township close to their village, where they can live with their children (typically farmed out to grandparents in the meantime) is a common aspiration. But the difficulty of obtaining an urban hukou means they have only limited hopes of joining the urban middle classes.

Those middle classes, in turn, regard them with a mix of conditional appreciation, distaste and fear. Sun notes that the Communist Party itself, for all its trumpeted and historical proletarian affinities, shares the middle-class unease at the “perceived threat” this majority-male cohort poses “to public health, moral order and social stability.” A key source of anxiety centres on the sexual desires of a floating single-male population, and the ancillary underground prostitution industry, involving migrant women, that has sprung up to service them. Many of the migrant workers (including sex workers) with whom Sun has spoken appear to have internalised this shame, knowing that they may be (however unfairly) perceived as living on the moral as well as economic margins.

I recall when migrant workers first began appearing in the cities in significant numbers in the 1990s. Friends in Beijing and Shanghai expressed what seemed to be outsized fears of these mostly male workers, whom they believed capable of the most heinous crimes. It was reminiscent of the eighteenth-century “soulstealers” panic, when mass hysteria grew around the idea that sorcerers disguised as itinerants were clipping the ends of men’s queues for dark rites that allowed them to steal the men’s souls. As Philip A. Kuhn wrote in Soulstealers: The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768, such apprehensions reveal much about a society’s structure and internal tensions.

Researching Love Troubles, Sun cultivated relationships with workers at the Foxconn plant in Shenzhen, speaking to them at length and over the years to be able to present nuanced portraits of their lives. There’s PC, for example, witty, vivacious and talkative, whose two children live with different sets of grandparents back home. She is constantly arguing with her husband about his gambling habit — not an uncommon vice among migrant workers. He infuriated her by secretly giving away half a year’s wages to his nephew, another gambler, while she was slaving on the assembly line to buy a three-bedroom apartment in a township near their hometown. She became a campaigner against domestic violence and a labour activist with links to a local NGO involved in workers’ rights. As her NGO-backed struggles with Foxconn’s management accelerated, her husband’s support for her activism helped them reconcile.

PC’s story is just one of many personal accounts threaded through this book, deftly contextualised and considered through the lens of ethnographic and other theories. The examples illuminate not just the variety of migrant experience but also issues including “male grievance” among the involuntarily single (and often celibate) members of the migrant labour force; the cohort’s higher-than-normal divorce rates; the “dark intimacy” of prostitution, exploitation and abuse; and how women especially typically face “compromises” rather than “choices” in their intimate lives.

Among the many intriguing subjects tackled in Love Troubles is the politics of romantic imagery. Sun begins the book with a description of her first meeting with some of the workers who would become her long-term informants. She thought to break the ice by asking about their favourite love stories. Some of the men openly scoffed at the idea, saying there was no such thing as true love. Then one of them began talking about the film Titanic. This drew the group into passionate discussion.

What most resonated with them was the fantasy of a poor working-class boy being loved by a rich girl — and how it was doomed to a tragic end, as they felt it certainly would be in China. One young woman, meanwhile, was most struck by the fact that following the death of her true love the heroine was nonetheless free to find happiness with another man, whereas traditional Chinese mores would have condemned her for not remaining chaste and “virtuously” true to his memory.

Other types of romantic imagery discussed by Sun include migrant workers’ self-portraiture in photography and literature, the culture of wedding photography (including a controversial artistic intervention in which an urban photographer posed migrant couples dressed in wedding clothes inside the factories where they worked), and documentaries produced by state media that portray workers’ relationships as unfolding within a broader China Dream narrative of hard work towards a brighter future.

The workers’ responses to such imagery often contrast with the reactions of the wider community. For example, a migrant worker published a suite of photographs of his peers titled “Rural Migrants’ Love in Dongguan.” It included candid shots of lovers, sometimes still in their factory clothes, snatching a cuddle on a park bench or sharing other intimate moments. (Two of these photos appear in the book; one wishes for more.) Widely viewed online, the series incited a range of comments from the patronising and sentimental (“how sweet”) to the moralising and condemnatory (“they’re not interested in learning, they have no souls”).

As Sun writes, the migrant workers’ “right to intimacy” is inescapably “contingent, conditional and vulnerable to violation and exploitation.” In their search for happiness in their personal lives they must balance their employers’ demands on their energy and time, frequently measured in twelve-hour shifts, with family pressures (including around the resurgent custom of bride prices) and their own desires for, and definitions of happiness. As Sun amply demonstrates, neither the men nor the women of this precariat are free from the “triple oppression” of “global capitalism, state socialism, and familial patriarchy.” Love can try bloody hard, and it does, but it can’t always conquer all. •

Love Troubles: Inequality in China and Its Intimate Consequences
By Wanning Sun | Bloomsbury Academic | $153 | 216 pages

The post Stolen moments appeared first on Inside Story.

The first Australian legation was a modest double-storey building on Goose Ridge Hill, in the heart of the city, not far from the confluence of the Yangtze and Jialing rivers. The building is still there today, dwarfed by the forest of high-rise towers of what claims to be the world’s biggest city, its dazzling skyline a bold rival to Manhattan’s.

Australia’s initial diplomatic engagement with China came to an abrupt end with the communist victory in 1949. It wouldn’t resume for another quarter-century after a revolution of sorts in Australia swept away a generation of conservatism under Sir Robert Menzies and his successors.

Gough Whitlam had advocated diplomatic recognition of the People’s Republic of China as early as 1954. It became Labor policy the following year. But it wasn’t until Whitlam’s election victory in 1972 that his vision became a reality.

Fifty years ago this week, Whitlam became the first Australian prime minister to visit the People’s Republic. A few days later, an RAAF Hercules landed in Beijing carrying a novel gift to mark the historic occasion — Saber Bogong, a 567-kilogram Murray Grey stud bull. Australia’s Beijing embassy had opened in January 1973 and the first resident Australian journalists soon followed. It would be another five years before the Americans turned up.

Whitlam’s maverick diplomacy — at the same time as the Nixon administration was taking its first halting steps towards normalising relations with China — set Australia apart.  We had been a firm and unequivocal ally of the United States since the second world war but we were prepared to make our own way in the region and the world — a fact that impressed the Chinese leadership and helped secure the foundations of a flourishing trade relationship that has underwritten Australia’s prosperity for half a century.

When he arrives in Beijing next weekend prime minister Anthony Albanese will find a city and a country largely unrecognisable from those Whitlam visited and receive a welcome that’s likely to be far less effusive if not overtly constrained.

Relations between China and Australia are slowly improving after reaching a nadir under the former government. The Chinese were infuriated in April 2020 when Scott Morrison demanded an independent international investigation with “weapons inspector powers” to reveal the cause of the Covid-19 pandemic. Soon after, they imposed a crippling raft of sanctions on Australian coal, barley, meat, cotton, lobster, timber and wine. The measures wiped out an estimated $20 billion in Australian exports.

The tensions worsened after ASIO agents staged early-morning raids in June 2020 on the Sydney homes of three Chinese journalists, including the bureau chief of the Xinhua news agency, alarming their families and seizing computers and documents — raids for which no official explanation has ever been given. A few weeks later, Cheng Lei, a Chinese-born Australian journalist working for Chinese television was detained and accused of illegally sending state secrets abroad. In early September, the ABC and Australian Financial Review correspondents sought diplomatic sanctuary, later fleeing the country after police warned they were to be interviewed regarding a “national security case.” A period of “wolf warrior diplomacy” during which Chinese critics were aggressively targeted and sometimes physically abused inflamed the hostility.

Since the Albanese government was elected early last year a gradual thaw in the relationship has seen the lifting or promised lifting of about three-quarters of the trade restrictions and a resumption of high-level government contacts. Cheng Lei was released and reunited with her family in Melbourne earlier this month, but no Australian journalists have yet returned to live in China. Australian writer and activist Yang Hengjun, who was arrested in August 2019 and accused of espionage, remains in prison with his health reported to be deteriorating.

While there are strong expectations of further improvement in the relationship as a consequence of Albanese’s visit to Beijing and Shanghai, it appears highly unlikely that it will return to anything resembling the détente of the 1970s and 1980s in the near future, if ever. And that is due mostly to a hardening of attitudes in Canberra.

The Australian government’s position, first enunciated by foreign minister Penny Wong, and still the script closely followed by senior Australian officials, is that while we seek to rebuild a cordial and constructive relationship with China it can’t be as close as it once was because of growing cybersecurity threats from Beijing, its more aggressive posture on Taiwan and the South China Sea and its efforts to expand its influence in the South Pacific.

During his state visit to the United States last week, Albanese went further in defining his government’s view of a growing divergence driven by China’s more assertive global posture. “China has been explicit: it does not see itself as a status quo power,” he told a gathering at the State Department attended by US vice-president Kamala Harris and secretary of state Antony Blinken. “It seeks a region and a world that is much more accommodating of its values and interests.”

A day earlier, an avuncular Joe Biden counselled his youngish guest that he needed to “trust but verify” the responses in his meeting next week with Chinese president Xi Jinping. Albanese responded to this somewhat patronising advice by insisting that he was “clear-eyed” about the challenge Australia faced: “We’re two nations with very different histories, values and political systems. Australia will always look to cooperate with China where we can, but we will disagree where we must, but continue to engage in our national interest. Our approach has been patient, calibrated and deliberate, and that will continue when I visit Beijing and Shanghai.”

It won’t be lost on the Chinese leadership that Albanese has chosen to visit them straight after a state visit to Washington. While the ANZUS alliance has been a fact of life in Australia–China relations since the beginning, it has never been as bluntly inserted into the bilateral equation as it has been since Australia ratified its new AUKUS partnership with the United States and Britain.

The timing of the Washington and Beijing visits will feed the Chinese view that Australia remains an unquestioning acolyte in America’s global reach, as it was in Vietnam and Iraq. “Australia’s political situation is not stable. They are influenced too much by the US and others,” Liu Zhiqin, a senior fellow at Renmin University’s Chongyang Institute, told a group of visiting Australian journalists in Beijing last week. “It sometimes shows that they don’t have their own independent ideas. Sometimes, in my opinion, Australians behave like a fellow following the big brother.”

For years Western leaders recited the mantra that their defence and economic policies were never designed to “contain” China or thwart its inevitable emergence as a global economic and military superpower. Now that pretence has been abandoned. America is energetically pursuing efforts to “decouple” its economy from interdependence with China and to thwart China’s efforts to become self-sufficient in strategically critical industries. The AUKUS pact — along with the nascent Quad partnership between the US, India, Japan and Australia — is seen in China as part of an escalating effort to deny the nation its hard-earned place in the front row on the global stage.

Any Australian pretence that buying long-range nuclear-powered submarines from the United States under AUKUS is anything but a challenge to China was laid bare when deputy prime minister Richard Marles told a security forum in South Korea last week that if a war broke out over China’s determination to reunite Taiwan with the mainland, Australia would be in it. While mouthing the usual lines about the need for a peaceful solution, Marles added: “The consequences of a US–China conflict over Taiwan are so grave that we cannot be passive bystanders.” It sounded like an echo of Peter Dutton, his belligerent predecessor as defence minister, who declared in 2021 that in a war over Taiwan it “would be inconceivable that we wouldn’t support the US in an action if the US chose to take that action.”

Chinese analysts scoff at the view that China’s military build-up poses any kind of threat to Australia. “China harbours no ambition at all in anything remotely close to Australia,” Renmin University’s Gong Jiong told the Australian journalists. “Why is it that politicians in Australia are even talking about China representing a security risk to Australia? That is something hard to accept and understand.” He says China’s increased engagement in the South Pacific was designed to counter Taiwanese influence in the region rather than challenge Australia.

Prominent Chinese also note the absurdity at the heart of Australia’s decision to spend an eye-watering $365 billion to buy a few hulking American nuclear-powered submarines on the grounds that they are essential to protect international trade routes vital to our economy. When a third of all Australian exports are sold to China and 90 per cent of Australian merchandise imports come from China, what exactly is the danger that requires us to give American and British industry a mortgage over the Australian defence budget from here to eternity?

While Marles was war-gaming in Seoul last week, ASIO chief Mike Burgess was joining his “Five Eyes” intelligence colleagues at a gathering in California to denounce the escalating cybersecurity threat posed by China. “The Chinese government are engaged in the most sustained, sophisticated and scaled theft of intellectual property and expertise in human history,” Burgess declared. Yet if the cyber-security threat from China is indeed far worse than ever before, is it perhaps simply that they are getting much better at strategic and commercial espionage and we are finding it harder to keep up with countermeasures? In the spying games that all nations play, are we struggling to keep up?

The more measured and less confrontational diplomacy pursued by the Albanese government has undoubtedly been crucial to stabilising the China–Australia relationship after years of upheaval, but China has good reasons of its own to seek a return to greater harmony.

The Chinese economy is facing a range of serious challenges that make continued friction with the West, and particularly with one of its most important trading partners, an unhelpful distraction. Chinese growth between July and September slowed to 4.9 per cent, compared with 6.3 per cent in the previous quarter. A crisis in its property sector has seen several major construction companies face collapse with hundreds of billions of dollars in debts. And China’s unemployment is rising, with the jobless rate for sixteen- to twenty-four-year-olds climbing to more than 20 per cent.

Despite the recent economic turmoil, the Chinese economy is still expected to finish the year with growth of between 5 and 6 per cent — well below the boom years of the past but still a creditable performance. And despite the headwinds, China’s modernisation remains breathtaking. Beijing, Shanghai and Chongqing are bustling and glamorous modern cities, linked to the rest of the country by the world’s biggest fast rail network. In this month’s glorious autumn weather, restaurants, shopping malls and parks are thronged with well-dressed, well-fed and obviously happy people. If the Communist Party’s contract with the people was to end the abject poverty that blighted most of the country before the revolution, it has delivered in spades.

Last week China celebrated the tenth anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative, President Xi Jinping’s signature global engagement policy which has driven US$1500 billion in new development projects around the world. While the BRI has been widely criticised outside China for saddling many developing nations with crippling debts, building excessively extravagant infrastructure and causing widespread environmental degradation, many of the 150 participating nations have embraced China’s global leadership, opened lucrative new markets for Chinese exports, and provided access to new sources of oil, gas and minerals for Beijing.

Washington’s mostly unspoken distaste for the BRI stems from a perception that it is a crude device to extend China’s political influence at the expense of the United States and its allies, not least in the South Pacific. At a joint media conference with Albanese at the White House last week, President Biden derided the BRI as a “debt noose” for most countries that had signed on — then offered Xi Jinping the flattery of imitation by declaring that the G7 nations were working on their own version of the scheme: “His Belt and Road Initiative, well, we’re going to compete on that.”

Among the guests of honour at the BRI celebrations in Beijing were Russian president Vladimir Putin and Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, whose warm embrace of Putin outraged his fellow European leaders. What escaped most media attention was the fact that among the other guests were president Joko Widodo of Indonesia and prime minister James Marape of Papua New Guinea. In a week when Australia was preoccupied with its American alliance, the leaders of the two countries that are our nearest neighbours were building stronger partnerships with China.

In recent days, Albanese has mused about the potential for Australia to build a role as an intermediary in the increasingly volatile relationship between Washington and Beijing. “I think both China and the United States probably see Australia as playing a role. We are a middle power,” he told journalists. “My concern with the relationship between the United States and China is that there has been good engagement at the diplomatic level… but military to military, there is still a lack of engagement. We need to build guardrails.”

That might also be an opportunity to rebuild some of the respect for Australia as an American ally with an independent worldview that prevailed through the years of the Whitlam, Fraser and Hawke governments. “China wants to see a very independent, strategic and autonomous Australia,” says Zhou Rong, another senior fellow at Renmin University’s Chongyang Institute. “You don’t need to depend on other countries. You are a European Asian country or you are a white Asian country, so you can function as a bridge between Asia and America — North America — and Europe.” •

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It is the eighth annual China Auto Forum, in April 2019, and a mere three months after the US electric car company Tesla began constructing a factory in Shanghai. The focus is on the transformation of an industry that is turning towards electrification. The executives are aware that what Wan says here can change the fortunes of their companies.

Many have tried to create a mass market for electric vehicles over the past 140 years, but all have failed. The widely held belief is that if anyone can succeed, it will be Elon Musk, the eccentric, ambitious and obscenely wealthy CEO of Tesla. But when the history of electric vehicles is written, it might be Wan Gang who will stand tallest.

The Musk–Tesla story is lore. Founded in 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning in Silicon Valley, Tesla struggled to get off the ground. Elon Musk, who had become wealthy on the back of startups like PayPal, began investing in the company in 2004 and took an active role in product design. After Eberhard was ousted following internal conflicts, Musk took over as CEO in 2008 just after the company began selling its first model, the Roadster.

Tesla sold about 2500 units of the electric sports car, but Musk’s stated goal was to make a mass-market electric vehicle. With every iteration, the car models got cheaper and sales grew — turning Tesla into the world’s most recognisable electric car brand and the world’s most valuable car maker. As of 2022, the company was selling more than 1 million cars annually. Still, the cheapest Model 3 — one that Musk promised would be the affordable car — costs well above US$35,000.

Wan Gang’s story is mostly unknown. His rise in the electric vehicle world started at about the same time as Musk’s. The car engineer by training was appointed China’s minister of science and technology in 2007. In the country’s top-down economic system, Wan’s policies incentivised the creation of hundreds of Chinese companies tied to making electric vehicles. The country now sells more than six million electric vehicles each year. That includes not just expensive cars but the complete range, with the cheapest selling for less than US$10,000.

Wan’s policies have also created some of the world’s largest and most valuable companies selling electric vehicles and lithium ion batteries. And the choices he has influenced haven’t only affected already established Chinese car companies; all big car manufacturers in the world for whom the largest market remains China have been affected.

While Musk fought Wall Street’s scepticism and benefited from waves of government subsidies to keep Tesla afloat through turbulent periods, Wan has shown how policy done right can drive technological disruption not just in China but worldwide. Both men are at the forefront of the global project to propel the world from the current economic age into the next — yet it is the lesser known of the two who has had the bigger impact.

In the mid 1960s teenager Wan found himself in the middle of a violent disruption of Chinese society. Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution pitted rich against poor and urban elites against rural commoners. The Red Guard, a paramilitary force controlled by Mao, subjected those in the higher classes of society, such as Wan’s family, to humiliation, beatings and persecution. The Communist Party shuttered universities and sent students to villages for “re-education.” That’s how Wan, a city kid from Shanghai, found himself in Dongguo, a village in Jilin province near the North Korean border, working with other city teenagers to build basic infrastructure.

His work ethic caught the attention of local party members, and in 1974 he was unanimously elected as a team leader. Worried that because his parents were counter-revolutionaries he shouldn’t have been promoted, Wan spoke to the head of the local party branch. “Keep at it,” he recalled being told. “One day your parents will be heroes again.”

After Mao’s death, in 1976, universities were reopened and Wan studied physics at Northeast Forestry University in Harbin and then mechanical engineering at Tongji University in Shanghai, one of China’s most prestigious educational institutions. He excelled there and won a scholarship from the World Bank to pursue a PhD in Germany. For his doctorate at the Clausthal University of Technology he studied ways to reduce the noise made by internal combustion engines — the type of engine that powers all fossil fuel vehicles in the world.

In hindsight, his decision to study cutting-edge automotive engineering in Germany was perfectly timed. Following the oil crises of the 1970s, the global car industry was undergoing a period of major change. The German car industry wanted to stay ahead of growing competition from the United States and Japan, and was crying out for engineers like Wan.

He received job offers from six car companies, from Volkswagen to Mercedes. In 1991 he chose to join Audi, the smallest of the German majors at the time, reasoning that it presented him with the greatest opportunity to rise through the ranks.

Wan began in Audi’s car development division, helping to solve technical issues in design and manufacturing. After five years he realised that in order to climb the corporate ladder at Audi, engineers had to show success in more than one department. He duly moved to production, where he focused on car paint and was soon made head of a division with more than 2000 employees.

To effectively manage them all, he deployed techniques he had learned during his years in Dongguo. On an employee’s birthday, for example, he would carry two bottles of beer to the workshop floor and spend time getting to know them. The effort paid off, and Audi eventually promoted him to its central planning division, giving him oversight of a manufacturing process that produced a car every sixty seconds.

Wan also kept a keen eye on his home country. Deng Xiaoping, who took over as the country’s leader after Mao’s death in 1976, called the Cultural Revolution a “grave blunder.” In the late 1980s he set about reforming China’s economy, including the country’s almost non-existent car industry. He welcomed foreign companies — for example Germany’s Volkswagen and France’s Peugeot and Citroën — to build factories in joint ventures with domestic players. If foreign companies were worried that their Chinese partners would steal their technology, it seemed like a cost worth paying for access to the country’s vast untapped market.

By the 1990s the Audi brand had become a favourite of China’s elite; government officials were often seen being chauffeured around in black Audi saloons. As one of the car maker’s top Chinese-born executives, Wan led many company visits to China, at a time when the country’s car industry was expanding.

On these visits he noticed how the industry’s rapid growth was increasing air pollution and exacerbating China’s reliance on oil imports. If his home country was to go the way of its Western counterparts, as its leaders hoped, then these problems would become intractable. At the beginning of the twenty-first century China was consuming one barrel of oil per person per year, whereas in Germany the figure was twelve and in the United States it was twenty.

Wan wanted his fellow Chinese to have the quality of life he enjoyed as an immigrant in Germany, but given China’s large population, he realised that this might not be possible. It was quite likely that the country couldn’t afford the bill from importing all the oil, even if that much oil could be extracted somewhere, which itself wasn’t guaranteed. Fossil fuels are finite. The way out was to develop cars that could be powered by something other than oil.

In 2000 Wan got a chance to share his ideas with Chinese government leaders. Zhu Lilan, the country’s science minister at the time, visited Audi’s headquarters and factory in Ingolstadt, Germany. During the trip — designed to showcase what state-of-the-art car makers look like — he proposed to her that, rather than continuing to tinker with the internal combustion engine, China could leapfrog the West by using a completely different technology.

At the time, the United States produced some fifteen million cars each year while China produced only 700,000. But international car companies like BMW, General Motors and Toyota were starting to work on electric cars — powered by batteries or hydrogen — that produced no particulate pollution and reduced the amount of greenhouse gas emissions. And Wan was convinced this form of transport would be the future of the passenger car. If China were to become a leader in electric cars within the next decade or two, Wan told Zhu, the country could become the electric car hub of the world.

Zhu invited Wan to come back to China and make his case to the State Council, the country’s highest ruling body. Wan knew that if he succeeded then he could alter China’s history. He found support from Li Lanqing, then vice-premier of China, who in 1952 had started China’s first major homegrown car maker, First Automobile Works. Chinese cities were starting to struggle with the problem of smog. But more importantly, if Wan was right, China could become a technology leader and avoid the humiliation of having to rely on Western countries to bring modernity to its people.

A few months later Wan moved back to China. Under the auspices of Tongji University, which gave him a professorship, he began working as the lead scientist on a secret government program for advanced vehicle technologies. Along the way he played a key role in convincing important members of the State Council to set up policies that would encourage the development of alternative fuel transport, and in 2009 he launched a new- energy vehicle program that would reshape China’s car industry.

Wan’s political acumen was essential. “The automobile’s importance to growth, trade, innovation, military technology, and the environment is, for practical purposes, immeasurable. The industry is a point of national pride,” wrote Levi Tillemann in The Great Race in 2015. “Since the time of Henry Ford, no automobile industry in the world has ever become internationally competitive without that kind of government intervention.”

In the 1930s the US government paid for the construction of more than 100,000 miles of roads under President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. It later set up research programs to push for more fuel-efficient engines and established improved safety regulations. In the same decade the Japanese government provided cheap loans to domestic car makers, funded technology programs and undermined US players through tariffs to protect domestic companies. In other words, China’s industrial policy approach, which would rely on subsidies and regulations, was a tried-and-tested method to boost the car industry.

Wan’s plans were bigger still. The car makers he would unleash wouldn’t just serve Chinese customers but would make the sorts of cars that would dominate the future of the car industry — by throwing away internal combustion engines and placing all the country’s bets on zero-emissions transportation.

Wan’s appointment as China’s minister of science and technology came one year before China was due to hold the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. An image-conscious Communist Party spared no expense to show off what it was capable of. This would be the first “green” Olympics, the party declared, as it announced the closure of coal-fired power stations and factories for weeks, returning blue skies to the smog-choked capital. It also promised to plant enough trees to offset the emissions caused by athletes’ air travel.

Wan had been on a deadline ever since being put in charge of China’s advanced vehicle program back in 2000: to produce electric buses and cars in time for the 2008 Olympics. It wasn’t the first time electric vehicles had been launched at an Olympics. BMW had produced two prototype lead-acid battery-powered electric cars for the 1972 games in Munich. But China’s plan was far more ambitious: to have 1000 electric buses and cars ready for the Beijing games.

By 2007 Wan Gang had many research institutes and industrial partners, including state-owned car makers BAIC, SAIC, Dongfeng and Chery, working on the project. But China still hadn’t mastered the technologies required to make effective electric vehicles: efficient motors powered by advanced batteries and controlled by sophisticated software. Though it had produced and even successfully tested prototypes, China did not possess the manufacturing capability to make 1000 such vehicles. Rather than admit defeat, the government scaled back its ambitions; a BAIC subsidiary would produce fifty electric buses and Chery would make fifty hybrid electric cars.

Chery had to hire Ricardo, a British engineering consultancy, to help meet the deadline, according to Levi Tillemann’s research. After many long hours the new team had developed a system, which could be bolted on to the Chery A5, a compact car, that allowed it to automatically switch between a petrol-powered engine and an electric motor.

But work on the computer algorithms that enabled the switching had begun late in the process. That meant Chery had to specifically train drivers for the hybrids who could manually switch between electric and internal combustion engine modes. The BAIC buses seemed to work well but were retired within three years because their batteries quickly degraded.

None of this came out during the Olympics, and the spectacle had the world enthralled. “Blockbuster,” wrote the New York Times. “Astonishing,” wrote the Guardian. “The world may never witness a ceremony of the magnitude and ingenuity,” said the Sydney Morning Herald.

After the Olympians went home, the industries restarted and restrictions on car use were lifted. Unsurprisingly, smog returned to Beijing. Within months, in 2009, China overtook the United States as the world’s largest market for cars, selling thirteen million gas-guzzlers. That meant even more particulate pollution — tiny particles capable of entering the human bloodstream and leading to breathing problems. The pollution can cause cancer or stroke, and the higher the number of particles belched out, the greater the harm caused.

The Chinese leadership could see the problem from the windows of its Beijing offices. That is why, even though China’s electric vehicle industry was clearly lagging, the government’s support for Wan’s ideas to electrify transport did not wane.

Despite the disappointing delivery of electric vehicles at the Beijing Olympics, Wan was able to get approval for a bigger rollout of new-energy vehicles with a hefty subsidy for each new car purchased. The bet was technology neutral, encouraging car makers to make battery-powered cars, plug-in hybrids (large battery and a combustion engine), and fuel-cell cars (consuming hydrogen fuel to produce only water as exhaust).

The program aimed to sell 1000 new-energy vehicles in each of the ten largest Chinese cities by 2012, and the government was prepared to provide as much as US$10,000 per car in direct subsidies to incentivise people to buy them. It would also give indirect subsidies to car companies and battery makers in the form of tax cuts and cheap land for factories. The government bill for all that ran into the billions of dollars.

With continued support, the plan eventually began to work. BYD, a Shenzhen-based battery company, launched the plug-in hybrid F3DM — it looked like a carbon copy of the Toyota Corolla — months after the 2008 Olympics. Thanks to the subsidies, there were 10,000 of them on China’s roads by 2011.

Even as electric vehicles began appearing on the streets of Chinese cities, the number of fossil fuel cars sold in China continued to increase. In 2012 the country sold fifteen million passenger cars. Predictably, pollution worsened, and the figures were available for all to see with the government beginning to openly share air-quality data.

Publication of these figures was a surprise. It would almost certainly make the government look bad. But it was a calculated move. In 2014 China’s Premier Li Keqiang used the data as the basis for a declaration of war against pollution at the annual gathering of the National People’s Congress.

The government had provided a carrot, in the form of direct and indirect subsidies for electric vehicle makers. Now it had a stick. Wan Gang’s ministry was directed to work with local governments to introduce regulations to control the number of new cars on the roads each year. If city residents wanted a licence plate for a fossil fuel car, they needed to either enter a lottery or bid in an auction. Sometimes the amount they would have to pay for the new licence was higher than the cost of the car itself. For new-energy vehicles, it was first come, first served.

In 2011 the country sold about 1000 battery-powered cars and plug-in hybrids. By 2022 that number stood at nearly seven million and China had become the world’s biggest market for electric vehicles. In some years, the annual rate of growth was 300 per cent. As a fraction of all cars sold, electric vehicles now make up more than 25 per cent of total sales — a figure that is already higher than the government target of 20 per cent for 2025 sales. It’s clear the future of cars in China is electric, and the country’s push has accelerated the electrification of transport globally.

In 2018 Wang Zhigang succeeded Wan Gang as minister of science and technology. Since then Wan has remained a key player in the country’s electrification efforts, but his impact was clear even before he left his government job. Between 2009 and 2017 the Chinese government spent more than US$60 billion on electric cars, according to a study from the Center for Strategic and International Studies. To put that figure in perspective, it is more than the market cap of General Motors, which produces some eight million cars each year.

Wan’s push also created industrial jewels such as BYD, the world’s largest maker of electric vehicles, which counts Warren Buffett as one of its biggest shareholders. It doesn’t just sell electric cars around the world; it also sells electric buses. It operates electric bus factories in California and Ontario that have the capacity to build more than 1000 buses each year.

In that sense, the money the Communist Party spent has already paid dividends. Today, China doesn’t just have factories that can produce electric cars; it has an entire supply chain, from the globally mined metals that are used to make batteries to the complex software installed in electric cars. Crucially, the country also has people who can run every level of the supply chain. Though most of this talent is domestic, many Chinese electric car firms are now wealthy enough to poach staff from international companies.

Other countries are trying to play catch-up. The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 — the largest injection of cash from a US government in climate-oriented investments — includes some US$100 billion worth of incentives for electrification of transport in the United States. Similarly, bullish plans for electric vehicles have been hatched in Europe, where strict emissions criteria have forced car makers to pivot to selling only electric vehicles within the next decade.

During Wan’s time as China’s minister of science and technology, all the countries in the world signed the 2015 Paris agreement. Electric cars are a crucial climate solution, and China has shown it is possible to scale the technology quickly. That’s led to many countries banning the sale of new fossil fuel cars by 2040 or earlier. Markets covering more than 20 per cent of car sales globally now have a mandate to fully phase out internal combustion engine vehicles.

What Wan Gang, with China’s backing, has shown is that succeeding in scaling a green technology requires supportive government policies, substantial public and private investment, and empowering entrepreneurs. Done right, it can also give a country a commanding technological lead over the rest of the world. For “climate capitalism” to work, all three are required to ensure technologies can scale within a few decades to get the world to zero emissions. •

This is an edited extract from Akshat Rathi’s Climate Capitalism: Winning the Global Race to Zero Emissions, released in Australia this month.

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Billionaire Foxconn founder and independent presidential candidate Terry Gou quickly came out in support of Ma, criticising the country’s leaders for their position on national identity. Ko Wen-je, presidential candidate for the Taiwan People’s Party, demurred, arguing that National Day should be above party politics; but on the day itself he left the ceremony early to attend a demonstration.

In a country that has yet to declare its own independence — a country, moreover, claimed by another country — a “national day” is inherently problematic. Taiwan’s National Day is the anniversary of the 1911 uprising that led to the founding of the Republic of China, or ROC, the following year, at a time when Taiwan was a Japanese colony. After the People’s Republic was created by the Communist Party in 1949, the ROC survived in rump form in Taiwan. The island itself, governed by the Kuomintang under martial law until 1987, was technically nothing more than a province.

All this was a long time ago. The participants in the original conflict are mostly dead; martial law has given way to multi-party democracy. With every new generation, Taiwan’s connection to the Chinese past has become increasingly attenuated and “Republic of China” less meaningful to them as a name for their country. Identification with the People’s Republic is much weaker again.

Around two-thirds of people in Taiwan now think of themselves as Taiwanese without qualification — in other words, they don’t even describe themselves as Taiwanese-Chinese. Judging by the level of electoral support for President Tsai Ing-wen’s independence-oriented Democratic Progressive Party, they would have opted by now for independence if it were not for fears of triggering war with China.

In these circumstances, the question “Whose National Day is it, after all?” has become progressively sharper. At Taipei’s monumental East Gate, not far from the site of the annual ceremony, the tensions underpinning the day are openly expressed each year. Separated by a thin blue line of police, a unification-with-China group and an independence-for-Taiwan group hurl abuse at each other in what has become a National Day ritual.

Under President Tsai, in office since 2016, the response to this question has been to allow greater leeway for expressions of Taiwanese nationalism, which in turn has reduced the visibility of the name “Republic of China.” Passport covers have been one scene of action. Within a few months of Tsai’s election, increasing numbers of Taiwanese travellers were covering up the words “Republic of China” on passport covers with a sticker carrying the inflammatory words “Republic of Taiwan.” The current passport design, issued early in Tsai’s second term, altogether omits the English words Republic of China from the cover.

Another site for subversion of the island’s ROC status is the National Day logo. This is generally designed around the Double Tenth symbol “++” (the Chinese character for ten, repeated), which evokes the date of the 1911 uprising, 10 October. Since 2017, this symbol has by degrees become more abstract and the accompanying references to the Republic of China less clear, if they’re retained at all. “Better Taiwan,” “Taiwan Together” and “Taiwan Forward” are among the slogans used in logos issued during Tsai’s first term of office.

Since 2020 the designs have become more assertive again. The Kuomintang criticised the 2021 logo because it carried no mention of the Republic of China. The logo for 2022, the year Russia invaded Ukraine, for the first time carried no reference to the Double Tenth. It instead featured a stylised sun — its blue and yellow rays read by some as a salute to Ukraine — accompanied by the words “Protect the Land, Guard the Country.”

The Double Tenth sign was resurrected for this year’s design. But the slogan of “democratic Taiwan,” resonating with the name of the Democratic Progressive Party, was provocative. In combination with the absence of any reference to the ROC, it was enough to prompt the Kuomintang’s boycott of the last National Day ceremony to be presided over by Tsai Ing-wen. In May next year, Tsai will hand over to whoever wins the presidential election in January.

The trend towards erasing references to the ROC can of course be reversed if the Kuomintang is returned to office, but at present that seems unlikely. The Democratic Progressive Party’s presidential candidate, vice-president Lai Ching-te, has been leading the polls since the race began. As long as none of his opponents join forces, Taiwan’s first-past-the-post voting system means he is likely to succeed Tsai Ing-wen next year.

Lai’s forward position on independence for Taiwan is well known but as vice-president and now presidential candidate he has had to juggle the fact of Taiwanese self-determination with the realities of cross-strait relations. In a recent interview he summed up the complexities of talking about a country that not everyone agrees is even a country in saying: “Taiwan is already a sovereign, independent country called the Republic of China.”

And there’s the rub. As “Republic of China” under Kuomintang rule, Taiwan was a recognised enemy of the People’s Republic during the Mao Years, 1949–76. The 1992 consensus — entailing both sides recognising the core principle of “One China” — ushered in a period of neutrality. Hostility was replaced by pragmatism, trade and migration between the two places. As the Republic of China, Taiwan remained formally “Chinese” and paradoxically compliant with the One China principle.

Had the Chinese Communist Party been prepared at any stage to put One China ahead of One Party, Taiwan might have joined with China to form a reconfigured republic — neither the Kuomintang nor the Communist Party version, but something attuned to the briefly hopeful, democratising world of the late twentieth century.

This chance appears to have evaporated, and the very term “Republic of China” is again becoming anathema in China. In Hong Kong this year, commemoration of the Double Tenth was prohibited because of its association with Taiwan independence. Current affairs commentator Sang Pu, born and raised in Hong Kong, recalls that in his boyhood the largest number of Chinese flags displayed there each October were the Republic of China’s, in commemoration of the Double Tenth. This year, Hong Kong was a sea of mainland China’s “five-star red flags” — 70,000 of them, around sixty-three per square kilometre.

It was the prospect of a sea of five-star red flags on Taiwanese soil that brought voters out to return Tsai Ing-wen to office in 2020. In her final National Day address on Tuesday, Tsai mentioned Taiwan over fifty times and the Republic of China just seven. Occasionally the two terms were coupled, most notably in her reference to national defence and the “resolve to defend the Republic of China (Taiwan).”

Needless to say, this is a rather different ROC from the one that China’s leaders have imagined might voluntarily return to the ancestral fold. From a Taiwanese point of view, it is an open question whether it ever belonged to that fold at all. •

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The visual contrasts with Australia mask many similarities. Taiwan is a young democracy, but its robust institutions underpin a remarkably progressive society. Democratisation has fostered a degree of civic consciousness unknown in the decades of martial law between 1949 and 1987. Multicultural policy has allowed local cultures to flourish after decades of repression, fostering a strong sense of Taiwanese identity.  A substantial body of law, still growing, protects and advances Indigenous rights to land, language maintenance and participation in government. A  marriage equality bill was passed on constitutional grounds in 2019.

Among these measures, Indigenous rights must resonate keenly for the visiting parliamentarians, themselves about to vote in a referendum on constitutional recognition of First Nations in Australia. On their way down Ketagalan Boulevard to the presidential office building on Tuesday, they may have been told that the road had been renamed in honour of the Aboriginal people who first lived in the Taipei area. They may also have seen the small “tent embassy” that has stood in adjacent parkland since 2017, the year that marked the beginning of a protest movement aimed at achieving something like a Wik determination (or better) in land rights.

It won’t be news to the visitors that Taiwan has a substantial Indigenous population. Indigenous studies and arts have been an increasingly important area of interaction and cultural exchange between Taiwan and Australia. In 2018, the Northern Territory government and the Taiwan Indigenous Peoples Cultural Development Centre launched a six-week artist-in-residence exchange program. In 2019, the first combined Yirramboi–Pulima festival brought together dance performers from Australian and Taiwanese First Nations in Melbourne. This year, the Narrm Oration at Melbourne University will be delivered by Akawyan Pakawyan of Taiwan’s Pinuyumayan people.

Beyond their First Nation status, little obviously connects the Aboriginal peoples in the two places. The First Nations people of Taiwan are Austronesian. Their languages (and there are many) link them to populations scattered across the Indo-Pacific, from Madagascar in the west to Hawaií in the east and New Zealand in the south.  But Austronesians never settled in Australia.

As colonial subjects, moreover, Taiwanese Aboriginals have a rather “tangled history” that seems not to fit neatly into the model provided by the European settler-colonial states. Since the Dutch occupation of the early seventeenth century, the island has been taken over by a series of competing powers in Northeast Asia. An independent settler-colonial state has emerged, populated largely by descendants of Chinese immigrants, but it is overshadowed and to some extent forestalled by the threat of war from its large neighbour, the People’s Republic of China.

Nonetheless, there are striking points of correspondence in the histories of First Nations in Taiwan and Australia. In both places, immigration, albeit from largely different sources, led to massive population growth during the nineteenth century. In both cases, the influx of newcomers was accompanied by a severe diminution of the Aboriginal population. Forced relocation of whole tribes sundered links with ancestral lands. In both cases, the process of dispossession continued into the second half of the twentieth century, leaving a legacy of trauma and social disadvantage reflected most poignantly in shorter life expectancy for Taiwanese and Australian Aboriginals alike.

Momentous developments meant a fundamental shift in relations between First Nations and the majority society in both places in the last two decades of the twentieth century. In Australia, the Mabo and Wik High Court cases quashed forever the doctrine of terra nullius, altering perceptions of land ownership in Australia and returning a considerable degree of authority over Country to Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders. In Taiwan, Aboriginal activism gathered momentum as the whole society shifted into democratic mode; the development of opposition political parties in non-Indigenous society was matched by the formation of Indigenous associations that were soon asserting their rights to self-determination.

Since then, First Nations’ issues have rarely been absent from the political landscape in either place. In 2007, prime minister Kevin Rudd, having brought Labor to power after a period of eleven years of conservative government, apologised to members of the stolen generations. In 2016, newly elected president Tsai Ing-wen, bringing the Democratic Progressive Party to power after eight years of conservative government under the Kuomintang, apologised to Taiwan’s First Nations for crimes committed against them after the island was handed over to China at the end of the second world war. Even the sharp division between political parties on Aboriginal issues shows parallels.

Constitutional changes, however, present different problems in the two places. In Australia, the Constitution can be changed by the people, who may or may not prove willing to support the changes about to be presented to them in the referendum. In Taiwan, the constitution is an historical relic, a document drawn in another time for another place — the Republic of China in 1947. Constitutional amendments are impeded by China’s tendency to view any such moves as “a path that seeks independence.” It was in the face of strident criticism from Beijing that Taiwan’s constitution was amended in 2005 to reserve six seats in the national assembly for Aboriginal representatives. With this and one other “additional article” the then president, Chen Shui-pien, made good on his promise that Indigenous Taiwanese would receive constitutional recognition.

Needless to say, all this is bound up with the development of democracy in Taiwan. The formation of political parties and the introduction of open elections in the late twentieth century meant shaking off the Chinese yoke. Politically, acknowledgement of and alignment with Aboriginal rights, especially land rights and cultural rights, has stamped Taiwan as different from China and established Aboriginal people as prior owners of a land that China regards as its own.

Incorporation into China would be damaging to Taiwan’s First Nations.  The very terms Aboriginal/Indigenous — in Chinese, literally “the peoples who originally lived here” — are frowned on in China for their suggestion of prior claim on the land and a history that might privilege them over the Han majority. China has effectively defined its own Indigenous peoples out of existence; all that is left are ethnic minorities (xiaoshu minzu).

Whether this complex of issues has been discussed by the visitors during their time in Taiwan has not been reported. Prime minister Anthony Albanese’s pending trip to China has anyway meant that their visit has been low key. But if some future parliamentary delegation to Taiwan includes a First Nations MP, we can expect indigenous issues here to feature in political debates about Australia’s relations with both China and Taiwan. •

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In recent months, China’s exports, along with its currency, its consumer confidence and the price of pork, have begun to tumble. The real estate sector, broadly responsible for 30 per cent of the country’s GDP, is looking more and more like an empty tower block teetering on a foundation of debt. Banks have shaved another 2 per cent off an already modest economic growth forecast in 2023 of 5 per cent. One economic indicator that is rising is youth unemployment, though after it surpassed 21 per cent last month the government stopped publishing statistics.

Until recently, the Communist Party under Xi Jinping has been able to muddle through crises, including those of its own making. Yet fears are mounting that the People’s Republic could be entering the kind of deflationary spiral that took a rising Japan back to ground in the 1990s.

While trying to stamp out spot fires, the Communist Party has predictably grabbed the oldest fire extinguisher in its cupboard, labelled Blame the West. It has sprayed abuse at outside observers who have been so rude as to raise the alarm. “At the end of the day, they are fated to be slapped by reality,” asserted a foreign ministry spokesperson in August, doing his best to block the view of the front door burning.

What props up that door is the subject of economist Keyu Jin’s new book, The New China Playbook: Beyond Socialism and Capitalism. It lands in bookshops just as it has become urgently necessary to understand how China’s economy really functions, and the less obvious ways it fits into global economic and financial systems.

Beijing-born and Harvard-educated, Jin splits her time between Beijing and London, where she teaches at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She is well connected in Beijing — her father, Jin Liqun, is a former vice-minister of finance and current president of the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank. Her intimate understanding of the system, ability to explicate complicated economic issues in plain English, and emotional investment in a thriving China all inform this most timely book.

China’s economic success, she writes, has defied all the usual assumptions about the necessary ingredients for long-term growth: a strong rule of law, for example, along with robust corporate governance and solid intellectual property protection. What’s more, neither its consumers, nor its entrepreneurs, nor the state itself have behaved like “conventional economic agents.” Rather, she contends, their actions are shaped by culture and history as well as ideology. These particular conditions cast doubt on whether China’s growth model could be replicated elsewhere in the developing world. But if it’s unique, she argues, it’s far from a “miracle,” as some have called it: China has simply caught up to its own potential.

How it has done this is the interesting part. The old playbook, Jin writes, referring to the first decades of reform, was all about “short and fast” development, a “febrile rush to boost GDP.” She chronicles how Deng Xiaoping and his successors progressively introduced market mechanisms into what had been a central planned economy, putting it on the road to becoming the manufacturing powerhouse and global economic power it is today.

One of the central and widely misunderstood aspects of the “new China playbook,” which she says aims for “a slower but saner pursuit of growth,” is how closely interconnected are the country’s state and private economies. There are numerous partnerships between state-owned enterprises and private businesses. These partnerships, in turn, are typically situated in what is nicknamed the “mayor economy”: a synergy between local government, state enterprise and private business. Other central aspects of the new playbook include the country’s idiosyncratic stock markets and the widespread “shadow banking” practices that introduce both risks and benefits into China’s finance sector.

Jin counters some common misapprehensions. In her chapter on China’s role in global trade, she shows that burgeoning US–China trade and investment did not in fact cause a net loss of American jobs. Less-skilled workers certainly suffered badly from trade-related job losses. Yet, she notes, that’s partly because the American economy privileges employers over employees: the impact of trade on workers was less in the European Union because of the strength of unions there and its fairer labour practices and laws more generally.

As for innovation, it’s often said that industry in China is better at copying than creating. But she points out that economists distinguish between “from zero to one” innovation — the production of a first-of-its-kind device, method or process — and “from one to N” innovation, which seeks to improve on existing technologies. She describes “from one to N” as China’s innovation “sweet spot.”

In March this year, incidentally, an Australian Strategic Policy Institute report concluded that China already leads the United States in thirty-seven out of forty-four critical technologies, including drone technology and critical minerals processing.

In discussing the agility of Chinese companies, Jin relates how the ridesharing company Didi has used its flexibility in adapting to local conditions to make inroads into places where Uber has failed to establish a presence. In Brazil, for example, where many drivers live hand-to-mouth, Didi pays them on a daily basis, and for those without a bank account, it helps them apply for one through its app.

Jin’s accomplishment is to illuminate the workings of this ever-evolving system, using a mix of statistics, narrative and anecdotes. Less impressive are some of her breezy references to Chinese culture and history, those “underlying fundamentals” (as only an economist could call them). She makes numerous minor mistakes. For instance, she places the invention of paper, the compass and printing in the Song dynasty (960–1269) when they arrived more than seven centuries earlier, in the Han.

Her insistence that China has had meritocratic government since the third century BCE stretches the definition of meritocratic: it wasn’t until the late seventh century that Empress Wu Zetian, incidentally the only woman to rule in her own name in all Chinese history, reformed the procedures for entry into the civil service so that exams would be held on a regular schedule and be open to men of humble background for the first time. (Women, no matter how meritorious, were never eligible). There would still be debates, which heated up in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, about whether the exams produced an actual “meritocracy” or simply elevated to power men who were able to memorise and regurgitate classical texts.

Jin similarly credits Confucius with providing the Chinese with an ingrained work ethic married to respect for authority, nodding to the popular view that Confucianism has been a foundation for economic success not just in China but in South Korea, Japan and other societies influenced by Confucian thought. She speaks of “996” (Chinese slang for working 9am to 9pm six days a week) as a “work ethic,” when in most Chinese discourse it’s more of a complaint. If it is a work ethic, it’s one many young people have rejected, choosing instead to “lie flat,” to engage in extremely non-Confucian “quiet quitting” or even actual quitting. It’s also a reason that the public service, with its regular hours and less hectic demands, has re-emerged as a desirable employer for many of China’s youth.

Simplistic and uninflected views of history chime with contemporary Communist Party narratives aimed at promoting cultural pride, but they can’t carry the full freight assigned to them here of providing a meaningful explanation of Chinese economic and other behaviours.

Jin confronts problems such as ballooning debt and an ageing population head-on. Yet she doesn’t adequately address the underlying ideological and political issues that have in many cases an outsize impact on China’s economic policies, performance and behaviour. The party, by its own proclamation, wants to control everything; there is no sphere of life exempt from political “leadership.” The recent draft patriotic education law made that clear by mandating that its demands extend to how parents speak to their children.

If the party controls everything, Xi Jinping controls the party. It seems odd for an economist not to question whether this will lead to better or worse economic decision-making. Jin notes that Xi Jinping has “himself taken over the job of overseeing China’s technology advancement, previously under the supervision of a government minister.” She likens this to wartime mobilisation, explaining that “China sees being at the forefront of developing key technologies as a matter of survival.”

But she doesn’t ask whether having Xi — a non-technologist — in charge is the best bet for guaranteeing that survival. After all, Xi, dubbed by Geremie Barmé the “chairman of everything,” is not just leader of party and state but chair of the Central Military Commission and numerous other central bodies, including those with responsibilities for Taiwan affairs, Hong Kong and Macau affairs, foreign affairs, national security, financial and economic affairs, defence and military reform, and cyberspace. What’s wrong with having a dedicated minister in charge of each of these important portfolios? Xi’s assumption of leadership in the technological sphere hardly seems the acme of rational decision-making, economic or otherwise.

It would certainly not be comfortable for someone who lives part of the time in China and has family there to focus on such things, but the avoidance of politically sensitive topics and analysis compromises the value of The New China Playbook. It also draws attention to the odd narrative lacunae.

For example, Jin speaks in positive terms of the rising demands of the people for civil society, and backs this up with statistical evidence. The problem is that the data refer to the period right before Xi took power in 2012–13. She doesn’t add that, almost from that moment, Xi has ruthlessly set about crushing that civil society, silencing legal academics, detaining feminists planning to protest sexual harassment on public transport, clamping down on LGBTQI activism, and imprisoning lawyers who argue for rights given to the Chinese people by the Chinese constitution itself.

She also writes admiringly of China’s data protection laws — and yet doesn’t tackle the problem of the clauses regarding “national security” (which is defined very loosely in China) that allow the state itself to access pretty much whatever data it wants. Her claim that Chinese people “feel very differently” from those in the West about issues like privacy and surveillance, thanks to a cultural preference for stability and safety, might be broadly true. There are plenty of people, including in Xinjiang, on the other hand, who feel rather similarly to people in the rest of the world.

On the subject of Xinjiang, the vulnerability of the Chinese economy to political boycotts of its products would seem a useful subject for examination in a book like this, but no.

The problem is that China’s political and economic goals are frequently in conflict: the need for foreign investment, for example, is frustrated by increasingly strident anti-foreign rhetoric and rising party interference in the business sector that make China a more difficult, or at least less enjoyable, place for non-Chinese to do business in. She does acknowledge that China’s relative lack of soft power acts as a barrier to global economic leadership (including greater use of its currency in international trade). She also observes the paradox that the pursuit of economic stability through control can actually trigger instability.

We’re seeing plenty of evidence of that now, and it’s unclear whether Xi Jinping and the party he leads can control their way out of the mess. There’s no pleasure in contemplating the possibility that Xi might steer the Chinese economy off a cliff and drag the rest of the world down with it. Jin professes to feeling optimistic “that pragmatism and rationality will eventually prevail.” I’m not persuaded. But I hope she’s right. •

The New China Playbook: Beyond Socialism and Capitalism
By Keyu Jin | Swift Press | $36.99 | 368 pages

The post Slapped by reality appeared first on Inside Story.

Ahead of an American presidential election that might return to power an isolationist and avowed admirer of dictators, Australian national security insiders have been assured during their regular “leadership dialogue” with their American counterparts that, yes, protection and patronage remain. But whether or not Donald Trump returns, says Lowy Institute analyst Sam Roggeveen, the Americans will inevitably pull back from trying to maintain strategic primacy in the Western Pacific.

Eventually, Roggeveen argues in his important new book The Echidna Strategy, the Americans will come to terms with a power balance involving its adversaries — China, North Korea and Russia — facing off against strong friends like Japan, South Korea and Australia, with independent emerging powers Indonesia and India in the middle.

Roggeveen doesn’t envisage a sudden US withdrawal from the Asia-Pacific. But Australia will gradually lose great-power protection, forcing it to take a more independent path. “There won’t be a principled declaration of independence, but a hesitant and gradual process of separation triggered by America’s declining interest and motivation to protect Australia.”

Since this shift could conceivably happen over the first half of this century — during the next twenty-five or so years, that is — he believes it should be influencing the defence investments and foreign policy decisions we are making right now. Instead of placing a “big bet” on the United States remaining dominant, and acquiring nuclear submarines to assist, Australia should adopt a version of the porcupine strategy — by promising to inflict too much pain on the aggressor to justify any gains they may anticipate — for its own defence and go all out to keep Indonesia on side and help build its strength.

In a little over 200 pages of elegant logic, Roggeveen, who has led the security team at Lowy for the last fifteen years and before that worked in the Office of National Assessments, delivers a broadside at Canberra’s bipartisan consensus on the AUKUS agreement. He adds to the case made by figures like James Curran, historian and Australian Financial Review international editor, that the agreement still hasn’t been explained — and probably can’t be, except as a political fix.

As former ONA head Peter Varghese says, Roggeveen’s book “defies the echo chamber of current strategic policy” — the chamber that takes in the two main parties, the defence and foreign affairs departments, ONA’s successor the Office of National Intelligence, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and the ANU National Security College, and a federal press gallery captivated by gee-whiz weaponry and China panics.

Roggeveen builds on the thinking of strategic analysts Hugh White and the late Allan Gyngell, who could see an era of power contestation developing in Asia. Far from “appeasement” — the cheap slur thrown by junior minister Pat Conroy at Labor’s national conference last week — they urge a bristly defence of Australia and its approaches combined with efforts to avoid being roadkill if the big vehicles start moving.

Roggeveen looks first at America’s national will. So far, the cost of its post-1945 security presence in Asia has been manageable and the risks low. But China’s rise and North Korea’s nuclear weaponry are changing the calculus. “When it comes to taking on China, the costs are too high and the stakes too low,” Roggeveen says.

The United States is uniquely secure, he points out, buffered by wide oceans east and west, and by benign neighbours north and south. It has the world’s largest military, its largest nuclear arsenal, and a young and growing population. With foreign trade only 23 per cent of its GDP, it can be economically self-sufficient.

“When Donald Trump said what was previously unsayable for a US president — that America’s allies are free-riders, that NATO had passed its use-by date, and that America gains nothing from its forward military presence in East Asia — the response from the US security establishment was swift and predictable,” Roggeveen writes. “America’s alliances, they said, are the backbone of global security.”

But Trump had grasped an important point. “America’s alliances are not a service the US offers to its allies and the world. Ultimately, they need to make the United States safer. If America’s alliances with Japan, South Korea and Australia cease to have any benefit for the US, then it will stop making sacrifices for them.”

Cold war justifications for alliances are crumbling. East Asian allies are starting to question the “extended deterrence” of US nuclear forces and thinking about acquiring their own. “The US has learned to live with French, British and Israeli nuclear weapons. It can do the same for South Korea and Japan,” Roggeveen says.

And unlike Washington’s old enemy, the Soviet Union, China lacks an exportable ideology. “Communism in China is little more than a series of slogans (such as the ‘China dream’ and a ‘community of common destiny’). To be a communist in China today is to be committed not to the global spread of Marxist-Leninist ideology but simply to the preservation of Communist Party rule at home.”

Realistically, no nation of China’s economic weight would ever be content for its rival to be the leading strategic power in its own region, “any more than the US would tolerate China being the leading strategic power in North and Latin America. Imagine tens of thousands of Chinese troops based in Canada, an aircraft carrier permanently stationed in Cuba, and Chinese spy planes routinely patrolling just off the US east coast, and you get the idea.”

Should Trump be re-elected, or a “Trump-like figure” take the Republican Party back into the White House, his agenda would return, and probably with less institutional resistance. Trump might have been unexpected but he isn’t anomalous, says Roggeveen. His rise injected a new uncertainty into Australia’s strategic future.

The result will be “a long sunset of American power in Asia, in which China emerges as the leading nation but not the dominant one.” Australia’s alliance with the United States won’t be formally abrogated or repealed: too many people in both countries have a stake in its preservation.

“The treaty will remain,” says Roggeveen. “So will the troops, and the joint exercises, and the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing arrangements, and the arms sales. What will erode is the credibility of the alliance. Australia and the region in general will simply stop believing that the alliance represents an implicit promise that the two countries will fight on each other’s behalf.”

Yet Australia is doubling its bet on the United States staying on top. The planned eight nuclear-powered attack submarines, or SSNs, more than the British or French navies possess, will operate as a one-eighth addition to the US navy’s SSN force. Aside from being able to fire Tomahawk cruise missiles with a 1500 to 2000 kilometre range, their role will be to find and chase China’s ballistic missile submarines, or SSBNs.

For nuclear powers, such SSBNs are the guaranteed “second strike” capability against a successful “first strike.” Roggeveen could have said more about the fact that China has only six SSBNs, five operating from a base in Hainan island facing the South China Sea and one near Qingdao in the Yellow Sea. Maintenance and training mean that only one or two are likely to be on patrol at any time. The relentless “freedom of navigation” patrols in these waters by US and allied forces seem designed to stop those SSBNs slipping out into the open ocean, from where more of the continental United States would be in missile range. Or perhaps they are poised to destroy the subs before they can launch. Either way, are we out to remove this stabilising element of mutual assured destruction?

This is a case of capability determining defence policy rather than the other way round, Roggeveen says: “Once we have the capability to send a fleet of boats thousands of kilometres to our north around China’s coast, and the capability to fire missiles at the Chinese mainland, we are going to have to come up with reasons why we are choosing to withhold that capability in the event of war.” Equally worryingly, “by the time this question arises Australia will have been enculturated and integrated with the US Navy over decades. It is too much to expect that our leaders would turn their backs on all that in the decisive moment.”

Any sense that the United States might have to compel Australia into helping in a future conflict is contradicted by the continuing willingness of both major political parties to lock military planning into US thinking. As Roggeveen puts it, the AUKUS agreement shows that “Australia didn’t need to be talked into anything.” And from an American perspective, what’s not to like when Australia comes offering to pay hundreds of billions of dollars for US weapons?

All the costs of AUKUS weaponry will be carried by Australia, with no hard promises in return. “It is a project of vaulting ambition that is out of step with Australian tradition as a military middle power, wildly at odds with our international status and, most importantly, a wasteful expenditure of public money that will make Australia less safe,” Roggeveen says. “But having cancelled the French project and inaugurated AUKUS, Australia is now proposing to manage not two but three submarine designs. The Collins upgrade is still going ahead, and we are adding two nuclear-powered designs as well, a technology with which Australia has no experience. It will surely shock no one if this initiative fails entirely, or is severely cut back over time.”

Meanwhile, Canberra’s advocates of more defence spending are vague about what exactly Australia needs to defend itself against. At the same time, they assume that China is or will be so powerful that resisting it without US help is pointless.

Waging war on Australia wouldn’t be easy, says Roggeveen, and Australia can relatively cheaply raise the stakes even further. “Australia’s security commentators project their anxieties about Australia, their lack of confidence in it, onto China. They think we can’t manage the challenge of China alone because we’re not strong or mature enough. I say we are, and I say we can.”

The invasion scenario put up by defence hawks like late army general and Liberal senator Jim Molan are laughably implausible. “Contrary to popular belief, we don’t need to defend ourselves against invasion,” says Roggeveen. “[T]his will remain beyond the capabilities of any rival military force for the indefinite future, and even if it becomes achievable, it will remain unnecessary and even counterproductive for the aggressor.” The only plausible reason to attack Australia would be to strike facilities being used to attack China — the US strategic bombers at the Katherine air base, for instance, and the SSNs at the Fremantle naval base.

Instead, Australia should rely on distance to put huge restraints on any Chinese military action. “Put simply, distance is Australia’s single biggest defence asset,” Roggeveen says, reminding his readers that Beijing is closer to London than to Sydney. That distance is invariably played down in the Australian defence debate in favour of a view that Australia is on the front line of military competition with China, or on China’s doorstep.

Australia should invest in forces that can punish and repel any antagonist who comes close — an antagonist gaining a military base in the Pacific islands, for example — but not attempt to project power any further. In other words, no capabilities aimed explicitly at hitting Chinese territory. Submarines, yes, long-range air power, yes, some missiles, yes, a lot of troops for restoring peace or providing disaster relief in the region, yes — but no heavily armoured army. Backing these capabilities would be hardened military bases, stockpiles of fuel and strategic materials, and deeper protection against cyberattack and other “grey” threats.

This is the “echidna strategy” of the book’s title — a version of which Roggeveen suggests for the defence of Taiwan. (He doesn’t favour a simple surrender of this democracy, and perhaps could have made this clearer.) It is essentially a strategy of denial.

“[This means] we are essentially planning to inflict the bare minimum damage on China so that we can persuade Beijing to stop but not give it a reason to hit us even harder,” Roggeveen says. It may not be heroic, “but such is the lot of a middle power when facing a great power. The alternative, which we are now pursuing, is a defence strategy which incentivises China to pay more military attention to us.”

Roggeveen does explore the ultimate defensive spike — nuclear weapons for Australia — but concludes that as nuclear weapons haven’t been used against non-nuclear adversaries since 1945, the chances of China raising the stakes that far against a much smaller, distant power are slim enough to discount.

But this doesn’t mean Australia should withdraw into a ball like a threatened echidna. It should be ambitious, but by using diplomacy and defence support. The focus should be Indonesia, the only emerging big power in the most contestable region around China capable of pushing back against the Chinese. “All the threat inflation, all the fever dreams conjured by our security pundits about China’s military threat to Australia — we are at risk of being surrounded; there is danger on our doorstep — would suddenly become real if Indonesia was ever hostile towards Australia.”

Then there is preserving Australia’s sphere of influence in the Pacific by doing more: more aid, more infrastructure, more investment, more labour mobility, more diplomacy and more defence cooperation. Though the smaller nations might be reluctant to surrender their China leverage, a European Union–style economic and political pact could cement island relations with Australia and New Zealand, with free trade, open borders, shared services, a regional airline and perhaps even a regional bank with a single currency.

This initiative could build on Roggeveen’s argument for a doubling of the Australian population to create a bigger economic base. With Papua New Guinea’s population now put tentatively at 11.8 million, and another three million or so in the other Pacific island nations, the region is there for us all to bulk up.

Roggeveen also puts the case for strong regional organisations. Not the Quad so much — its members are too dispersed, too divergent and too invested in China to agree to a NATO-style common defence, or even to explicitly mention China — but the much-derided Association of Southeast Asian Nations and its appendages. Instead of being disappointed about what ASEAN fails to do, we should look at what it’s been able to prevent — namely, wars between its members.

The Albanese government might sincerely believe in AUKUS, or it might be using it to help gain time in office in the expectation it will collapse on someone else’s watch. Either way, this book from such a seasoned and centrally placed figure in the defence and foreign policy sphere shows that our national future is being decided in panic and haste. •

The Echidna Strategy: Australia’s Search for Power and Peace
By Sam Roggeveen | La Trobe University Press/Black Inc. | $32.99 | 232 pages

The post Spiky questions about the US alliance appeared first on Inside Story.

The explanations for this attitude tend to focus on these countries’ past connections with Russia and irritation with the West more than their lack of sympathy for Ukraine. The governing African National Congress in South Africa, for example, recalls Soviet support in the long struggle against apartheid. India has found Russia a useful strategic partner in the past and a source of advanced weapons. China and Russia entered into what was described in glowing terms as friendship “without limits” prior to the full-scale invasion.

The West, meanwhile, has been criticised for its focus on Ukraine’s plight compared with its relative indifference to the humanitarian catastrophes of the ongoing wars in Africa and the Middle East. During the war’s early stages the Biden administration framed the conflict as one between democracy and autocracy, which did not impress many of the relatively autocratic governments in the Global South. Lastly, members of the Global South consider the United States and its allies, notably Britain, hypocritical about a “rules-based international order” given their actions in Iraq, Libya and elsewhere.

Yet this narrative has become more nuanced over the course of this year. Partly this is because of efforts by Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the Biden administration to mend fences with these countries. Partly the shift reflects irritation with Russia over its stubborn and wholly unrealistic stance on what might serve as the basis for a peace settlement. A third factor is the harmful impact of Russia’s actions on food and energy prices.

For all these reasons, countries in the Global South are starting to find an equidistant position harder to sustain and are starting to take diplomatic initiatives of their own. These may be harder for Russia to resist than those sponsored by the West.

The “Global South” is one of those convenient shorthands that can keep conversations on international relations going without the need to list lots of different countries. If taken too seriously — as if it represents a homogeneous group with a shared agenda — the label can soon become misleading. It is the latest in a sequence of attempts to group countries according to what they are not instead of who they are.

During the cold war the countries that deliberately stayed outside the main alliances became part of the Non-Aligned Movement. They eventually combined with states with a policy of neutrality (such as Sweden and Switzerland) to become Neutral and Non-Aligned. Those many developing countries outside the main blocs were lumped together as the Third World because they were part of neither the First capitalist world nor the Second communist world.

Once the cold war was over these labels appeared dated and unhelpful, doing little justice to the variety and agency of these countries. It also became apparent that several of these countries that were behind the West on many key economic indicators were nonetheless showing considerable dynamism. Not only were they catching up but they also had shared interests distinct from those of the West. The most important of these countries were identified as the BRICS, standing for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

As well as the group’s growing economic importance it also included the world’s most populous countries. Although it had started as a convenient shorthand, BRICS eventually became a political entity with its own summits. Each of its members tended to complain about attempted US “hegemony” and argue for more multipolarity. Their dislike of America’s regular resort to economic sanctions was reflected in proposals for the “de-dollarisation” of the world economy.

BRICS excludes countries in similar positions, however, including the populous Indonesia and the oil-rich Saudi Arabia, and is already debating whether to invite more members.

The West has its own institutions, of course, including NATO and the European Union, both of which have grown in size since the end of the cold war and provide a degree of integration that is absent from other regional institutions (such as ASEAN and South America’s Mercosur). A Group of Seven industrialised countries (the United States, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan) meets annually, always with the European Union and usually with other invited friends and relations.

The G7 was the G8 until Russia was expelled after the 2014 annexation of Crimea, with one consequence being there is one less place for diplomatic communications between Russia and the West. The obvious place for that contact, the UN Security Council, has been paralysed by Russia’s veto.

One other grouping is large enough to bring together the main international players more inclusively than either the G7 or BRICS. That is the G20, formed in 1999 in response to an economic crisis but now with a wider agenda. It is made up of Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union. Indonesia hosted the latest of the G20’s annual summits; India will host the next.

This is an altogether more complicated picture than simply “the West” versus “the Rest,” or one in which, other than the permanent members of the Security Council, few other states count. The complexity of this evolving international system has become more evident as countries work out their responses to the Russo-Ukraine war.

A common complaint from non-Western countries mirrors that of internal critics of Western support for Ukraine: far too much effort is going into stoking the fires of war by sending arms to Ukraine and not enough into “diplomacy” to end the war. A persistent hope is that “dialogue” might find a commonsense way out of the morass.

This line has appealed to those who wish to sound progressive even while supporting a vicious, nationalist aggressor state, or “realists” who take it for granted that at some point Ukraine will concede territory to Russia. Those taking this view also tend to assume that the United States is in the position to get a deal done because it can lever Kyiv into a compliant position.

This was always a dubious proposition. It would not be a good look for Biden, and certainly would be divisive within the alliance, to attempt to strongarm Ukraine into an unequal treaty that Russia would probably not honour anyway. Most importantly, Putin has not offered any encouragement to those urging active negotiations.

Early in the war the two sides were exploring a possible settlement, looking for language on the Donbas, Crimea and neutrality with which the two sides could live. That proved elusive, and the Ukrainian position hardened once Russian atrocities were revealed as troops abandoned their positions close to Kyiv. Now Putin demands that Ukraine agree to the permanent loss of territory unilaterally claimed for Russia, which is even more than it currently occupies. That is not going to happen.

The peace camp has thus faded in the West. The most serious proponents argue that preparations must be made for when the time is ripe, accepting that this is not yet and must await changing attitudes in Kyiv and Moscow. The agreed Western stance follows Ukraine’s: Russia’s behaviour, along with its claimed objectives, means that there is no basis for negotiations. The only development that is likely to shift Russian views is evidence that it is losing the war, and so the main effort needs to be put into helping Ukraine with its military operations.

This position has created a gap that many non-Western countries have been eager to fill, casting themselves in the role of peacemakers. The process began last February when China stepped forward with its proposals. Because of Xi Jinping’s “no limits” partnership with Putin, and his accompanying anti-NATO rhetoric, these were treated sceptically. Zelenskyy, however, appreciated at once that, taken at face value, they were more favourable to Ukraine than Russia. The core principles — staying in line with the UN Charter and respecting national sovereignty, territorial integrity and international humanitarian law — give no support to seizing the territory of a neighbouring state and bombing its cities. The plan was followed up by a discussion between Xi and Zelenskyy and closer diplomatic relations between the two.

Brazil, African countries, and most recently Saudi Arabia have since taken similar initiatives. The last of these was Brazil’s. Although it condemned the Russian invasion, it has not supported sanctions against Moscow or sending arms to Ukraine. After president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva welcomed Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov to Brasilia and objected to Western arms deliveries as prolonging the war, he came under heavy criticism. He then declined an invitation from Putin to visit Russia, but repeated “Brazil’s willingness, together with India, Indonesia, and China, to talk to both sides of the conflict in search of peace.”

Lula da Silva has not spoken directly to Zelenskyy and now seems disillusioned. His initiative made little headway, leading him to conclude that neither Putin nor Zelenskyy were ready. “Brazil’s role is to try to arrive at a peace proposal together with others for when both countries want it,” he has said.

Africa’s initiative was announced by South Africa’s president Cyril Ramaphosa on 16 May. In June, representatives from South Africa, Egypt, Senegal, Congo-Brazzaville, Comoros, Zambia and Uganda visited both Ukraine and Russia. The mission was not a great success. As the delegation arrived in Kyiv it was struck by Russian missiles. Then, when they met with Putin on 17 June, the Russian president showed no interest in a plan that required accepting Ukraine’s internationally recognised borders. One South African academic, Professor William Gumede, observed that the African leaders were humiliated: “Putin didn’t even bother to listen to the delegation, basically interrupting them before they’d even finished speaking, implying there was no point in discussing anything as the war would continue.”

This visit was followed in late July by the Second Russo-Africa Summit in St Petersburg, which had been postponed from October 2022 when it would have taken place in Ethiopia. At one level, Russia might have counted the summit a success, with forty-nine delegations attending, although this only included seventeen heads of state (compared with forty-three at the first summit in 2019). But some of the continent’s most important leaders were present, including Ramaphosa and Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt.

One of the odder features of the event was that Yevgeny Prigozhin was also in St Petersburg, also meeting with African leaders, apparently not in disgrace after his recent mutiny against the Russian defence ministry. Prigozhin’s Wagner group has a significant presence in the Central African Republic, Libya, Mali and Sudan (and now potentially Niger).

The summit came not long after Russia had decided to abandon the deal that had allowed Ukraine to export grain (some 32.8 million tonnes last year) from its Black Sea ports, on the grounds that Western sanctions restricting the export of Russian grain and fertiliser had not been lifted (though these are actually exempt from sanctions). The end of the deal means that shortages will grow and prices rise.

At the summit Ramaphosa and other African leaders pleaded with Putin to restore the initiative, the lack of which was already causing hardship on the continent, but to no avail. When Putin offered to donate some grain free to the neediest countries, the South African leader thanked him politely and then added that he and his fellow leaders “are not coming here to plead for donations for the African continent… our main input here is not so much focused on giving and donating grain to the African continent.”

Nor did the summit see any progress on peace negotiations. Putin had no objections to the African mission continuing, but he offered no hope that he was changing his position or withdrawing his transparently false claim that the West had really started the war.

Adding further to the chill, Putin acknowledged after the summit that he would not be travelling to Johannesburg for the BRICS summit, which started on 22 August, as this was less “important than me staying in Russia.” The real reason was that the South African government could not guarantee Putin would not be arrested and sent to The Hague.

The International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for Putin, issued in March, for the war crime of deporting Ukrainian children, is restricting his ability to travel. South Africa, along with 122 other states, has ratified the Rome Statute and is obliged to arrest Putin if he shows up in their jurisdiction.

The South African government did try to find a way out of this predicament, arguing to the ICC that arresting Putin would be tantamount to a declaration of war and would undermine peace efforts. In the end it had to abandon this effort. Without a guarantee of immunity, Putin clearly decided it was too risky to travel. Instead he will join the summit by video while foreign minister Sergey Lavrov will represent Russia in person.

The developing frustration with Russia was reflected in the most important peace initiative thus far — a two-day summit in Jeddah on 6–8 August, hosted by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (normally referred to as “MBS”). Saudi Arabia is another country with which Russia has been trying to improve relations. In particular, the Saudis have cooperated on oil production cuts to raise prices. Although Western nations encourage countries to buy Russian oil only below a US$60 ceiling price, for now it is selling oil at closer to US$65, helping push up revenues.

The Biden administration has also been making moves to improve relations with the Saudis, despite starting in a critical mode because of the kingdom’s human rights records (and especially the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018). It is actively engaged in an effort to get Israel and the Saudis to establish diplomatic relations. MBS’s sympathetic view of Ukraine was evident when Zelenskyy was hosted in May at an Arab summit, also in Jeddah. There the Ukrainian president urged Arab leaders not to turn “a blind eye” to Russian aggression.

Following that summit the Crown Prince called a large international conference and invited Ukraine but not Russia. Even more notable was that the other invitees (some forty states) didn’t appear to find this a turn-off. It was no surprise that the United States and the European Union turned up, but the presence of China, India and South Africa was significant. Had it been the other way round, and Russia had been invited and not Ukraine, this would have been considered an enormous diplomatic defeat for Kyiv and its supporters.

Russia made clear that it was unhappy with its exclusion. Deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov grumbled that without his country the talks had not “the slightest added value.” He described the meeting as “a reflection of the West’s attempt to continue futile, doomed efforts” to mobilise the Global South behind Kyiv. At the same time he insisted that Russia remained open to a diplomatic solution to end the war, and would respond to any sincere proposals.

Around the same time, a New York Times journalist asked Putin’s spokesman Dmitri Peskov whether Russia wants to occupy new Ukrainian territories. “No,” he answered. “We just want to control all the land we have now written into our constitution as ours.” Yet that land includes not only Crimea but also the territories of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts, not all of which are currently occupied by Russia. “There are currently no grounds for an agreement,” added Peskov. “We will continue the operation for the foreseeable future.”

By contrast, the Ukrainian delegation was pleased with the event. Zelenskyy’s head of staff, Andriy Yermak, spoke of “very productive consultations on the key principles on which a just and lasting peace should be built.” No consensus position had emerged, but the conversation between the different viewpoints was honest and open.

Zelenskyy has said that he hopes that the Jeddah gathering will be a step on the road towards a global peace summit, possibly to be held later in the year. He has framed the talks as following the ten-point peace plan that he presented to the G20 last November. Saudi Arabia’s media ministry emphasised the importance of continuing consultations to pave the way for peace. Working groups are being established to consider some of the specific problems raised by the war.

China’s representative at the Jeddah meeting, Li Hui, was described by an EU source as having “participated actively” in the sessions. He had not attended another informal meeting in Denmark in June.

Also present was India’s national security adviser, who shared the consensus view: “Dialogue and diplomacy is the way forward for a peaceful resolution of the Ukraine conflict. There is a need to uphold territorial integrity and sovereignty without exception by all states… India has regularly engaged both Russia and Ukraine at the highest levels since the beginning of the conflict and New Delhi supports a global order based on principles enshrined in UN Charter and international law.”

India will be hosting the next G20 meeting in Delhi on 9–10 September. Unlike South Africa, it has not signed up to the ICC, so Putin would not be at risk of arrest should be decide to attend. He cannot, however, expect a warm reception, and should it come to talk of peace he will find little sympathy for his insistence on annexing a large chunk of Ukrainian territory. None of the leaders, other than Xi and perhaps Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, the host, will be keen on bilateral meetings with the Russian president.

Russian aggression was condemned at the last G20 meeting in Bali, which Zelenskyy attended. Putin is already seeking to prevent a similar communiqué emerging out of the Delhi summit. A preliminary meeting of G20 finance ministers in July failed to agree to a communiqué because Russia and China objected to a reference to “immense human suffering” and Western states would not sign one that did not condemn the aggression.

Should Putin decide to attend the G20, the event may serve to underline Russia’s isolation as much as its power. He has annoyed countries that now have significant clout in international affairs — countries that make a point of not following an American lead — by insisting on terms for ending the war that contradict the principles of the UN Charter and pursuing strategies that push up energy and food costs for all countries at a time when most are struggling economically. This behaviour has created an opportunity for Zelenskyy to improve relations with these countries and ensure that future peace initiatives are more likely to fit in with his vision than Putin’s.

For that reason we should not expect any early breakthroughs. Much still depends on what happens militarily. But it would be too cynical to dismiss the current diplomatic initiatives as being irrelevant. They reflect the changing character of international relations as Brazil, India, Saudi Arabia and other countries demonstrate their political muscle, and also the continuing importance of the UN Charter as one of the few fixed normative points.

We are moving from the idea of a mediated peace, in which a country able to talk to both Moscow and Kyiv, such as Turkey or Israel, tries to broker an agreement that leaves both sides with honour satisfied, to a process that involves developing global pressure on Putin to back away from his stubborn insistence on Russia’s right to annex Ukrainian territory. •

This article first appeared in Sam and Lawrence Freedman’s Substack newsletter, Comment Is Freed.

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US president Joe Biden had rushed back to Washington from the G7 summit in Hiroshima to negotiate a debt-ceiling deal with Congress. Otherwise he would have joined Modi, Albanese and Japan’s prime minister Fumio Kishida in Sydney for a meeting of the Quad, that relatively new grouping seen in American and Australian circles as a way of countering the two Asian countries’ diffidence about lining up against China. (Japan’s diffidence reflects its post-1945 constitution’s bar on non-defensive use of force, India’s its longstanding non-alignment doctrine.)

But what if the Quad instead became a forum for Japan and India to enlist Australia’s help in persuading Washington to give China some space? Just such a proposal is put forward in “Asia’s Future at a Crossroads: A Japanese Strategy for Peace and Sustainable Prosperity,” a paper published in Tokyo at the end of July.

The paper comes not from familiar members of Japan’s left but from Japanese scholars and a South Korean co-author who mostly gained their doctorates in the United States. The two lead authors, Mike Mochizuki and Kuniko Ashizawa, are professors at George Washington University in the American capital.

In essence, the paper argues that Japan should lead a “middle power” effort to lower tensions in Asia. “As part of its middle power diplomacy,” the scholars write, “Japan could also build on the Quad… and take the lead in promoting a ‘middle power coalition’ among Japan, Australia, and India, and thus lead the agenda-setting of the Quad.”

The coalition could then be extended to include other middle powers in the region, including South Korea and the ASEAN countries: “In this process, it would be effective to envision a ‘middle power quad’ by inviting South Korea to join the Japan–Australia–India coalition. By building on its partnerships with middle powers in Asia and in Europe, Japan should vigorously engage China to stabilise bilateral relations as well as to cooperate on pressing transnational challenges.”

The paper’s critique and proposals may upset comfortable assumptions in Washington and Canberra. “Rather [than] being solely dependent on the United States,” it says, “Japan needs a more autonomous foreign policy — what might be called a ‘pro-American, autonomous diplomacy.’” Instead of being “self-righteous” about values-oriented foreign policy, Japan should respect political diversity and promote peaceful coexistence, resisting efforts to divide Asia into a struggle between democracies and autocracies.

This vision is offered as a counterpoint to the concept of the “Indo-Pacific” — a formulation developed by Canberra pundits and adopted by the United States — which “diminishes the importance of continental Asia and suggests a regional orientation designed to counter and even contain China.”

The authors see the National Security Strategy announced by Prime Minister Kishida in December as a “180-degree turnaround” from longstanding Japanese defence policy. It included a doubling of defence spending to 2 per cent of GDP and an arsenal of new Tomahawk cruise missiles designed to strike back at China and North Korea. Commenting on the counterstrike capabilities of the missiles, they argue that “what would only be of tactical use during a military conflict is recklessly justified from the logic of strategic deterrence.”

Rather than treating Australia as Japan’s most important partner in middle-power diplomacy, the authors turn to South Korea: an established democracy and developed economy (one of the world’s ten largest) with per capita income equal to or exceeding Japan’s.

“Both countries [Japan and South Korea] are close allies of the United States; and they both see North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs as acute threats and are concerned about China’s military build-up and coercive behaviour,” says the paper. “But at the same time, they share a deep interest in preventing a military conflict in East Asia that would have devastating consequences for both countries; and they want to maintain close and stable economic relations with China, which is their largest trading partner. In short, both Japan and South Korea desire an Asia that is not divided into two conflicting camps and would prefer a region that is open and inclusive.”

The scholars believe the new version of the Trans-Pacific Partnership — the trade, investment and data pact Australia and Japan pressed ahead with after Donald Trump withdrew the United States — should be opened to simultaneous admission to both China, once it meets its qualifications, and Taiwan.

The paper’s authors aren’t arguing for an unarmed Japan. But they fear that conflict over Taiwan would have a devastating impact on Japan, probably as a result of Chinese attacks on US bases there. They agree that the United States must show it could beat off a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. “Japan can best contribute to this deterrence by denial by improving the resilience and survivability of US and Japanese defence assets in Japan and by strengthening Japan’s own capabilities to defend its own territory, especially its southwest island chain that is close to Taiwan.”

The key point is that the capacity to strike Chinese military targets on the mainland with missiles would not add greatly to deterrence, since China has too many targets and could rain fire back on a more compact Japan.

While the Biden administration has recently emphasised that America’s “One China” policy hasn’t changed, calls by Congress members and former officials to drop the policy, extend diplomatic recognition to Taiwan and defend Taiwan unconditionally are “especially provocative” and have raised the danger of conflict over Taiwan.

Japan’s aim “should be to maintain the conditions for preserving the status quo until the day comes when China and Taiwan can find a peaceful solution to the issue of unification,” the scholars urge, adding: “Moreover, Japan should not base its policies on forecasts of imminent military conflict or Chinese purported deadlines on unification and should not support the drawing of various ‘redlines.’”

The proposals in “Asia’s Future at a Crossroads” are likely to be welcomed by those senior figures in Australia’s foreign affairs and strategic circles — mostly out of government positions now — who criticise an increasingly security-oriented approach to Asia, along with our tightening “interoperability” with US forces and an apparent concurrence in US primacy.

They also chime with the kind of ideas the foreign minister, Penny Wong, was putting forward in opposition, which have been submerged by the unequivocal embrace of the AUKUS agreement on nuclear-powered submarines and advanced technologies.

Some of Kishida’s December proposals are similar to contentious Australian moves by Scott Morrison and now Anthony Albanese. Notable among these are a closer commitment to the defence of Taiwan and general alliance war-fighting capability, and the acquisition of 2000-kilometre-range Tomahawks and other missiles to strike back at China. The difference here is that Australia’s missiles would have to be fired from submarines, ships or aircraft some thousands of kilometres away from Australia.

The key question is: how much influence will “Asia’s Future at a Crossroads” have in Japan? The answer is not much, at least immediately. The paper was published two days before Japan’s defence ministry, the Self-Defence Agency, came out with a new white paper that, as defence minister Yasukazu Hamada said, “explains how we will drastically reinforce our defence capabilities.”

On Taiwan, the white paper doesn’t go as far as Kishida’s Liberal Democratic Party predecessors — Shinzo Abe said a Taiwan conflict would be an “emergency” for Japan and Taro Aso suggested Japan could join Taiwan’s defence — but it strongly supports the “counterstrike” capability in case Japan comes under fire.

Still, the yearning for peace in Japan, ingrained since the wartime US firebombing and atomic attacks on its cities, will act as a political brake on rearmament and assertive power play. Despite the belligerent drift in Chinese security policy since 2012 under Xi Jinping, the notion of an underlying Asian affinity also remains.

That notion last surfaced in 2009 when a splinter of the Liberal Democratic Party called the Democratic Party of Japan, led by former LDP politician Yukio Hatoyama, swept into power, interrupting near-unbroken LDP rule since the end of the Allied occupation in 1952. The foreign policies of the incoming government so concerned Washington that US secretary of state Hillary Clinton handed Japan policy to the Pentagon. (One of the authors of “Asia’s Future at a Crossroads,” Kiyoshi Sugawa, was an adviser in the Democratic Party government.)

Three years later, with the Democratic Party in disarray, the LDP was back under Shinzo Abe, who set about turning Japan into a militarily “normal” state.

Yet the LDP’s Kishida has gone part of the way in the direction proposed in “Asia’s Future at a Crossroads” by rescuing Japan’s relations with Seoul from the plunge under Shinzo Abe over South Korean grievances dating from Japan’s 1910–45 annexation of that country. Helped by South Korea’s election last year of a more conservative president, Yoon Suk Yeol, and stepped-up missile testing and nuclear threats by North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, Kishida has developed a warmer partnership on several fronts, including defence.

In June, he also announced plans to expand staff in Japan’s foreign ministry to 8000 by 2030, a 20 per cent increase on current levels, in order to step up Japan’s engagement with the world, especially Asia, and counter China’s influence. While most reporting focused on China’s 7 per cent increase in defence spending this year, Beijing also said it was spending 12.2 per cent more on its diplomacy.

In Australia, meanwhile, the military brass section still dominates the foreign policy orchestra. The latest formal talks between Australian and US foreign and defence ministers, in Brisbane on 28–29 July, will have pleased China hawks and made critics of the alliance drift grind their teeth. In the background, some 30,000 American, Australian and allied defence personnel were engaged in the biannual Talisman Sabre war games.

Australia will be hosting more US forces, manufacturing missiles for both countries in two years, somehow getting hold of its US nuclear submarines despite problems in the US Congress, and — mentioned only vaguely — becoming more deeply involved in US space warfare capability. Albanese is out to pre-empt any criticism at the upcoming Australian Labor Party national conference in Brisbane.

The growing closeness to Washington has so far earned Labor no evident traction in getting WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange free of US efforts to extradite and charge him under its espionage law.

Some sign of a resurgence in the influence of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade came in April, when the government’s Defence Strategic Review recommended that it “be appropriately resourced to lead a nationally determined and strategically directed whole-of-government statecraft effort in the Indo-Pacific.” And glimmers of Foreign Affairs influence were evident when Albanese stressed the importance of diplomacy as well as deterrence and the need for “guardrails” to avoid conflict, and praised Biden for talking to China, at the annual Shangri-la Dialogue in Singapore in early June.

But Foreign Affairs still seems undernourished for a more central role. A departmental spokesperson tells me that “work is under way across agencies to implement the government’s response to the Defence Strategic Review,” but evidence Foreign Affairs is still a supporting act to Defence can be seen in one of its latest budget allocations: $52.7 million over two years from 2023–24 “to provide international policy advice and diplomatic support for the nuclear-powered submarine program.”

The sophisticated debate in Japan and India’s ambivalence about deeper military ties under the Quad (including its late withdrawal from the Talisman Sabre exercise) indicates the department has much work to do in guiding its political masters around this complicated region. And if Donald Trump does return to the White House, the idea of Japan, India and Australia using the Quad to handle America might not be so far-fetched. •

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With its focus on domestic politics, Netflix’s new hit series Wave Makers is a reminder that Taiwan is something more than a flashpoint. It’s a lively democracy dealing with a familiar range of modern problems. The series is a mini West Wing, Taiwan-style, with a #MeToo story at its heart — and, in a remarkable case of art informing life, it has made #MeToo an actual domestic political issue. At a moment of high tensions in the Taiwan Strait, this is the issue making news.

Wave Makers is one of several Taiwanese productions from the Netflix stable available in Australia. Internationally, Taiwanese television drama is less popular than Korean, but this series is rating well. Strong performances from a star-studded cast do credit to a script written by two women (Chien Li-ying and Yen Shih-chi) who have real-life experience of party politics.

The series follows media staffers of an out-of-office political party as they deal with political graft, the status of migrants, marriage equality, the death penalty and other politically sensitive issues through ten months of an election campaign. But the political becomes personal when a #MeToo story emerges, slowly becomes the dominant thread, and changes the course of the election.

Reviewers have remarked on the absence from the series of any mention of cross-strait relations, the elephant in the room of East Asian politics. In fact, this elephant is not easily bypassed. Banned in the People’s Republic of China, “harmonised” (censored, that is) on Douban, the main Chinese website for entertainment and culture, the series has inevitably ended up in the cross-strait space.

As an exercise in soft power, Wave Makers functions like Taiwan’s planned porcupine defence, covering “a large number of small things” instead of one big one. Chat on the mainland microblog site Weibo shows that viewers in China, breaching the great firewall to watch the series, are fascinated by the multifaceted portrayal of a thriving Chinese-speaking democracy.

In Taiwan itself, the series has gone to air at a sensitive time in the political cycle. Campaigning is under way for the presidential election on 13 January next year, and so far it’s a men’s race. The redoubtable President Tsai Ing-wen is coming to the end of her second term of office and (unlike her counterpart in China) is stepping down in accordance with the constitution. Her successor may be vice-president Lai Ching-te, whose election would extend the tenure of the Democratic Progressive Party, or DPP, into a third term. With Hou Yu-ih, the candidate for the old establishment KMT party, performing poorly in the polls, Lai’s main competitor looks like being a former mayor of Taipei, Ko Wen-je, who founded the Taiwan People’s Party in 2019.

As if they didn’t have enough to worry about (opinion polls, economic contraction, Chinese fighter jets, Russian frigates), these men are now likely to be reviewing their personal histories.

The #MeToo story in Wave Makers is firmly located in the political world. As early as episode two, rookie staffer Chang Ya-ching is having to deal with the office sleaze. An internal hearing leads nowhere: sexual harassment within the party is too delicate an issue to handle in the course of an election campaign.

As it happens, Ya-ching is also suffering at the hands of her former lover, who is running for election as vice-president on the other party ticket. Handsome, sophisticated and predatory, the aspirational VP has in his possession intimate photos of Ya-ching that he is refusing either to return or to destroy. A sensitive performance by twenty-five-year-old Gingle Wang shows a younger, happier Ya-ching in flashback, falling in love and embarking on a disastrous relationship that blights her job prospects and destroys her peace of mind.

The series reaches its climax with her revelation of the abuse on public television, the inevitable impact on her former lover’s family, and the eventual reverberations for the presidential campaign. Australians who watched Rachelle Miller’s exposé on Four Corners of her treatment at the hands of MP Alan Tudge will be struck by the parallel.

In Taiwan, the series was triggering. Among those who watched it was a former staffer for the DPP. “The first thing that happened,” she later related, was that she had “a good, big cry.” The next was that she went on Facebook to report on her own experience of sexual harassment at work.

Soon afterwards, a second female party worker came forward with an allegation of harassment by a fellow staffer. DPP youth affairs department head Tsai Mu-lin was criticised in both cases; according to the second complainant, he had not only failed to take her accusation seriously but had forced her to apologise.

The DPP moved swiftly to repair its reputation, holding a press conference on the afternoon of 2 June, issuing apologies and forcing resignations, including Tsai Mu-lin’s. But the damage had been done. One website began keeping a running tally of complaints after the style of Covid statistics. In the space of two weeks more than thirty women from various spheres had come forward with complaints. In China, where the DPP is synonymous with abandonment of One China policy, the official media greeted the party’s discomfit with schadenfreude.

What initially looked like a DPP problem quickly turned out to be a general one. A sexual harassment case was already running against a KMT legislator, and incidents involving other party members quickly came to light. Outside the political arena, the entertainment industry has been hit the hardest, with allegations of sexual abuse on the part of actors and television personalities continuing to surface at the time of writing.

Among the accused are Wave Makers star Huang Chien-wei, whose performance as the amiable head of the party’s media department and muddle-headed husband of a long-suffering wife won him hearts all over Taiwan. Prominent political dissidents of the 1989 generation have also been named, including by Wave Makers scriptwriter Chien Li-ying, who alleges that dissident poet Bei Ling groped her during a meeting about a play production.

For political parties, allegations concerning their own party members are hugely embarrassing. On 6 June, President Tsai herself went on Facebook with a strong statement on the duty of society to protect victims. The DPP is currently moving to improve legislation on sexual harassment. In both politics and the entertainment industry, resignations and apologies, and in some cases strong denials, have become frequent.

The impact on the election is hard to predict. On 30 June, at the end of a month’s wall-to-wall coverage of #MeToo, China intensified military exercises in the Taiwan Strait. The following day, Singaporean journalist Woon Wei Jong spoke with seven young Taiwanese about their voting intentions. The conversations were dominated by the cross-strait relationship and the different parties’ stance in relation to the mainland. Is #MeToo at all relevant in this context?

According to mainland emigrant Shangguan Luan, the answer is yes, although the effects are more likely to be seen in an impact on voting patterns than in #MeToo’s becoming an openly debated election issue. Among younger voters, she writes, a sensitivity to gender issues overlaps with the “naturally independent” sensibility characteristic of people born since the 1980s. This generation has grown up in an era when democracy has fostered a sense of self-determination while time has attenuated ancestral links with the mainland. The effect of #MeToo should be to hasten the drift away from the older, more conservative, and essentially more Chinese, attitudes that form the bedrock of the One China policy.

Among mainland viewers, as the same commentator remarks, responses to Wave Makers have varied from sneers about Taiwanese democracy to frank envy. The series’ themes necessarily highlight Taiwan’s political differences from the People’s Republic: the participation of women in political life at the highest levels, a multiparty system, political accountability, freedom of association, freedom of expression, and same-sex marriage (legalised in Taiwan in 2019). The #MeToo movement itself, now surging in Taiwan, has been met in China with arrests of activists instead of perpetrators. A pallid civil rights code introduced in 2022 passes responsibility for infractions ever further down the line of management.

These differences have yielded Taiwan a human rights dividend that is complicating international relations, especially vis-à-vis China. A highly self-conscious Taiwanese series like Wave Makers can hardly avoid being entangled in the resulting complex of issues. The opening scene of the series, a rally on election night, amounts to a call for recognition. The wave makers are warming up the party faithful: “You have voted for hope for Taiwan’s future!” “Let’s change Taiwan’s future together!” The crowd cheers. The name of the candidate flashes up on the screen: “Lin Yueh-chen!” The crowd roars: “Frozen garlic!”

“Frozen garlic” is a pun on the Mandarin word for “elect.” Cheeky and assertive, it captures something about Taiwan at this moment in history. If it joins the lexicon of terms banned by the Chinese government, no one will be surprised. •

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Security and defence agencies in both countries seem determined to drain any warmth from a relationship founded on a high degree of economic complementarity. In the Pacific, China’s attempts to become the security partner of small island nations have set off alarm bells; on the mainland, a vague new anti-espionage law has rattled foreign businesses. In Australia, shrill warnings continue about China’s influence-building, spying and emerging military threat, and the federal police have charged an Australian IT specialist in Shanghai under the Turnbull government’s foreign interference law.

The international setting isn’t helping. The United States and China, the two contestants for hegemony in the Western Pacific, are in the midst of a profound re-evaluation of the economic paradigms of the past forty years and how their two economies should connect.

China’s longstanding economic model, which fuelled rapid growth out of Maoist poverty, has come to the end of its road. After a decade’s reliance on construction, its domestic economy is burdened by large-scale debt and enormous numbers of empty apartments. Hopes of graduating from simple manufactures into high-tech products are threatened by American, European, Japanese and South Korean moves to retain control of the advanced semiconductors that run them.

America is abandoning the neoliberal doctrines it has followed since the Reagan era, adopting industrial policies aimed at bringing key industries back to home territory or friendly allies, chiefly through the trillions of dollars of subsidies and spending in Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. Transfers of American intellectual property and advanced equipment to China and other adversaries are under greater scrutiny.

In Australia’s case, an announcement of a Beijing visit by prime minister Anthony Albanese sometime later this year will signal that the thaw is still on. In contrast to his willingness to visit countries aligned in suspicion of China, though, Albanese is not looking at all eager.

“He doesn’t seem to have a lot of enthusiasm for this trip,” says Geoff Raby, a former Australian ambassador to China who is now a trade and business consultant in Beijing. “I’m really not sure what’s going on.”

From late last year, all the signs were that China’s leadership wanted to back away from the trade sanctions and freeze on political contacts imposed in 2020 in response to the Morrison government’s claim that Beijing was hiding the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic. China’s sharp tariff increases and other restrictions on a swathe of Australian exports — coal, barley, lobsters, copper, wine and timber — added up to about $20 billion in lost sales. Though small compared with our major exports to China (especially iron ore, which actually grew in value) the sanctions hit particular industries and regions hard.

At around the same time, a domestic national security case in China saw Chinese-Australian journalist Cheng Lei suddenly disappear from her job with Chinese state television in Beijing. She later underwent a closed-court trial for allegedly passing state secrets abroad, though no verdict or sentence has been announced. All China-based correspondents for Australian media were withdrawn by their employers for fear of arrest.

The defeat of Morrison’s government in May 2022 changed the atmosphere. Informal talks on the fringe of multilateral meetings — notably Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s encounter with Albanese at the G20 summit in Bali last November — led to foreign minister Penny Wong’s meeting with China’s senior foreign affairs minister, Wang Yi, in Beijing on 21 December. It was the first Australian ministerial visit to China in more than three years.

Steps to ease the trade sanctions soon followed. The ban on Australian coal lifted in January, with exports jumping to the point that Queensland’s budget had an unexpected surplus for the year just ending. China’s consul-general in Perth visited a major lobster fishing cooperative, suggesting that the ban would soon end. In Canberra, Chinese ambassador Xiao Qian expressed a hope that the two countries would come back to “a normal kind of relationship” and praised Albanese’s “pragmatic approach.”

Talks ensued between senior officials at Davos and elsewhere. Australia agreed to suspend its action at the World Trade Organization over the barley ban. Then, in early May, trade minister Don Farrell went to Beijing to meet his counterpart, commerce minister Wang Wentao.

A few days later, Beijing announced it would resume timber imports from Australia, with no mention of the pest infestations cited as the reason for the ban. The trade had previously been earning Australian exporters about $700 million a year.

Xiao, the ambassador, also expressed concern for the imprisoned Cheng Lei, who has not seen her children in “such a long time.” “Personally, as a Chinese ambassador to this country, I can share with you: I have my personal sympathy to her and to her family,” he said. “So based on humanitarian grounds, I have been trying, I will continue to try to do my utmost to facilitate more access, that she could have some kind of access granted to her partner and friends and families to let them know that she’s OK.”

Further steps are awaited. Australia’s ambassador in Beijing, Graham Fletcher, who was barred from attending Cheng Lei’s trial in early 2022, was able to visit her in prison recently, but detected no change in her situation. Punitive tariffs on Australian wine and the halt in the lobster trade remain. No date has been set for a visit to Australia, mooted for July, by China’s new foreign minister, Qin Gang. (Qin replaced the long-serving Wang Yi, who remains in a supervisory role as head of the Chinese Communist Party’s foreign affairs department.)

“They’ve achieved stabilisation — that’s good. Cabinet ministers are all disciplined in what they say about China — all that’s good, but I think the whole thing’s stalled in the last couple of months,” says Raby. “There’s not a lot of activity at the moment. The foreign minister’s dates haven’t been announced and July’s on us now. And they’re dicking around over the prime minister’s visit.”

But James Laurenceson, head of the Australia–China Relations Institute at the University of Technology Sydney, sees improvement, with China’s share of Australia’s trade starting to rise again after a sharp dip in the last two years and new items — electric vehicles from China and lithium ore going the other way for their batteries — gaining importance.

A new Lowy Institute poll, meanwhile, shows the Australian public’s concern about a threat from China easing, though still high and (short of sending troops) in favour of helping Taiwan defend itself. As a major threat, China has been overtaken by worries about cyber attacks from various sources.

Even if there has been a pause in the thaw, Australia’s experience still makes for quite a contrast to the state of relations between the United States and China, which US secretary of state Antony Blinken’s recent visit to Beijing to talk with Qin have barely warmed. Blinken pushed the line that Washington sought a “de-risking” of economic ties with China rather than “decoupling” and assured Qin that Washington doesn’t support Taiwan’s independence from China.

China seems not to have been mollified — and president Joe Biden’s subsequent reference to Xi Jinping as a “dictator” hasn’t helped. Chinese warships and aircraft continue to cut across US patrols through the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea. In Washington, Congress members and senators on both sides of the aisle compete in tough talk about China. The Chinese defence minister is still refusing to talk to his US counterpart, Lloyd Austin, or re-open a military-to-military hotline.

While not directly accusing China, Albanese has aligned his government with America’s assertive defence manoeuvres in the Western Pacific and its cultivation of closer strategic ties with Japan and India. But for Biden’s debt-ceiling negotiations with the Republicans, Australia would have hosted all four leaders of this Quad in Sydney immediately after the recent summit of the Group of Seven advanced economies in Hiroshima.

And, of course, Albanese has fervently adopted the AUKUS agreement forged by Morrison to equip the navy, one day, with nuclear-powered submarines capable of projecting power far from Australian shores. The agreement has drawn predictable condemnation from Beijing, though it hasn’t been an economic deal-breaker.

Perhaps China’s leaders anticipate the AUKUS deal eventually collapsing under the weight of its contradictions, as a Marxist would say. Its embassy will be keenly watching the groundswell against AUKUS in Labor branches ahead of the party’s national conference in August. More broadly, the Lowy Poll found the Australian public “somewhat” supportive of AUKUS but unsure about its rationale or benefits.

China’s willingness to overlook far-off defence postures by minor powers is evident in this week’s visit to Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin by NZ prime minister Chris Hipkins and a large business delegation. It’s only a few months since Qin, the Chinese foreign minister, blasted his NZ counterpart Nanaia Mahuta over former prime minister Jacinda Ardern’s strong warning about China’s attempts to form security partnerships in the South Pacific.

More recently, a New Zealand frigate sailed through Chinese-claimed waters in the South China Sea and was challenged by Chinese warships. But Wellington’s diplomatic deftness in recent years — not thrusting itself forward on things like the Covid investigation or security risks in Chinese telecom systems — has enabled it to keep channels open.

Australia’s hesitancy may come from the American mood playing into Canberra, Raby believes. “I think the pressure comes from the security and intelligence area in the US, through Shearer [Andrew Shearer, head of the Office of National Intelligence] and the security and defence people in Australia,” he says. “We are hobbled by these people. They don’t care if the New Zealand prime minister goes and takes a trade delegation and gets some deals. That’s not their agenda at all. Their agenda is to stay as close to the US as possible.”

Meanwhile, outside the defence–intelligence camp, other departments are working to keep up the economic momentum. Raby says talks are going on privately to extract the best advantage from a prime ministerial visit. “There is a negotiation about a package of outcomes,” he said. “And while everyone probably knows where you land, for some reason it seems to be difficult — I think on our side — to get there.”

Albanese has indicated that a complete lifting of the 2020 trade restrictions is required. He would also be hoping for resolution of Cheng Lei’s case, and preferably her release. “It would be very hard for Albanese to go without getting some concession on Cheng Lei,” says one of Canberra’s leading China specialists, who asked not to be named.

Beijing would want assurances that discrimination against Chinese foreign investment on national security grounds would be eased back from the absurd paranoia that ruled under Morrison’s government, when treasurer Josh Frydenberg blocked a Chinese company from taking over a Japanese-owned milk depot in Victoria.

In return for a resolution of Cheng Lei’s case, China would also want a promise that Australia won’t oppose its bid to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade agreement covering e-commerce and intellectual property as well as conventional goods. Taiwan’s parallel application to join the CPTPP complicates this issue.

Given the barely concealed message of much mainstream media commentary in recent years — that seeking business deals with China amounts almost to treason — Albanese won’t want to look too enthused. Despite the easing of public concern about China, the Lowy Institute poll also found that 70 per cent of respondents want Australia’s supply chains to run through friendly countries.

For economist John Edwards, this is at odds with how Australians actually behave. “Australian homes are chock-a-block with Chinese-made kitchen equipment, refrigerators and washing machines, their garden sheds with Chinese-made tools, their desks cluttered with Chinese-made phones, computers, printers and peripherals,” Edward wrote last week in the Australian Financial Review.

“We wear clothes made in China and are now beginning to buy cars made in China,” Edwards went on. “In a roundabout way, these imports are paid for with exports of iron ore, coal, lithium, and other metals and minerals, often to China. They are also paid for by revenue from Chinese students in Australia, and Chinese tourists in Australia, with China the predominant source of both.”

A vast number of imports also come from third countries like South Korea and Japan that use Chinese components for their products. Allies like Britain and the United States meanwhile account for a very small proportion of Australia’s trade. For all its talk of “friend-shoring,” the Biden administration’s main focus, subsidising semiconductor manufacture in the United States, will be at the expense of two friends, Taiwan and South Korea.

And it’s not just Australian households that are chock-a-block with Chinese goods. The difficulty of disconnecting from China was shown in an interview this month by the chief executive of the huge US defence and aerospace group Raytheon. “We can de-risk but not decouple,” Greg Hayes told the Financial Times. “Think about the US$500 billion of trade that goes from China to the US every year. More than 95 per cent of rare earth materials or metals come from, or are processed in, China. There is no alternative.”

If Raytheon were to withdraw from China it would spend many years rebuilding its supply chains either in the United States or friendly countries, Hayes said. “We are looking at de-risking, to take some of the most critical components and have second sources but we are not in a position to pull out of China the way we did out of Russia.”

Raytheon is deeply involved in Australia’s defence. It provides the combat system for the Collins-class submarines, air defence for the army and missiles for the air force, and it helps run the space warfare ground station at Exmouth, Western Australia. All, it seems, reliant on Chinese-made components — and paid for, in large part, by our exports to China. Trading with “frenemies” is the international norm. •

The post A pause in the thaw? appeared first on Inside Story.

Postwar Germany dealt openly, painfully and at length with the history of the Nazi era. After apartheid, South Africa established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission aimed at restorative justice, another harrowing but necessary process. Argentina and Chile have undergone similar processes, and so too have other countries, some with more success than others.

For the Communist Party of China, though, the most relevant, instructive — and alarming — precedent for dealing with past injustice comes from the Gorbachev years, when the Soviet leadership allowed access to historical records, including those of the Stalinist era, with its purges, labour camps, man-made famines and killings. As the Chinese communists witnessed with alarm, it was not long after glasnost and its accompanying program of political reform, perestroika, that the Eastern bloc disintegrated and the Soviet Union collapsed.

None of China’s post-Mao leaders have permitted a full and honest reckoning with the Cultural Revolution (or other inglorious episodes in the party’s past for that matter). But Xi Jinping has made it a personal mission to eliminate what he calls “historical nihilism,” which is essentially any version of history that contradicts the highly sanitised party-approved version: something something misapprehension something something counter-revolution.

This historical obfuscation has been so effective that I was once asked by a young person in Beijing whether the Cultural Revolution took place “before or after Liberation [in 1949].” Yet, as Tania Branigan puts it in Red Memory, understanding what happened in the Cultural Revolution is vital to understanding China today. It is nothing less than “a silence, a space, that [makes] sense of everything existing above or around it.”

Red Memory is one of two important new books that offer English-language readers a look at the history of that period and how it continues to affect society and politics in China today. Both Red Memory and Wang Youqin’s monumental Victims of the Cultural Revolution shift the usual focus from the pronouncements and machinations of the top leadership to the experiences of the people, inside and out the party, who were directly affected by them.

Branigan, who reported from China for the Guardian for seven years beginning in 2008, interviews survivors, victims and perpetrators, and their children, an artist who paints them and psychoanalysts who treat them. She meets people whose actions — or failures to act — led to the torment, torture and even murder of friends and family, and who must cope with that hard truth every day, and others whose lives and families were destroyed by the violence. She shows how the trauma inflicted by the Cultural Revolution was not just national and individual but intergenerational as well.

Given that it was “an age of betrayal, of political choices fuelled by fear, idolatry, adolescent rage, marital bitterness and self-preservation,” Branigan is impressed by how many “stood firm” and refused to bend under pressure. She is taken aback by those who cling to the ideas and ideals of the period, whose phones ring to the tune of the “Internationale” and who organise trips to North Korea “to admire society as it should be.”

Among Branigan’s interviewees is the author of Victims of the Cultural Revolution. Wang Youqin was fourteen when her Red Guard classmates battered their teacher to death in what would later be seen as a pivotal moment in the movement’s violent turn. She reflected in a secret diary at the time that she was powerless to change the “bad things” that were happening all around her, but she could at least record them. Wang, who counts Anne Frank and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn among her inspirations, has since moved to the United States, where she teaches university-level Chinese while continuing the documentation that has become her life’s work.

Conservative estimates place the number of unnatural deaths associated with the Cultural Revolution’s violence, including murders and suicides, at nearly two million. Most victims have never had their stories told or their sacrifices honoured. To date, Wang has interviewed more than a thousand survivors and witnesses, meticulously checking archives and other sources to corroborate their testimonies and fill in, or correct, details. Since 2000, she has been publishing the results on her Chinese-language website Chinese Cultural Revolution Holocaust Memorial. Unsurprisingly, the website is blocked on the mainland.

She has now produced from these materials the prodigious Victims of the Cultural Revolution. Superbly translated, annotated, edited and abridged by Stacey Mosher, it tells the stories of 659 people. They include famous writers and political figures as well as cooks, police, factory workers, farmers and sports coaches, among many others. But the majority are educators, from primary school teachers up through professors and university presidents. Educators were archetypal targets of the violence and students among the worst perpetrators.

The Chinese original was ordered alphabetically by name (according to Pinyin romanisation), which would have condemned the book to obscurity in English, a resource for specialists only. By working closely with Wang to reorganise the text with attention to chronology, theme and place, Mosher has helped craft a compelling and contextualised narrative that is essential reading for anyone with an interest in modern Chinese history.

One breakout from the text is a table that lists sixty-three victims from Peking University alone. The table has columns for names, gender, ages (ranging from twenty to seventy-seven), status (typist, professor, worker, librarian, canteen cashier, student, “father of legal department administrator,” equipment room manager), department (name it), Communist Party or Communist Youth League membership (which twenty had) and cause of death (beatings, leaping from heights, poison and vein cutting, shot in crossfire, hanging, lying on railway line and so on).

Wang doesn’t spare the reader the details of the physical and psychological savagery experienced by the victims. The images of the Cultural Revolution encountered by most Western readers probably include pictures of Tiananmen Square crowded with Red Guards ecstatically waving Mao’s Little Red Book, and kitschy stills from Red Detachment of Women, as well as the odd photo of a struggle session with victims kneeling on a stage wearing giant dunce caps and placards around their necks, perhaps with a Red Guard gesturing above them, belt in hand. Wang tells us how heavy those caps were, and how some people were whipped so fiercely with the belts that their shredded clothing was embedded in their broken flesh.

Woven throughout these stories of terror, moral plight and violence are Wang’s astute observations and analyses, personal stories from her meetings with witnesses and survivors, and comparisons both with other repressive historical eras in Chinese history and with the Stalinist purges and the Khmer Rouge’s killing fields.

She shows that both Mao and premier Zhou Enlai (generally seen as a mitigator of the movement’s worst excesses) knew, often in significant detail, about specific acts of violence. Their enthusiastic support for the Red Guards meant that the murders, especially on campuses, “were carried out with great fanfare and were considered meritorious and honourable.” They received appeals from some victims, and occasionally intervened on their behalf; but Mao ignored a personal appeal from Li Da, the president of Wuhan University who, along with Mao, was one of the dozen or so founding members of the Communist Party. The seventy-six-year-old was “struggled” outdoors multiple times in the furnace heat of Wuhan’s summer, soon after which he collapsed and died.

Wang writes of how her immersion in these tragic stories has affected her. She admits that friends supportive of her work worry about her mental health. Yet “now that I’ve started,” she writes, “I have to continue, even if it tears at my soul like a wire brush.”

Strikingly, the longer biographies in Victims often include the victim’s role in the many political campaigns from the early 1950s onwards: some were victimised again and again. Others were former models of official thought reform, and even participated in the persecution of “class enemies” or “counter-revolutionaries,” never dreaming that they would one day find themselves so accused. “People who helped build the machinery of persecution,” Wang observes, “risked being crushed alive by that very machine.”

As for those who, under torture or threat, made false confessions or incriminated others, she comments: “It is futile to hope for people to be impervious to gun and knife; the best we can do is glean some kind of truth from history and use it to establish a system under which human flesh is no longer obliged to withstand the cold, hard steel of autocracy.” •

Red Memory: Living, Remembering and Forgetting China’s Cultural Revolution
By Tania Branigan | Faber | $32.99 | 304 pages

Victims of the Cultural Revolution: Testimonies of China’s Tragedy
By Youqin Wang | Oneworld Academic | £50 | 592 pages

The post The silence that makes sense of modern China appeared first on Inside Story.

That the two officials — diplomat Nick Warner and former army officer Paul Symon — had gone on to head the Australian Secret Intelligence Service was a twist Sogavare must have noticed. Warner and Symon might have had close knowledge of the Solomons, and of Sogavare himself, but their ASIS links were also a reminder that Canberra could act behind the scenes if it wanted.

Which is what it did. Australian intelligence leaked the text of the Solomons–China security pact to Sogavare’s most feared domestic rival, Daniel Suidani, premier of the populous island of Malaita. Suidani, who had fallen out with Sogavare when the latter switched diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to Beijing in 2019, had continued to deal with Taipei and talked of possible secession.

Jawboning by Scott Morrison and Joe Biden’s administration had persuaded Sogavare to disavow any intent to allow Chinese military bases. Yet he went ahead and signed the security pact anyway.

In response to the leak, Sogavare’s critics in the national parliament moved a vote of no-confidence. It failed amid allegations that Chinese interests had bribed MPs to support the prime minister. Mobs opposed to the deal looted and burned large parts of Honiara, including its thriving Chinatown. Australia and New Zealand sent in police and soldiers. Australia and China then competed to supply weapons and vehicles to the Royal Solomon Islands Police. (The country of 700,000 has no military.)

Meanwhile, an attempt by Beijing to broaden its foothold turned into a debacle. Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi stormed a Pacific Islands Forum session in Fiji offering a broad security pact with the ten island states that recognise Beijing. He was rebuffed for trying to pre-empt the extensive consultation that such regional initiatives require.

The crisis was over. But strategic rivalry simmers. Last year, thirty-three Solomons police officers went to China for extended training. Just before Anthony Albanese visited Port Moresby in January to cajole PNG’s James Marape into a bilateral security treaty and announce expanded seasonal worker places, Beijing gave the PNG defence force a new hospital. The United States might have reopened its embassy in Honiara, but when Sogavare hosts the South Pacific Games in a new Chinese-built stadium this November, a VIP from Beijing will no doubt be guest of honour.

In Australia, meanwhile, the perceived Chinese threat in the Pacific has created a school of academic and think-tank study. As Michael Wesley observes in the superb first chapter of his new history of RAMSI, Helpem Fren: Australia and the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands, Australia’s worries tap into an old seam. Denial of the Pacific to anti-Western interests is “arguably the foundational imperative of Australian international policy,” Wesley argues. Hence the “disproportional reactions” when Pacific states court deals with potentially hostile interests, which have included the Soviet Union, Gaddafi’s Libya and Chavez’s Venezuela.

At such moments, Canberra is wont to call on its imperial friends, the British and now the Americans, to do the heavy lifting in defence and aid. “Australia’s engagement with the Pacific is a story of passion outstripping actions, of ambitions outstripping abilities,” Wesley writes. “It is a record of long stretches of lassitude and inattention punctuated by intense periods of concern and engagement.”

If pieces like David Kilcullen’s essay in the latest edition of Australian Foreign Affairs can get a run then we are in one of those intense periods. Stepping outside his usual field of counterinsurgency, Kilcullen makes much of China’s vaunted but largely untested claims to have “carrier-busting” steerable ballistic missiles, and conjures up a Chinese thrust down through the Pacific like that of Japan in 1942, using island missile bases to cut us off from America.

Why it would want to do this is unfathomable. Unlike Japan at that time, China has all the petroleum and strategic minerals it wants from willing sellers like Australia. Its military focus is on securing the South China Sea for its ballistic missile submarine force and keeping up pressure on Taiwan. Forces projected into the South Pacific would be sitting ducks. But, says Kilcullen, don’t look at intent, look at capabilities. By this measure, I’d add, India is also a threat.

Rory Medcalf, who heads the spook school known as the National Security College at the Australian National University, accepts China’s “neo-colonial ambitions” in the Pacific as a given, but is more nuanced. A Chinese military base would be a direct threat, he says. “But even absent that scenario, the prospect of a Pacific island government turning to the guns and truncheons of a one-party nationalist megastate to supress domestic dissent is confronting.”

Again unconsciously tapping into the buck-passing tradition traced by Wesley, he sees Australia acting as a “guide and an informal coordinator” for powers in Europe, North America and Asia “poised to help the Pacific cope with China’s disruptive power.” But he also has to acknowledge that the “Indo-Pacific” perspective of which he has been a leading proponent can be seen by Pacific islanders as diluting their regional identity and demanding they take America’s side against China.

On that score, there have been no takers. As Wesley remarked at the launch of his book, the attitude of Pacific governments to Chinese aid and investment is “bring it on.” The region has never had so much aid from, and access to, Australia and other US-aligned powers.

Peter Connolly, a recently retired Australian army colonel who recently finished an ANU doctorate on China in Melanesia, shows in his Australian Foreign Affairs essay, “Grand Strategy,” just how flexible, resourced and patient China’s approach to the region is becoming. The last few years have seen a leap in the quality of its diplomats posted to Melanesian capitals: two senior colonels of the People’s Liberation Army intelligence branch became defence attachés in Port Moresby and Suva in 2020; elsewhere, in countries without militaries, senior police officers are posted as liaison officers.

Senior colonel Zhang Xiaojiang found the PNG defence force less open to cultivation, so he has concentrated on the under-resourced Royal PNG Constabulary, upgrading its CCTV surveillance in Port Moresby, funding a new medical clinic and sending in riot-control equipment ahead of last year’s elections. “By sensing gaps and enquiring about needs he gradually discovered ways to develop appreciation for the PRC” — the People’s Republic of China — “and appeared to learn from PNG’s traditional partners in the process,” Connolly writes.

Police forces across Melanesia certainly have plenty of resource gaps. By focusing on a Chinese military threat that seems quite improbable, our security watchdogs are barking up the wrong tree, ignoring the real security issues facing Pacific islanders, particularly in Melanesia.

Only in Fiji do the police have anything like the numbers widely seen as appropriate to population: some 3000 officers for 900,000 people. And it was there, during Frank Bainimarama’s recently ended prime ministership, that the police became an instrument of political repression without much Chinese assistance.

Solomon Islands has 1150 police for its 736,000 population, and PNG only 7300 (including reserves) for a population generally put somewhere around ten million. The PNG force has hardly grown since independence in 1975, while the population has trebled.

Few citizens rely on the PNG police for help. If they do, they must pay, ostensibly for fuel and other call-out expenses but also with an element of straight-out bribery. The police can be brutal, corrupt and under-trained. Often, they act as guns for hire used by loggers and other commercial interests to repress local communities. It’s for these reasons that citizens report crime and conflict to traditional elders, pastors in their church or neighbourhood committees in urban settlements.

A recent study for the PNG-Australia Policing Partnership, a forum for the police leadership in both countries, urged a doubling of PNG police numbers, an annual budget lift of around $51 million and a one-off injection of $1.6 billion to provide the resources the force needs to do its job.

Sinclair Dinnen, a long-term ANU-based scholar of the region’s crime and security, doubts this is the answer. “The police have to be better looked after,” he tells me after his recent field trip to PNG. “But in some ways there’s an argument for having a small, well looked after, professional force who have enough fuel and access to transport, who are skilled up in investigations and doing the policing kind of thing.”

At grassroots level, Dinnen sees another tier of security modelled on the “community auxiliary police” New Zealand has been funding in Bougainville since the end of the civil war there two decades ago. The island has only three police stations, often unmanned. The auxiliary police, drawn from communities, are often better educated than the regular police; in consultation with local chiefs, they deal with less serious crimes.

In some parts of PNG, Dinnen concedes, restoring law and order requires more than this hybrid model. He points to regions like Hela and Enga, where winners and losers emerge from large-scale resource projects and rivals fight it out with military-grade firearms. “You get what are low levels of insurgency, in fact,” he says. “And no police force should be expected to deal with that.”

Wesley’s book shows us that RAMSI strayed into this field of community policing for a while. After the initial success in restoring peace, “a cultural divide between modes of policing, which came to be seen as ‘Western’ versus ‘Pacific’ ways, began to open up,” he writes. Australian and New Zealand officers were seen as enforcement-oriented and aloof. Police from the Pacific islands invested time and effort in building links to local communities, taking care to respect cultural and religious values and acknowledge traditional leadership structures.

The islands police “understood the importance of sharing food, attending church, and working with traditional kastom processes to help resolve disputes,” writes Wesley. With police likely to be underfunded once RAMSI packed up, it was a good model. But for reasons Wesley doesn’t explain the pilot scheme’s funding ended after five years; presumably the scheme was beyond Canberra’s comprehension.

Wesley, who was deputy director of the Office of National Assessments at the time, sees an unusual confluence in the circumstances that gave birth to RAMSI. The Solomons government was on its knees and bankrupt; John Howard was flush with his accidental success in East Timor; and, with the disaster of Iraq still to become apparent, it was the high-water mark of muscular Western nation-rebuilding intervention.

It is hard now to think of any government that would allow large numbers of foreign police and finance officials — with legal immunity, investigative and arrest powers, and tax-free status — to handle a country’s security.

For all the diplomatic nuances used to gain regional cover for Australia’s intervention and the initial restoration of civil order, though, RAMSI gradually ran out of steam as local politicos reasserted their role as distributors of state resources. Within five years of RAMSI’s departure, Australia was again sending in riot police and soldiers to quell unrest and providing more lethal firearms to local police.

Now, Canberra’s focus is elsewhere, as it orders longer-range anti-ship and land-attack missiles to fend off the perceived threat of an attack by China. The Australian Federal Police has set up a new Pacific branch directed at border security and drug smuggling — our problems — rather than nurturing models of policing that suit Pacific communities. Dinnen, for one, suggests Canberra needs to cool it. “Sogavare is not going to be there forever, and in Honiara and PNG below the elite level there’s a lot of anti-Chinese racism that breaks out in urban areas.”

In her essay in the latest Australian Foreign Affairs, Solomons journalist Dorothy Wickham cites community-level fears of where the Chinese embrace might take the government. But she also points out that islanders’ everyday contact is less with Australians than with Chinese people: “Australians are here as aid workers, diplomats and police, but they are not mixing with local people.” With thousands of young islanders getting involved with the Pacific labour schemes in Australia and New Zealand, a new familiarity and affection is possible — as long as abuses are seen to be punished.

As for geopolitical rivalries, “the Solomon Islands government should try to get what it can from foreign powers,” Wickham writes. “But we need to choose those things with long-term benefits in mind. We should be careful what we wish for.” •

Helpem Fren: Australia and the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands
By Michael Wesley | Melbourne University Press | $39.99 | 310 pages

Girt by China: Power Play in the Pacific
Australian Foreign Affairs | Issue 17, February 2023 | $24.99 | 128 pages

The post Ambiguous embrace appeared first on Inside Story.

As Dan Slater and Joseph Wong remind us in their new book, Development to Democracy: The Transformations of Modern Asia, authoritarianism also tends to die not with a bang but with a whimper. They set out to understand the political effects of economic transformations in Asian countries where state-building and rapid economic modernisation have been the mutually reinforcing goals of government.

This “developmental Asia,” as the authors call it, has borders that are stark but porous: no South Asian government has driven capitalist industrialisation seriously enough to be considered part of it, but former laggards like China, Vietnam and Myanmar have been able to enter after socialist economics proved a dead end.

The starting point of Development to Democracy is the observation that democratisation in developmental Asia has not been prompted by a perception among authoritarian elites that their regime faces a revolutionary threat or a looming collapse. Rather, these elites have developed a “well-founded expectation of continued stability and even continued outright victory after democratisation takes place.”

The epitome of “democratisation through strength,” as Slater and Wong call this process, was Taiwan’s transition from one-party rule in the 1980s and 1990s. Facing rising demands for reform from civil society, a growing Taiwanese-nationalist opposition and the end of the cold war, the ruling Kuomintang lifted martial law and introduced contested elections. The gamble paid off not just for Taiwan’s people — who today enjoy the highest-quality democracy in Asia — but also for the Kuomintang itself, which now forms half of a stable two-party system alongside the Democratic Progressive Party, which has its roots in the opposition movement of the 1980s.

What we should want, Slater and Wong imply, is for authoritarian regimes to act like the Kuomintang or its contemporaries in South Korea: concede from a position of strength, just past the apex of their power and popularity, giving the regime’s legatees the opportunity to compete in free and fair elections by boasting they not only made the country rich but also made it free.

Democratisation through strength is Asia’s signal contribution to the global political landscape, having given birth to robust liberal democracies in Japan, Taiwan and South Korea, and to a flawed but stable electoral democracy in Indonesia. Yet it also produced failed experiments with democracy in Thailand and Myanmar, and has been resisted in Singapore, China, Indochina and — until only recently — Malaysia.

Despite the book’s concern with the relationship between economic development and democratisation, Slater and Wong aren’t offering warmed-over modernisation theory: the puzzle they seek to explain is why “levels of economic development are not clearly correlated with levels of democracy in developmental Asia.”

In theory, the legacies of authoritarian developmentalism make it safe for regimes to concede democratic reforms. Having transformed the living standards of the average voter, these regimes believe that their popular legitimacy will transfer to their own party or its successor(s) in free and fair elections. The poverty reduction and social safety nets they initiated — as well as their repression of the left — means that they need not worry about distributive conflicts spiralling out of control once democracy arrives.

This “victory confidence” and “stability confidence,” per the book’s shorthand, are needed for regimes to democratise, but they don’t on their own provide the impetus for reform. Instead, Slater and Wong emphasise the contingencies that come into play when pressures for reform from below interact with the regime’s perceptions of its own strength.

Reform pressures can come in many forms, and can come simultaneously. A regime can be confronted with signals of declining legitimacy, including gains by opposition parties in stage-managed elections, the defection of middle-class groups to anti-regime movements, or nudges from democratic security benefactors (essentially, the United States).

As the case of Malaysia shows, a regime’s ability to read the signs of its incipient decline makes all the difference to its capacity to engineer a transition to democracy on its own terms. In 1998, seventeen years into his economically successful twenty-three-year stint as prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad chose to repress rather than accommodate the reformasi movement that emerged after he sacked and prosecuted his politically ambitious finance minister Anwar Ibrahim amid a dispute over the Asian financial crisis.

Mahathir’s party, UMNO, endured as the cornerstone of the Barisan Nasional government for another twenty years, but electoral gerrymandering masked a gradual erosion in its popularity. The party’s decay reached its terminus in the extravagantly corrupt prime ministership of Najib Razak, who oversaw Barisan Nasional’s first-ever election loss in 2018. The victor in that election was an opposition coalition led by Mahathir, who’d become embittered in his retirement. Najib is in jail, and after a thrashing in last November’s general election the party has been reduced to a supporting act in a coalition government led by none other than Anwar Ibrahim.

Singapore — the place where modernisation theory goes to die — could go either way. The People’s Action Party, or PAP, is exceptionally well equipped to anticipate the signs of decline and position itself to thrive in a democratic system. It has a luminous track record of economic development and competent governance. Tightly controlled elections and grassroots “consultation” processes give it regular health checks on its popular support.

But the PAP reckons those feedback mechanisms haven’t set off enough alarm bells to incentivise it to embrace reforms. Slater and Wong suggest the PAP is taking a risky path: the slump in its vote in the 2020 general election might be written off as a pandemic-era aberration, but if the government underperforms in polls due by 2025 — by which time a leadership transition is also due — the PAP will be at a fork in the road: democratise from a position of dominance or risk going down the UMNO route.

China has a quite different set of problems. Conceding to demands for political reform in 1989 would have represented what Wong and Slater call “democracy through weakness” — the precipitous collapse of an authoritarian regime — to a degree never before witnessed in developmental Asia. With China’s turn to capitalism having yet to generate broad-based prosperity, and the traumas of the Mao era still fresh in elites’ memories, a fragmented and poorly institutionalised Communist Party regime couldn’t be confident of maintaining power or stability in a more competitive system. Too weak to concede, it cracked down violently.

The tragedy of today’s China, by contrast, is that the regime has become too good at repressing dissent to receive reliable signs that its own legitimacy, and political stability more broadly, would be better served by conceding reforms. Without even the ersatz electoral processes that marked East Asia’s other developmental authoritarian regimes, or their conditional tolerance of liberal civil society, Xi Jinping’s party-state is trapped in a black box of its own making, so paranoid about its hold on power that it can’t tell the difference between politically innocuous forms of civic activity and bona fide threats to its rule.

The idea of democracy as something vouchsafed by self-interested elites doesn’t readily gel with our more romantic ideas about how political freedom is won. The notion that democracy can be fortified by the socioeconomic legacies of dictatorship can be hard to swallow, too. But Slater and Wong’s work is part of a growing body of scholarship that analyses democracy not as the outcome of a zero-sum contest between authoritarian incumbents and “people power” movements but as a product of intra-elite pacts.

Slater and Wong’s book doesn’t break new ground in terms of fresh interviews or archival research. It’s a drawing together of their own and other scholars’ work into a big-picture framework for understanding the political economy of democratisation in East Asia — one that is compelling in its analysis and thought-provoking in its implications for how governments and civil society can support democracy across the world.

Fitting democratisation ­— an intrinsically complex and contingent process — into one neat explanatory framework has its risks, of course. While Slater and Wong stress the critical role that popular pressures put on regimes in developmental Asia to reform political systems, I suspect that some country experts and scholars of social movements will feel that they overstate how much room for manoeuvre Asia’s authoritarians actually had once pressure for reform grew.

Even in the exemplary cases of Taiwan and South Korea, sustained popular protest presented elites with the choice between reform or a campaign of repression that may well have triggered greater unrest. Different observers look at the same set of facts and ask: did these regimes jump, or were they pushed?

And for a work so explicitly grounded in theories of the relationship between socioeconomic and political change, I was surprised by the minimal discussion of the ambiguous role middle classes have played in both demanding democracy and sustaining it after experiments in “democratisation through strength” are launched. Witness the highly problematic role of Thailand’s middle classes in its post-Thaksin politics, or how Indonesia’s intra-middle-class culture wars are eroding the quality of democracy there.

Slater and Wong could have enriched their analysis with more serious consideration of how popular preferences and agency augment the elite machinations they examine. After all, the middle class needs “victory confidence” and “stability confidence” too.

Yet my familiarity with Indonesia predisposes me to agree with Slater and Wong’s emphasis on the self-interested calculations of elites as a decisive factor in the emergence of durable democracies. While profound political change in Indonesia was almost inevitable once protests and riots threatened to make the country ungovernable by May 1998, the experiment with democratic reforms in the years thereafter was an “inside job” overseen by New Order holdovers. Slater and Wong are on solid ground when they observe that Indonesian democracy has survived against the odds in no small part because the old regime’s elites were assured of their ability to thrive in the new system.

But as Thailand and Myanmar make clear, democratisation through strength is a “reversible experiment” that doesn’t always bear fruit for those running it. Attempts to democratise through strength collapsed in Thailand (after Thaksin) and in Myanmar (after the National League for Democracy’s landslide election victories) because the conservatives who oversaw liberalisation realised they couldn’t effectively compete in the new system.

So what do we do with the insight that an essential precondition for democracy to take root in Asia has been authoritarian elites’ belief that democratisation won’t spell their political obsolescence?

Slater and Wong aren’t shy about taking their arguments to their logical conclusions. As they acknowledge, “one way to interpret the argument and evidence offered in this book is that democracy should only be pursued through strength.” They reject that sweeping idea, noting that it is possible for durable democracy to be born of people power movements.

Yet evidence from developmental Asia suggests that, on the probabilities, “by laying a stronger foundation for eventual stable democratic transition, gradual authoritarian strengthening is generally a preferable outcome to sudden and total authoritarian collapse” and the often-brittle democracies that emerge from the ashes.

For this reason, “we” — presumably, Western academics and policymakers — “should be looking at authoritarian regimes through lenses other than the standard lens of ‘democracy promotion.’” Instead, “authoritarian regimes that make genuine collective efforts to promote economic development, improve popular welfare, and build more predictable and durable political institutions should be offered the international community’s conditional encouragement rather than unrelenting pressure.”

As Asia feels the chill of a new cold war, it’s perhaps apt that Slater and Wong strike a retro note about the importance of encouraging state-building and development and hoping that, with a bit of luck, democracy might emerge as a side-effect. But their prescription seems oddly less relevant to Asia than to other parts of the world; indeed, it probably already describes what Western governments are doing in the region. Western aid programs and private foundations might still pay the bills for liberal civil society across developing Asia — supporting the “demand side” of the democratisation equation — but when it comes to top-level government engagement, Western policy already reflects the realpolitik that competition for influence with China demands of them.

Slater and Wong are less explicit about what their arguments offer to opposition parties and civil society. But the implication is that any struggle for change ought to prioritise reassuring authoritarian elites about their prospects in a democratic system. Perhaps one of this book’s most important contributions is to leave us with the unanswered question of how movements for democracy might thread that particular needle. •

From Development to Democracy: The Transformations of Modern Asia
By Dan Slater and Joseph Wong | Princeton University Press | $62.99 | 368 pages

The post Dictating democratisation appeared first on Inside Story.

Beijing has also raised the tone of its rhetoric on the unification of Taiwan with the mainland. But this move, if it ever came about, would be more likely to exacerbate China’s problems for years, if not decades, rather than solve them. Bali marked Chinese re-entry into the world while revealing the uncertainties that could undermine it.

China did make the most of its G20 presence. Unmasked and confident, Xi Jinping held court, giving or withholding favour from leaders eager to be seen with him. There was little doubt that he would meet Joe Biden, but other leaders seemed to compete for invitations. Emmanuel Macron and Anthony Albanese were invited in, with the latter’s visit seen as a sign of thaw in the icy relationship between Canberra and Beijing.

Others, including Britain’s Rishi Sunak, were not given a meeting, though it’s unclear whether the planned bilateral with Sunak fell victim to the erroneous report that Russia had bombed Poland, or Chinese anger at Sunak suggesting support for Taiwan.

Yet the demonstration of power by Xi belied the seeming hesitancy in Beijing about China’s international strategy. The years of the pandemic saw not only US–China relations entering a period of deep freeze, but also a general lowering of favourability for China in the Global North, in particular in the Anglophone countries. The Global South remained overall friendlier, but it was hard to avoid the impression that it was Chinese Belt and Road funding, not values, that kept them enthusiastic.

And all this was before the dramatic turn in Covid policy that followed mass protests in China in early December. China’s domestic woes, notably a weak economy, are not terminal but they are undoubtedly serious. And solving them is dependent on a clearer sense of where China’s international relations are going.

The Bali meeting did show the US and China speaking in a civilised manner. After the ill-tempered encounter between the two sides in Anchorage, Alaska, in 2021, the polite language on both sides about mutual respect and cooperation was a welcome shift.

Biden was fortunate the G20 took place just after midterm elections in which his Democratic Party did surprisingly well: Chinese analysts follow US politics almost as avidly as Westminster Americaphiles, and it’s likely that the Chinese (rather like the Republicans) were expecting a Democratic rout and a weakened Biden arriving in Bali. In fact, the results left the US president chipper, and the Chinese side less able to lament the supposed continuing slide of the US towards fascism.

However, the meeting also showed that American leadership continues to be tempered by its partners’ varying priorities on China. In Europe, it’s evident that German chancellor Olaf Scholz is uncomfortable with the idea of a Western decoupling from China. His recent trip to Beijing, accompanied by top German business executives, emphasised that point. Even within Germany, there is unease at his position: the Greens in particular have been prominent in demanding a tougher position on China, and at least one senior politician, Reinhard Bütikofer, has been sanctioned by China.

To American complaints, however, Scholz can point out that a range of US corporate majors, from Ford to Coca-Cola, still have a major presence in China. Beijing is quite aware of the power of the China market for at least some Europeans. Xi will understand that there is no prospect of Europe staying neutral between the United States and China, and that the European Union as a whole has moved away from the idea of China as simply an economic partner, regarding it as a competitor in areas ranging from trade to security. Yet he also sees opportunities to remind the continent that simply following the US line is not the only option.

There is one European power that China has yet to figure out: Britain. That the scheduled bilateral between Sunak and Xi did not take place might have come as something of a relief to London (as did the avoidance of a Justin Trudeau–style drive-by tongue-lashing; the Canadian prime minister appeared caught by surprise when Xi harangued him about supposedly leaking a private conversation). Britain’s China policy has been in flux. Under Boris Johnson, it was balanced between the desire to find a post-Brexit market and the desire to respond to growing security (Huawei) and human rights (Hong Kong) concerns.

During Liz Truss’s brief ascendancy, there were moves to declare China as a whole as a “threat.” Sunak’s first major foreign policy speech has declared that the UK will display “robust pragmatism,” a capacious term that seems to indicate a desire to keep trade relations plausible while acknowledging that stronger national security measures are likely in areas such as high-tech scientific collaboration.

Beijing’s hopes, post-Brexit, that Britain would be a vulnerable actor potentially open to a deal with China have faded. But, overall, the perception remains strong in China that Britain is still in flux on its long-term commitment to the Asia-Pacific.

The presence of the G20 in Bali also flagged up another area where US power has become patchier: Southeast Asia. Indonesian president Joko Widodo pointedly appealed to both sides to avoid a new “cold war.”

Overall, the region’s powers have a growing sense of resentment that they are being forced to choose sides, as Beijing and Washington raise the temperature of their language against each other. They are wary of the growing strength of China’s navy, particularly in the disputed South China Sea.

As a result, the news of the AUKUS submarine collaboration between Australia, Britain and the United States in 2021 led to muted reactions in the region, with some concern that the delicate regional balance might be disturbed but also some satisfaction that the United States continued to show commitment to security there.

Yet the Bali meeting also showed up the major absence in the US proposition for the region: an unwillingness to acknowledge the centrality of China’s massive economic presence in Asia. The US security presence still lacks an accompanying economic story (or indeed, an acknowledgement that economics and security are aspects of the same issue regarding China). The US Asia-Pacific Economic Plan is abstract, and does not make up for the link that went missing in 2017, when the newly inaugurated Donald Trump pulled the United States fully out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Nor is there any realistic prospect of the United States joining its successor, the CPTPP (Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership): Britain is currently more likely to join. The flaws of these two agreements are many, but that is beside the point. Instead, while the United States is only partially embedded in the network of trade relationships that marks the Asia-Pacific region (primarily through APEC, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum established in 1989), China currently sits in all the major groupings except for the CPTPP and is currently applying to join the latter as well.

The United States has been more successful at passing legislation that will hold China back (notably, the CHIPS act that denies China access to advanced technology) than shaping a new model of political economy for the region.

Two issues hung over the US–China relationship as the Bali meeting unfolded: Ukraine and Covid. Ukraine presents the United States with a dilemma: how best to deal with the tacit support China gives Russia while not provoking Beijing into anything like a full alliance with Moscow.

The danger of such an alliance has receded; Putin did not attend the G20, his foreign minister Sergei Lavrov made only a brief visit, and overall Xi has given little indication that he wants any deeper connection with the war. China does benefit from cheap fossil fuels from Russia and enjoys greater leverage that will enable it to pressure Russia in areas where China has special interests, such as Central Asia, or growing new interests, such as the Arctic.

However, China has hedged its bets by making it clear that it remains neutral, rather than officially supportive of Russia, at the United Nations. Nor is China’s hand entirely free. There is more caution in Chinese elite circles about the closeness to Russia than might appear the case at first glance.

One of the most iconic Chinese nationalists of the 1990s, Wang Xiaodong, author of the classic anti-Western text China’s Unhappy, has been writing thoughtful blogs recently reflecting on the rise of what he terms “Nazi” ideology in Russia. Although he scarcely mentions China, it is evident that Wang’s comparing of China’s partner to the Third Reich is not intended as a compliment.

The shadow of the zero-Covid policy hung over Xi at Bali, and his unmasked public presence certainly attracted attention at the summit and at home. The policy seemed to presage a long period of China being closed off to the outside world. But the demonstrations in the streets of China’s cities in early December led to a surprising, and sudden, reversal of policy in mid December. This shift will bring comfort to the many Chinese who have become victims of the country’s Covid-lockdown-influenced recession.

Winter 2022–23 now threatens to be a period of great domestic turmoil. The shift in policy has happened without an effective vaccine rollout, and most analysts inside and outside China think that a sudden spike in infections is inevitable in a country with little herd immunity to the virus.

Chinese New Year 2023 may be particularly testing: the normal phenomenon of millions of people on the move during those weeks has the potential to be a superspreading event, but cancelling the holiday would immediately lead to an outcry that the abandoned policy is coming back. Either way, the difficulty of judgement on these issues argues for a strong concentration on the domestic situation in 2023.

Does the improved tone of US–China relations imply a reduced risk of war between the two? This largely depends on how much it affects China’s readiness to launch a move to incorporate Taiwan in the near future. The official Chinese position remains as it has been for years: bringing Taiwan under Beijing’s control is the last unfinished business of the cold war.

Xi has added to the urgency with his statement that bringing Taiwan into the fold “cannot be left to future generations.” The heightened tension after Nancy Pelosi’s visit in August 2022 has alerted governments and corporations in the region and beyond to the fact that they need to develop a viewpoint on any change in the island’s status in the light of a move from the mainland.

The likelihood of a full-scale invasion of Taiwan is still low. The island has difficult topography and beaches that are unfriendly to an amphibious operation. After seeing the build-up of troops on the Ukraine border in January 2022, the West would be on heightened alert if satellites showed troops and equipment massing on the Chinese coast. China has also seen that bold military moves can go horribly wrong, and that cities under assault can fight back. However, an action that does not involve a physical assault, such as a naval blockade of the island, as a challenge to US and Japanese naval power, might be more conceivable.

Still, such an action would have immense consequences. There would be a high likelihood of coordinated sanctions against China. Beijing might calculate that this is a price worth paying for a number of years in return for conquest of the island, but the medium-term effect on China’s economy would be huge.

Though there would also be a very damaging effect on the global economy as a whole, it would be China that would likely suffer most. In the next few years, the most obvious effect would be a breakdown in the supply of high-grade semiconductor chips from Taiwan, which would be a disaster for both China and the outside world since there seems little prospect of a diversified, reliable supply until sometime into the mid 2020s at the earliest.

Beijing and Washington are still inclined to talk past one another. Beijing insists that it is pushing back against any move towards Taiwanese independence. Washington reiterates that it has no intention of supporting independence (a position of which Taiwan’s politicians are well aware), but that it would defend Taiwan’s democracy, one of the most progressive in Asia, with full free media, multi-party elections, and an active civil society.

China’s latest (2022) white paper on Taiwan says very little about preservation of Taiwan’s freedoms, other than a vague statement that governance would be a “looser” version of the system for Hong Kong, hardly a reassuring response to the fears of Taiwan’s many democratic actors. There is little evidence that Beijing spends much time thinking about the reality that Taiwan is a vibrant society unwilling to give up its freedoms, and a danger that China’s leaders may, like Putin, believe their own propaganda that the island’s democracy is shallow and dysfunctional, and that Beijing’s control would win considerable support.

How likely is a blockade? Unexpectedly, we have more grounds to judge than even a few weeks ago because the sudden shift in policy over Covid gives a variety of clues about what might happen regarding Taiwan. Unfortunately, those clues point in different directions.

The first lesson is that the system does have some flexibility in it and that Xi can listen to advice. Although we have no idea what happens inside the notoriously opaque Chinese leadership bubble, it’s inconceivable that a change of that magnitude could have happened without Xi’s sign-off, and that must imply that he had to accept that his cherished zero-Covid policy had to change.

It’s also notable that the shift in tone turned attention to the economy and the need for growth: ironically, the subject of most concern to the members of the governing elite who seemed to have lost out in the announcement of the new Politburo top team (Wang Yang, Hu Chunhua and Li Keqiang among them). That might imply that an argument of economic rationality would also apply to any attempt to coerce Taiwan into unification, or to change a blockade policy if it showed major adverse economic effects with not much sign of a swift victory.

Just as reversing the zero-Covid policy doesn’t return China to the status quo, stepping back from a physical invasion would be immensely difficult. The government would experience a loss of credibility and the human and economic costs would mean a long period of recovery.

By contrast, in the short term, a naval blockade would be more easily reversible as long as it had not involved any physical attack on the island. If the effect of sanctions were to damage the Chinese economy even more than had been predicted, then the ships could be turned back (as in the Cuban missile crisis).

But that would not return matters to the status quo. International investors, already wary of putting their money in China, would not come flooding back. Foreign firms with production facilities in China would change their risk calculus, even though this would mean the sacrifice of huge sunk costs in China. (And after all, after such a debacle, how likely is it that a sullen Chinese public would buy Western-branded cars and toothpaste as if nothing had changed?)

Beijing’s analysts can make these calculations just as much as Washington can, which is why it is perfectly plausible that China will, in the end, decide that an attempt to subdue Taiwan simply poses too much risk to a Chinese economy under strain. Much of the Chinese public might want Taiwan to be unified in the abstract, but offered the actual price of doing so, might well recoil. (Not that such consequences are likely to be spelled out within China.)

In the last resort, it is another issue that may well persuade Xi that strong rhetoric on Taiwan should continue but it should not be accompanied by action, language that would still be likely to deter any declaration of independence from Taiwan.

That issue is China’s demographic decline. In 2022, new statistics made it obvious that China’s already swift acceleration towards a smaller population, exacerbated by the one-child policy, was heightening a crisis in pensions, eldercare and health provision. China needs to work out now how it can raise pension ages and deal with a fast-approaching reduction in the number of working-age taxpayers. To do this, it needs a stable economy with strong consumption-driven growth, as well as even more exploitation of its real advantages in technological innovation in hubs in Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Beijing and beyond.

Overall, a range of economic problems, from a fragile property sector to rising graduate unemployment, are challenging China in the 2020s. None are insoluble, but an assault on Taiwan would do nothing to fulfil any of them. Avoiding such an assault, and growing the economy, by contrast, stands a chance of creating a “moderately prosperous” middle class that might genuinely stand as a challenge to the Western model.

Apocalyptic stories of Chinese global dominance or collapse should give way to a less glamorous but more probable reality: China will likely be a major power with global influence for decades to come, but its internal crises will continually force it to redirect attention inward. •

This article first appeared in the Substack newsletter Comment is Freed.

The post What next for China? appeared first on Inside Story.

Not long after the photo is taken, Clementis commits a grave ideological error. He is arrested as a traitor and hanged. Party hacks meticulously erase every mention of him from the historical record and airbrush him from every photo. And yet his hat, now part of the party leader’s image, remains in that famous photo. Like the sight of the bare wall where Clementis once stood, the hat is an obscure but indelible reminder of the person who has been struck out.

Historian Julian Gewirtz examines another blank space in his new book, Never Turn Back: China and the Forbidden History of the 1980s. This is the stretch of wall where former premier and party general secretary Zhao Ziyang once stood. Gewirtz restores to Zhao’s head the hat of the “architect of reform and openness” that has sat on Deng Xiaoping’s head in the decades since. The result is a landmark work of historical scholarship with profound significance for understanding China today.

When Mao Zedong died in 1976, the Chinese economy was in tatters. Mao’s “continuous revolution” and factional infighting had broken China’s politics, and more than two decades of violently waged ideological campaigns — which had culminated in the 1966–76 Cultural Revolution — had left society scarred, cultural heritage decimated, and educational institutions and intellectual life eviscerated.

The new leadership that coalesced under Deng Xiaoping in 1978 needed to tackle political, economic and social dysfunction. The key, they agreed, lay in modernising agriculture, industry, defence, and science and technology: the “four modernisations.” The central, burning question of the decade was how exactly China would achieve those modernisations.

Deng was prepared to tolerate a certain amount of systemic change to make government more efficient and less top-heavy, to encourage local initiative, to promote professionalism, and to create the legal and other structures under which the economy could grow. He also recognised the need to prevent the emergence of another leader like Mao who would concentrate power in his own hands and rule for life.

He left the details to others. Those others included Hu Yaobang, who helmed the party from 1981 to 1987, and Zhao Ziyang, who was premier from 1980 to 1987 and then, following Hu’s purge from the leadership, party general secretary from 1987 to 1989, when he himself was purged.

In Never Turn Back, Gewirtz focuses on the contribution of Zhao and the advisers he gathered around him. He notes that the assiduity with which the party has sought to erase Zhao from the record only underlines his importance. (Hu Yaobang leaves a similar patch of blank wall, but it’ll require another book to fully restore him to view.)

Fixing the economy was among the party’s most urgent priorities. Extreme poverty was widespread, especially in the countryside, and industry was almost uniformly heavy, with consumer goods from clothing to radios in scandalously short supply. Zhao was a chief proponent of the “coastal development theory,” which promoted light industry in coastal regions, close to ports, with access to cheap labour. The last would be of advantage in encouraging foreign investment, with an emphasis on investment involving technology transfer.

The United States was among the many advanced countries eager to exploit the economic opportunities that came with China’s economic reform and opening up. Export-oriented coastal development helped not only to build China’s foreign reserves but also to drive the country’s transformative economic growth during the 1980s and beyond.

Another driver was the decision to invest heavily in science and technology, in particular information technology and biotech: a plan inspired by Zhao’s reading of Alvin Toffler’s Third Wave that chimed with Deng’s interest in modernisation.

But Zhao and his circle were also interested in systemic change. They saw political and economic reform as two sides of the same coin. Among the ideas they discussed, Gewirtz writes, were methods for “separating the party and the government, building up more independent institutions of the media, the judiciary, and the legislature, and increasing transparency, accountability, and even freedom of speech and debate.”

They even discussed how to adapt the notion of checks and balances to Communist Party rule. Thinkers in Zhao’s circle, including Bao Tong, who described democracy as “a kind of mechanism that can correct its own mistakes,” sought a balance between democracy and the “dictatorship” baked into the definition of governance in the People’s Republic.

Gewirtz cautions against concluding that Zhao or Hu were “inborn liberal democrats.” He stresses that Zhao explicitly and frequently endorsed “methods of dictatorship” and in no way advocated for a democratic free-for-all or an end to party rule. There were obvious tensions and contradictions in the two men’s thinking, and it also brought them into conflict with others in the party.

The 1980s were marked by incredibly vibrant cultural ferment, and ideological and intellectual contestation extending far beyond the relatively closed circles of the policymakers. From artists and poets asserting their right to creative expression to students inhaling Sartre, Nietzsche and rock’n’roll, there was a sense of infinite possibility.

That didn’t mean that anything was possible: when a young electrician called Wei Jingsheng had the temerity to suggest in 1979 that without the “fifth modernisation” of democracy there was no guarantee that Deng himself wouldn’t become a tyrant like Mao, he was slapped in prison with a fifteen-year sentence.

The danger for Zhao and those around him was that conservatives, already hyperventilating over “the sight of people drinking Coca-Cola in the streets of Shanghai,” would associate the reformists with genuine radicals like Wei Jingsheng.

When Wang Ruoshui, deputy editor-in-chief of the party mouthpiece People’s Daily, asked why such tragedies as the Cultural Revolution “happen repeatedly in socialist societies” and suggested that the Communist Party embrace the previously taboo notion of “Marxist humanism,” the hardcore ideologues lost their minds.

The subsequent 1983 campaign against “spiritual pollution,” initially endorsed by Deng, gave expression to the conservatives’ fears that the changes set in train by modernisation and economic reform could bring down the party itself. Like “bourgeois liberalisation,” “spiritual pollution” was a catch-all term that could signify anything from street crime to obscurest poetry, high-heeled shoes, “erroneous trends of thought” and the generally “foul smell” of new ideas from the West.

Deng put the brakes on the campaign when it appeared to threaten modernisation itself. The 1980s were riven by many such ideological tugs-of-war, and Gewirtz argues that they should be taken seriously.

Today, the Communist Party promotes the line that economic development thrives best under authoritarianism. It touts the “China model” of autocratic rule, social stability and economic growth as a logical and historical inevitability. Any other choice by the post-Mao leadership, the line goes, would have led to collapse and chaos — the crumbling of the European socialist bloc and Soviet Union from 1989 being instructive and, for party leaders, frightening examples. To think otherwise is to be guilty of “bourgeois liberalism” or labelled an agent of global capitalism’s “peaceful evolution” plot to dupe the Chinese people into spurning communism.

Yet Gewirtz’s “forbidden history” shows that the party leadership once seriously contemplated comprehensive structural, political reform. He contends that many of the persistent contradictions within and obstacles to China’s economic development in the decades since — including the persistence of corruption — are directly linked to a refusal to contemplate more systemic reforms. The 1980s was a genuine sliding-doors moment; there were other conceivable futures, albeit still under party rule.

Zhao was purged from the leadership in 1989 and spent the rest of his life under house arrest. The immediate trigger for his downfall was his visit to protesters in Tiananmen Square, where he spoke sympathetically and emotionally to hunger strikers. But this was just the final straw as far as his enemies within the party were concerned.

After crushing the student-led movement on 3–4 June that year, the party decoupled economic reform from political reform. Zhao disappeared from the record and Deng got to wear the former general secretary’s hat as the “architect of the reforms and openness.”

There is much rich detail in Never Turn Back, for which Gewirtz delved deep into archives, papers, official accounts, diaries and memoirs, some of which have only recently become available. The result is a provocative counter-narrative to the Communist Party’s account of that era and the reforms that turned China into the economic great power it is today.

“What would happen,” Gewirtz asks, “if the Chinese people were allowed to know this history? Would it produce the terrible chaos so feared by the Communist Party?” In his conclusion, he sounds a note of hope: “Just as greater openness can be found in China’s past, it might well be found again in China’s future.” •

Never Turn Back: China and the Forbidden History of the 1980s
By Julian Gewirtz | Harvard University Press | $55.95 | 432 pages

The post China’s forgotten reformer appeared first on Inside Story.

A sign in the window of one anti-vaxxer hangout, across from Katoomba’s railway station, reads “We stand united against government tyranny!!” Bill Gates smiles threateningly from a silk-screen print, vaccination needle in hand, alongside an advertisement for Chakra group-healing sessions. In this part of town, conspiracy theories and alternative healing are served with coffee and cake on what appears to be a sustainable anti-vax business model.

Falun Gong pamphlets can be picked up nearby. Adherents of Falun Dafa (as they call their faith) promote healing through religious chants and breathing exercises and work to expose the brutality the Chinese government inflicts on believers back in China. They certainly are persistent, and they were in the news again recently when Communist Party general secretary Jiang Zemin died in Shanghai.

Thirty years earlier, Jiang had taken fright when a peaceful phalanx of Falun Dafa practitioners queued outside his official residence in the old imperial palace district of Beijing petitioning for recognition of their faith as a religious community. Infuriated by their presumption, he branded them a superstitious cult and banished them outright. Thousands perished in the persecution that followed and others languished in prison awaiting forced organ transplants, if adherents’ claims are to be believed.

There’s no viable business model for superstitious belief in China, where science and rational planning carry the day and the apparently irrational desires of common people count for little.

But here’s the thing. China is opening up again after three years of intermittent but severe Covid lockdowns. Over that period it managed to keep the virus in check but failed to prepare the country’s people for a timely transition from epidemic lockdowns to a more flexible model of pandemic management. Why this neglect, if China’s government is as rational, capable and forward thinking as it claims to be ? Why lift lockdowns heading into winter rather in the warmer months earlier this year when the virus was less active? As a result of this series of policy failures, China could be heading for a health crisis on a scale the world has not seen since the crisis that shook India in 2020.

Some analysts say the party erred in abandoning its long-held commitment to science by succumbing to an anti-vax syndrome of its own devising. The historian Adam Tooze recently argued that China’s government undermined public confidence in readily-available Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines by allowing vaccine conspiracy theories to flourish online. It’s true that the government tolerated efforts to counter criticism from abroad that Chinese vaccines were inferior to Western ones (they are reported to work reasonably well after three doses) but the effect of that campaign was more likely to have enhanced confidence in Chinese vaccines than undermine it.

If anything, China’s problem is that its system of government is obsessed with science and rational planning to the point that it fails to take account of what people want. Doubt is essential to science. The science scepticism of Falun Dafa practitioners and anti-vaxxers may be over the top, but the lack of scepticism in China is no less troubling.

Democracy wears a lab coat

Big Whites, as they are called, are the neighbourhood cadres, volunteers, medics and enforcers who carry out the central government’s Covid lockdown policies clad in bulky white hazmat coveralls. The term refers to the robot in the Disney film Big Hero 6 programmed to perform medical procedures using instruments built into its bulky white-clad body. It’s a neat comparison. China’s Big Whites administer Covid tests, police entry and exit to residential compounds, and patrol streets, distribute food and detain anyone who gets in their way — by force if necessary.

The way Big Whites methodically patrol neighbourhoods in their white hazmat uniforms captures something missing from the Disney film. This is the role of science as a strong arm of politics and public policy in China and in the everyday directives of China’s Communist Party. The party does not just believe in science, it embodies and enforces it.

As a party, the communists trace their ideological foundations to scientific socialism, which they place on the same plane as the science that underpins maths, physics and chemistry. More than that, Marxism is considered foundational to all other sciences: “The intellectual foundation of science is the scientific theory of Marxism,” Xi Jinping told national educators in December 2016. The party’s ideological commitment to science lends science a place in the governance of China matched only by its place in Stalin’s Soviet Union. This is an early-twentieth-century pre-quantum kind of science in which everything is certain and quantifiable and open to precise and predictable explanation.  The connection of science with Marxism can be read to mean that whatever keeps a Marxist–Leninist party in power has to be good science.

This science of political certainty can be traced to the founding of the Communist Party in the early 1920s, when “Mr Science and Mr Democracy” (as they were called at the time) first entered the country. They came smartly dressed, faddishly foreign and unabashedly modern, and seemed destined to set the country aright. Mr Science didn’t arrive lumbered with the doubt and questioning that comes with scientific method but brought instead a modern kind of certainty to displace the older certainties of the Confucian canon. Any democracy modelled on such a science had to be certain too.

One outcome was that the new leaders of modern China expected more of democracy than it could possibly deliver. Winston Churchill’s complacent remark about the imperfections of democracy — “It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time” — is widely read among China’s communists not as a concession to the uncertainties of the human condition but as a shameful acknowledgement of liberal democracy’s failure to achieve perfection.

As the editor of one of China’s leading journals of international relations remarked of Churchill’s comment, “for a statesman of the capitalist class, it must have been really difficult to express this opinion.” That was a revealing comment: only a party committed to scientific socialism would imagine it could achieve perfection or deny it had a problem dealing with the uncertainties of everyday social and political life.

The Communist Party and its state bureaucracy are structured hierarchically to achieve a certain kind of perfection in relaying messages and commands and assigning responsibility up and down a many-layered command structure grounded in scientific socialism. Atop the structure, the central leadership embodies scientific rationality and sits beyond criticism or reproach. Beneath the leadership sit the cadres.

In this system, the rituals surrounding appointment of a supreme leader such as Xi Jinping are performed with such precision that nothing can be allowed to spoil them. The capital all but grinds to a halt ahead of a five-yearly national party congress as industry is silenced, streets closed off and other meetings and events cancelled. This is not the time to announce a national policy shift that could spell uncertainty. So the summer leading into the party’s twentieth national congress in October, when Xi was appointed supreme leader for as long as he liked, was no time for modifying his “dynamic zero” Covid policy.

On this model of scientific government, there’s room for cautious policy experimentation at the margins — on local finance for example — but where experiments succeed all credit is attributed to the farsightedness of the leadership, and where they fail, local cadres are left wondering what happened and picking up the pieces.

With few regulatory or legal instruments to guide them, those cadres often end up making arbitrary decisions about who was at fault, who should be put away, whose property should be confiscated and what should be done next. When things go terribly awry, they themselves are targeted for punishment. Overall, the structure makes little provision for heeding the wishes of common people or holding cadres accountable to the communities they govern.

Science and people

Churchill’s defence of democracy was a comment on human nature as much as it was on democracy: he prefaced it with a comment on the difficulty of governing “in this world of sin and woe.” Scientific socialism has no patience for such a world. Much has been written about elite attempts to remake China’s people or, in party terms, to elevate the “quality” (suzhi) of commoners to match the expectations the leadership places in them. In the meantime, the party makes up for the shortcomings of ordinary people by creating a quasi-nation out of its own cadres, as I argue in my recent book Cadre Country, to be perfected in place of the people as instruments of party rule.

Here’s where things get interesting in Covid-afflicted China. If the party’s tens of millions of cadres are to carry out their leaders’ instructions in every corner of the land — north, south, east, west and centre as Xi Jinping is fond of telling them — then China’s cadres need to be as finely attuned to the commands of the leadership as a lab technician to the instructions of a lead scientist.

The words “science” and “precision” pepper XI Jinping’s speeches on his cadre force. Still they constantly disappoint him. When things don’t work out as the leadership plans, and communities take their anger and frustration onto the streets, it’s not the fault of the leaders who drafted scientific policies and issued clear instructions. It’s the fault of the cadres for failing to follow instructions with the precision science demands.

That’s the way communist cadre systems work. Russian historian Moshe Lewin traced the habit of communist leaders turning on and blaming the cadres beneath them to Stalin’s 1925 lecture to trainee cadres at the Sverdlov Party Institute. “The only problem is cadres,” Stalin told the trainees. “If things are not progressing, or if they go wrong, the cause is not to be sought in any objective conditions: it is the fault of the cadres.” It is this Stalinist science of government that has landed China in the mess it finds itself.

Science and Covid policy

Stalin’s management science has been playing out in China’s recent pandemic policy dilemma. On 10 November, not long after the close of the twentieth national party congress, Xi Jinping presided over a meeting of his new Politburo Standing Committee to receive a report on “Twenty Measures” for the prevention and control of the most recent Corona virus epidemic. The following day, the State Council issued a statement on the Twenty Measures, explaining that they called for “scientific and precise” prevention and control at the local level. The new formula calling for “scientific and precise” prevention and control was not a relaxation, the statement continued, but an unswerving affirmation of Xi Jinping’s standing policy of dynamic-zero control.

Alongside the State Council’s statement, official newsagency Xinhua reported that China’s experience managing Covid had shown the leaders’ polices to be “completely correct” and that all measures taken were “scientific and effective.” The new policy encouraged local officials to calibrate risks according to the needs of their neighbourhoods, and to adjust their behaviour by abandoning “unscientific practices” such as over-prescribing Covid tests. Cadres should strive to “overcome formalism and bureaucratism and put an end to incrementalism and ‘one-size-fits-all’ approaches,” they were told. Even so, this was not a time for relaxation of prevention and control.

What was a provincial leading cadre to make of this central directive? Online is a record of the Heilongjiang Provincial party group receiving the central directive and disseminating it to cities, districts, counties, and townships across the province. On 18 November, provincial governor Hu Changsheng convened the province’s Leading Small Group on Covid Work and urged his subordinates to “resolutely implement the spirit of the important instructions of General Secretary Xi Jinping’s scientific, precise and uncompromising implementation of epidemic prevention and control measures.”

Hu instructed the provincial government to “conscientiously implement the Twenty Measures of the State Council… and adhere to scientific and precise prevention and control.” Local party and government officials were told to adhere unswervingly to the national “dynamic zero” Covid policy and, in case anyone had missed it, to avoid formalism and bureaucratism.

Judging from the published record of the meeting, Heilongjiang provincial officials had no idea what central authorities expected of them under the new Covid management regime, other than to repeat its vague formulas and implement them as bureaucratically as possible.

Some local governments thought they knew better. The city government of Shijiazhuang, in Hebei Province, tried to escape formalism and bureaucratism by lifting restrictions on local residential compounds, only to find itself in trouble when local citizens objected to its “scientific, precise and uncompromising” measures for implementing the new policy. The city’s party secretary and mayor were reportedly dismissed and lower level officials were left baffled.

At the neighbourhood level, mixed signals from on high were paired with disincentives for local officials trying to implement the new policy with something like scientific precision. “We were told to relax the overly strict Covid prevention rules [but] could still get fired for not stamping out cases on time,” the Financial Times reported a county-level cadre as saying.

If local cadres were hoping to find sympathy or support from on high, they were disappointed. It was all their fault. On 1 December, Xinhua issued a detailed explanatory note on what central authorities had intended with the announcements coming out of the Politburo Standing Committee meeting of 11 November. “The correct meaning of scientifically precise prevention and control,” according to Xinhua, could be summed up in the phrase “quickly seal and unseal — and unseal wherever possible” (快封快解 应解尽解). For good measure, it added that any confusion over the centre’s directive was the fault of local cadres, not the fault of the policy or the leadership, since implementation of the “quickly seal and unseal” policy was the “responsibility of cadres.” It all came down to the quality of cadres and cadre management in Xinhua’s authoritative account.

Around the same time, the recently appointed head of the party’s Central Organisation Bureau, Chen Xi, published a major statement in People’s Daily extolling Xi Jinping’s visionary leadership and calling for the recruitment of a higher calibre of local cadres — “loyal, clean, and responsible” — than those Xi found himself commanding at present. Again, the solution lay in science: what the country now needed was a “scientific path [科学路径] for cadre management.” Heading into winter, the situation was set up for failure, with cadres trying to implement a central policy for which no one was prepared to take responsibility (certainly not Xi Jinping), while party leadership doubled down on its search for a more scientific path for cadre management.

To achieve the precision his policies require, Xi Jinping has to replace the cadre force he actually commands with a body of more faithful and responsive cadres. For the past three years he has been railing against the forty million cadres under his direction, complaining that they are prone to “kneeling before their leaders to flatter and fawn” while mistreating their subordinates; sitting on their hands rather doing anything useful; and complaining that their workload is too onerous and higher management too demanding.

By 2019 Xi had endured enough of their complaints. He called for a thorough cleansing of cadre ranks and their replacement by a team of “loyal, clean and responsible cadres” who could be relied upon to follow his directions unswervingly.

China has an enduring problem if its supreme leaders go on pretending that they are all wise and that their system of government can attain perfection. A little more doubt and lot more democracy would probably go some way to fixing it. •

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Many young, middle-class Chinese people do feel pride in their country’s achievements. Their nationalist views, fuelled by optimism about the future, have been reinforced for decades by government propaganda — at school, in the workplace and elsewhere — telling them their lives have improved, and will continue to improve, under party rule.

This is the implicit social contract between the Communist Party and the Chinese people. In exchange for submitting to its rule, people expect the party to ensure the economy grows and living standards rise. And for the current generation of young, urban, middle-class people, living standards have indeed improved — in some cases almost matching standards in high-income countries.

Along with economic growth, China has become more powerful and assertive internationally. The shift in China’s international standing has been a source of pride for many young people, some of whom have been quick to defend their government when they feel it is under attack. The little pinks are the most extreme of them, using social media to respond viciously to perceived slights.

But this growing pride in China hasn’t diminished the willingness of many young people to critique the party. Even before the pandemic and the lockdowns, they often expressed exasperation at the party’s attitude towards gender equality, the environment and other social issues. Just like their counterparts in other countries, young Chinese people tend to hold more progressive values than their national leaders.

Despite this undercurrent, nationalistic and party-supporting voices have tended to dominate online, at least until recently. This is partly because they are promoted by the party, and partly because everyone is aware of the limitations on what they can say in China’s heavily controlled online environment. Some try to get around the censorship, but the penalties can be severe.

Despite the censorship, social media platforms have commercial incentives to highlight conflict and controversy. In China, this means the most extreme views are more likely to be highlighted, as long as they stay within the scope of what is deemed acceptable.

China’s zero-Covid strategy has changed the equation. It has tempered nationalist sentiment among young people as well as significantly changing their view of the party. Expressions of support for the government and the party are no longer as numerous as they were.

Nationalism surged early in the pandemic when death tolls were skyrocketing in the United States and elsewhere while China managed to keep infections under control. But that changed this year. Other countries were gradually opening up and lives returning to normal, yet the situation in China was worsening. Many people had direct experience of the suffering associated with harsh lockdowns, being denied essential medical care, for instance, or suffering severe food shortages.

Despite the censorship, the party doesn’t have absolute control over information. Young people can be more familiar with what is happening in countries like Australia than Australians are with the reality of people’s lives in China — and that means they can easily compare their lives to those of their counterparts in the West.

Even without the examples of other countries, though, young people can imagine an alternative China — one that doesn’t involve the violence and mistreatment that have characterised the lockdown and quarantine policy, one where people don’t go hungry because they can’t shop, and one where children don’t die after being turned away from the hospital. Chinese people all have their own stories of coercive measures imposed in the name of zero-Covid. While the party was focused on the potential death toll of opening up, it was ignoring the suffering caused by lockdowns.

Not surprisingly, the zero-Covid policy has also affected China’s economic growth, a source of the party’s legitimacy. Youth unemployment surged to a record 20 per cent this year, with many young people struggling to find work and others becoming disillusioned with work itself. China’s weak social safety net means that unemployed people may struggle to afford necessities.

The social and economic impact of the zero-Covid strategy has created a new mood of pessimism among young people, exemplified by the slogan “We’re the last generation,” which spread across social media until the censors intervened. The number of young people who are thinking of migrating overseas has increased, but more can’t afford to or are unwilling to leave the country.

Amid this simmering resentment, the deadly fire in a locked-down apartment building in Urumqi became the spark that lit the fuse of protest. What these protests show is that increased nationalism among China’s young people doesn’t guarantee support for the party. Rather, when the economy slows and the quality of life deteriorates, support for the government also declines.

This worries the party. After the Tiananmen Square protest in June 1989, it strove to build up nationalism as another source of legitimacy. With economic growth expected to slow even further this decade, it will increasingly rely on nationalist sentiment, but the protest shows that nationalism might not be as reliable a source of support as has been assumed.

Nationalism can also be fickle and hard to control. Prior to US House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan earlier this year, for example, the party amplified nationalistic voices, some of which were calling for China to take military action and even shoot down Pelosi’s plane. After she landed, though, some of those same voices turned on the party, accusing it of impotence. The party rushed to censor their comments.

Indeed, throughout China’s history anti-government protests have often emerged from nationalist fervour. Many of the young people protesting last week saw it as their patriotic duty. Nationalism can be a dangerous tool for any government, and it is evident that young Chinese people’s pride in their nation won’t always diminish their willingness to critique the party, or guarantee their support for its policies.

Despite the party’s attempts at indoctrination and patriotic education, a diversity of opinion exists among China’s young people. The party can no longer take their loyalty for granted. •

The post Chinese nationalism under pressure appeared first on Inside Story.

I’m not so sure, given recurring anger at Facebook’s promotion or suppression of information, evident recently in the toxic row over whether it withheld news of the activities of Joe Biden’s son Hunter in the days before the 2020 election. Facebook may not pose the same kind of challenge as China does, but it seems wrong to assume so blithely that its behaviour doesn’t raise very serious questions.

Fears about China, on the other hand, are far from new. In 1955, having spent almost a decade in the People’s Republic before moving to Canberra, the political scientist Michael Lindsay berated the government in Beijing for what he regarded as its harsh and unfair response to Britain’s attempts to create some sort of pragmatic relationship. Hardly an apologist for the capitalist world, the left-leaning Lindsay argued that Britain had taken a big risk in January 1950 when it recognised the new regime despite American opposition. And yet, “again and again,” he wrote, “Chinese policy and Chinese publicity has done exactly what was required to strengthen the influence of the anti-Communist extremists [and] discredit the influence in British countries or America working for better relations.”

Almost seven decades later, it would be hard to express the current mess more succinctly. China’s worst diplomatic enemy, more often than not, is the Chinese government itself.

So it seems strange that Alex Joske — whose work has “shaped the thinking of governments and policymakers globally,” according to the publisher of his new book, Spies and Lies: How China’s Greatest Covert Operations Fooled the World — seems to believe China is blazingly successful in dealing with the outside world. The greatest achievement of China’s spies, he writes, has been “to convince influential foreigners that China would rise peacefully and gradually liberalise.”

Joske’s claim implies that suddenly, sometime in the 1980s, the United States, Europe, Australia and their political allies became docile parties onto which the cunning Chinese foisted the great fib of Chinese liberalisation. Among the people who fell under the spell of the Chinese propaganists, he argues, was billionaire George Soros, who worked with reformist author Liang Heng and others. During this period Soros’s Open Society Foundations made grants and offered technical support in an attempt to create civil society groups in China.

Joske doesn’t engage with the more complex possibility that, regardless of what the Chinese government was saying at the time, there were entirely logical reasons to think China might liberalise politically, along with evidence that significant interest in this different path existed deep within the government and across Chinese society.

Many factors helped block the hoped-for liberalism. But I would submit that clever pre-emptive scheming by the “hardliners” in the party elite, and their servants in China’s intelligence network, was not prime among them. Indeed, what is striking in the period up to 1989, when the dream of Chinese liberalism was perhaps at its strongest, is how open-ended and unpredictable the situation was, and how often the party elite seemed to have no clear idea of what it was aiming for.

Everyone agreed that political reform was necessary. But no clear consensus emerged, on either the destination or the best route to reach it. That confusion gave the most conservative wing of the leadership a strong advantage when the Tiananmen Square protests erupted in mid 1989. The dominant response within the party was simple: better the devil you know than the one you don’t, as long as it delivered order and stability.

Geopolitical trends reinforced this onset of cautiousness, the most important being the huge missteps by Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, which created the worst sort of precedent for countries like China as they looked to liberalise their governance. China’s Ministry of State Security, Joske’s bastion of hardliners (though that too may be disputable), certainly took advantage of these crises, but the idea that it, and its allies in the hardline wing of the Communist Party, controlled an epic and successful misinformation strategy reads to me like history being bent to theory.

Joske does make the important point that we need to better understand what the Chinese party state, and some of its chief agents, are up to. His chapters on the strange case of Katrina Leung, who for many years was a Chinese agent within the FBI, provide useful insights. What is more fascinating, though, is the fact that she ended up marrying her handler on the American side, James J. Smith, years after conducting an affair with him and long after being exposed as an agent for China.

Whether this book, with its very clear and up-front convictions, will help much in conceptualising and handling Chinese covert influence campaigns is another matter. In his description of the latter career of soft-power proponent Zheng Bijian, and the China Reform Forum Zheng chaired in the years of Hu Jintao’s presidency, it’s clear Joske has a dim view of the gullibility, pliability and general cluelessness of many of those exposed to the language of “China’s peaceful rise.”

In his view, people like John Thornton, director of the Global Leadership Program at Tsinghua University in Beijing, and former Australian prime minister Bob Hawke were purposely recruited to push out misleading statements about China’s intentions. Presumably Joske has met some of the figures he is so critical of and put his claims to them: that would have been fair and transparent. His point may have some merit: Hawke was a perennial attendee at the increasingly awful annual exercise in groupthink with Chinese characteristics, the Boao Forum for Asia, in the years before his death. But just how much help he and his ilk gave to China’s cause is a moot point.

Effectiveness, after all, is the one issue Joske seems unwilling to tackle. Can we truly say that Chinese efforts to hoodwink the West, even if they were as streamlined and strategic as he claims, have produced the intended outcome?

I can only speak from my own experience working on, and in, China over the past quarter of a century. I remember the chaotic influence campaigns in the first decade of the 2000s, and how clunky their messaging was. In my personal encounters during those years of economic plenty, Chinese figures looking to influence the outside world generally seemed unwilling to say much at all.

Joske doesn’t provide this context, but it is important: the “peaceful rise” endorsed by Zheng and his ilk received significant pushback from diplomats in the United States and elsewhere, and had to be changed to “peaceful development.” And it was the United States, through figures like Robert Zoellick, that was asking China to say more about what its intentions were. This left the Chinese in a quandary — maintain silence and be judged untrustworthy, or speak and attract claims that everything coming out of your mouth was insincere and misleading.

Under Xi Jinping, China’s general diplomatic and security work became more disciplined and streamlined. The Ministry of State Security was hit with the same “anti-corruption” cleansing as everyone else, losing a vice-minister and many lower operatives. How effective it is these days is hard to say, but it’s worth remembering that this mighty, well-resourced entity seems to have had no real clue about Vladimir Putin’s plans for Ukraine.

Joske would no doubt appreciate that one can be a good spy but a poor analyst. Had China really mounted an effective, well-run campaign along the lines he describes in this book, I’d argue that it would not be in its current position. Relations with the West are almost universally bad and — to give one small but telling example — a plenipotentiary in Britain is currently banned from visiting parliament.

That counter-evidence won’t stop this book gaining a decent audience. The ultimately comforting story it tells — of a world in which the good West faces the bad China — is well entrenched and recently re-energised. A significant piece of research has yet to be done on just how many financial and intellectual resources have been put into this narrative by think tanks, media and others. Joske himself works (or has worked — it is unclear if he still has an affiliation) for the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, which has been accused of sometimes producing analysis that fulfils the hawkish requirements of its Canberra governmental funders.

Let’s be pragmatic: if most people accept this book’s somewhat terrifying account of Chinese government influence, there will be healthy commissions and streams of work for years to come for those who want to pursue the same line of thinking. I don’t for one minute deny the sincerity and conviction of Joske’s argument, or the quality of his data gathering and research, but I do wonder about his conceptualisation and interpretation. He describes a world my own observations don’t validate, and one I find hard to believe actually exists. •

Spies and Lies: How China’s Greatest Covert Operations Fooled the World
By Alex Joske | Hardie Grant | $32.99 | 272 pages

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In Xi’s China, things have come full circle. After decades of pragmatism, politics once again overrides everything — or, more precisely, the Communist Party and its needs trump everything. Beijing’s Zero Covid policy, which has bewildered much of the rest of the world, stands as the most striking instance of political considerations eclipsing all else, including rationality.

There was a time, in late 2021, when the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the main government body analysing the data and formulating policy, gave cogent reasons why a hardline approach to the virus made sense. Based on the experience of countries in Europe and North America over the previous year, the centre argued that China, with its huge population, could never cope with the levels of hospitalisation that Britain, Italy and some other countries had experienced.

Overtly, its advice recognised that China’s locally produced vaccines were less effective than those produced by Pfizer and Astra Zeneca. It also implicitly conceded that vaccination rates were relatively low. It was reasonable to argue that a liberal attitude at that time would have been at best risky and at worst reckless. But the experience in Xian early this year, and in Shanghai, Hainan and other centres over the past few months, has shown the prohibitive economic and social costs of imposing draconian lockdowns.

In Shanghai, the initially relaxed attitude of the municipal government was replaced by a much tougher approach ordered by Beijing. Shanghainese are among the most sophisticated, economically advantaged and vocal in the country, and the city’s middle class is regarded as the model of what a Chinese bourgeoisie might look like. But this cut no ice with Xi’s government. The good citizens of Shanghai were made prisoners in their own homes. Even the slightest infraction was deemed a crime.

Thus, the most assertive and confident group in China was given the sort of treatment that was once thought unthinkable. Xi seemed almost to be taking the opportunity to remind yet another group that in his China no one, repeat no one, was beyond the levelling hand of the party state. In the end — grudgingly, and perhaps with a residue of resentment that could persist — Shanghainese complied. But it took some persuading.

Events like a tragic late-night bus crash on 18 September in the southwestern province of Guizhou, in which twenty-seven people died while being compulsorily transported to quarantine, have raised yet more questions about the implementation of such an extreme policy. The online furore led to the dismissal of some local officials. “Will this ever end?” one person wrote on social media. “Is there scientific validity to hauling people to quarantine, one car after another?” That is the question increasingly being echoed by Chinese citizens weary of the endless fight to crush the disease and wondering whether they will be next to experience the full rigidity of the current policy.

Two worlds now exist — one that has, rightly or wrongly, declared Covid-19 a part of history, and China, which is trying to fight it to the bitter end. Xi’s government looks a little like Ahab in Moby Dick — heroically, obsessively fighting a foe that might only be defeated if it brings down its pursuers with it.

The economic costs of this purist policy have already become starkly clear. China is now, for the first time in many years, posting lower growth than many of its Asian neighbours.

Nor does the policy seem popular among a public once supportive of strict measures to deal with the disease. The great Chinese middle class, a key group for Xi’s nationalist style of politics, seems deeply unhappy about being cooped up in their homes, their financial prospects curtailed by the central government’s almost obsessive drive to implement a policy that is — it is increasingly becoming clear — unimplementable.

Will the famously pragmatic Communist leadership change tack? There is zero chance of this before the party congress is over. With the leadership changes decided at that meeting taking a little while to bed in, we are unlikely to see any backtracking this side of the new year. In 2023, however, everything will depend on economy and what priority the government give to reviving growth if it stalls.

The working assumption in the pre-Xi era was that the economy decided everything, and even the most entrenched policies could be changed if growth was squeezed or went negative. But Xi and his circle may simply continue pursuing the chimera of a Covid-free China. They may see a chance to prove, once more, that they can do what the rest of the world, with its slackness and lack of political conviction, can’t. This hubris might translate into success — but there is a good chance that it will instead create more challenges for the government and more economic damage.

It would be ironic indeed if it was a public health issue that caused the Chinese people to finally confront their government. The problem with conviction politicians (and Xi, with Chinese characteristics, is definitely one of these) is that that when they are right, they are very right — and when they are wrong, they are absolutely wrong. But that doesn’t mean that Xi and his circle won’t change their approach, slowly and subtly, without making much of a fuss.

In other respects, from its harsh treatment of Hong Kong to the even more worrying clampdown in Xinjiang, the Chinese government’s actions have only had negative effects on particular segments of its population. Zero-Covid is having an impact across the nation. A government that places ideology and political commitment above everything — even the public wellbeing and economic prosperity that lies at the heart of their legitimacy — runs risks like never before. •

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Commentators generally agree a Chinese takeover of Taiwan would involve the following elements, alone or in combination:

• a decapitation strike, using special forces to kill or capture the Taiwanese leadership and install a Beijing-aligned government

• a seaborne invasion, with a large force crossing the Taiwan Strait

• an extensive bombing campaign using aircraft and missiles

• a blockade of the Strait to cut off Taiwan’s imports and exports.

All of these approaches have been tried by Russia, under highly favourable conditions, since it attacked Ukraine. All have failed.

In the lead-up to the 24 February invasion, the Russians were able to assemble large forces on Ukraine’s borders while maintaining ambiguity about their intentions. For fear of inflaming the situation, Ukraine could do little to prepare, and its allies provided little or nothing in the way of lethal military aid.

These conditions were ideal for Russia’s opening move. A rapid assault on Kyiv was planned to begin with the takeover of Hostomel Airport by elite airborne troops, who would be followed in by a much larger airborne force. Things didn’t go to plan: the assault force was driven off with heavy casualties and the main force turned back. By the time Russian land forces reached Hostomel, the chance of a surprise attack was lost.

Even if the strike had not been a military failure, the political calculation on which it was based turned out to be absolutely wrong. Far from welcoming Russian invaders as liberators, Ukrainians fought back furiously. Even in Russian-speaking cities like Kharkiv, Putin found little or no support.

A decapitation strike against Taiwan would face immensely greater difficulties. There would be no possibility of surprise. Taiwan’s air defences have been built up over decades. Reunification has essentially zero support among Taiwanese. And even if the current leadership could somehow be eliminated, local replacements would be equally or more hostile.

The most commonly discussed scenario for forcible reunification is a seaborne invasion. Even before the Ukraine war this idea seemed far-fetched, as a comparison with the Normandy landings in 1944 shows. The Allies had complete air superiority, the narrow English Channel to cross, a wide choice of poorly defended landing sites and a numerical superiority of five to one. The Germans didn’t detect the attack until landing craft were within reach of shore. Even so, the Allies fell far short of their Day 1 objectives.

A Chinese invasion fleet, by contrast, would have to cross the 170 kilometre Taiwan Strait with no chance of avoiding detection, then land on one of a handful of well-protected beaches and face numerically superior defenders.

The Ukraine war drives the lesson home. Before the invasion, Russia’s Black Sea fleet was widely seen as a major strategic asset. When the initial attacks on Kyiv and Kharkiv failed, a seaborne attack on Odessa was generally anticipated. Ukraine had only a handful of domestically produced anti-ship missiles, and its own navy had been wiped out on the first day of the war. Russia was in complete command of the sea.

Yet the attack never took place. The sinking of the Moskva in April by a Ukrainian Neptune missile proved that the Russians had been right to hold back. Russian naval forces were inadequate even to defend the famous Snake Island, kilometres from Ukrainian mainland. With Ukraine’s acquisition of increasing numbers of modern missiles, most of the fleet has been withdrawn entirely to the relative safety of Novorossiysk on the eastern shore of the Black Sea.

Ukraine repelled the Black Sea fleet with a handful of missiles. Taiwan has hundreds, including American-made Harpoons and domestically produced missiles easily capable of hitting Chinese ships before they leave port. Many are truck-mounted and effectively impossible to destroy even with an intensive air campaign.

All the evidence suggests that China understands this. While it is politically necessary for the government in Beijing to maintain that it has the capacity to reunify China by force, the announced plan for doing so is outlandish. It involves securing landing sites with a handful of craft then sending in the main force on lightly modified civilian ferries. No sensible person could take such a plan seriously.

Much the same points can be made about the idea of an extended bombing campaign. Bombing an enemy into submission has been tried many times since its initial success at Guernica in 1937 and has almost invariably failed.

Moreover, Russia’s massive air force has proved incapable of overcoming Ukrainian air defences, or even driving the much smaller Ukraine air force from the skies. With the exception of the mythical “ghost of Kyiv,” air-to-air combat has been almost non-existent, and crewed aircraft have played at most a marginal role. It is highly unlikely that the Chinese air force, operating under far less favourable conditions, could do any better against Taiwan.

Finally, there is the possibility of a blockade. Like the other options for an assault on Taiwan, this idea has always been problematic. It would be easy enough to close the South China Sea to shipping, but that would be more damaging to China than Taiwan, which could use air transport or develop ports on its eastern coast.

By contrast, Russia’s strategy of blocking Ukrainian exports through the Black Sea looked relatively easy, and for a while it seemed to work. But a combination of military failures (notably the loss of Snake Island) and global condemnation forced it to abandon the idea. The resumption of Ukrainian grain exports (billed as a “goodwill gesture”) has reversed one of the few successes of Russia’s war.

Taiwan is clearly aware of this, and has shifted its focus  from traditional air and naval warfare to a defensive “hedgehog” strategy based primarily on anti-ship and anti-aircraft missile warfare. (Sam Roggeveen of the Lowy Institute has suggested a similar “echidna” strategy for Australia.)

If an invasion of Taiwan is militarily impossible, why is it continually discussed? The answer is that it is in the interests of all the major parties to pretend that an invasion is a real possibility. The Chinese government can’t concede that it lacks the capacity to unify the country by force. The Taiwanese government has every reason to present itself as being threatened by China. And the US military, particularly the navy, has no incentive to downplay threats that demand high levels of defence expenditure.

This continued focus on conflict over Taiwan, and more generally in the South China Sea, increases the risk of accidental escalation, possibly even involving nuclear weapons. Moreover, it distracts attention from arguably more serious threats, most notably the rise of North Korea as a rogue nuclear power under effective Chinese protection. It also undermines possibilities for cooperation, particularly in relation to climate change.

A realistic Western approach to China would accept that it is a powerful adversary in a number of strategic dimensions but a necessary partner in others. The same realism is needed on the Chinese side. Focusing on the chimerical idea of an invasion of Taiwan is counterproductive on both sides.

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The evidence isn’t hard to find. For a few hours during last month’s debates between contenders for the Conservative crown, prime ministerial aspirants Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak talked tough about how they were going to deal with the People’s Republic. What did they plan to do? Close down a few barely functioning Confucius Institutes, set up an inquiry and stand up to Beijing. In other words, they plan to pretend, Yes Minister–style, that action is happening where inaction prevails.

Truly, I wondered to myself, is this the best we can do about such an important issue?

So I started to read as much as I could about Britain’s relations with China — going back to the beginning, to the moment at the end of the sixteenth century when Elizabeth I sent three letters to the Ming emperor Wan Li. Those messages had two striking characteristics: first, they were purely about trade, and second, they never arrived. The ships carrying them either foundered or gave up trying to reach their destination.

More than 400 years later, Britain’s messages still don’t seem to be reaching their intended recipient. And trade and self-interest are still at the core of its approach to China.

The mercantile ambitions that determined British policy during the first 200 years of contact became mixed up with something more potent once the first Anglo-Chinese war broke out in 1840. Industrialisation, colonisation and economic efficacy had made Britain stronger than Qing-era China. That asymmetry, in a relationship driven by the era’s supply chains and economic flows, almost inevitably led to conflict. Britain, as the more powerful, prevailed.

The modern Chinese history of that period recounts exploitation by the British, who carried in their wake the United States, France, Germany and then, most destructive of all, Japan. Strangely, Britain doesn’t have an identifiable narrative of those events. Most debates about the period concern whether the imperial project, more broadly, was in any sense justified. China figures as a minor part in the Oxford History of the British Empire, for instance.

Looking over the post-1840 history I was struck by just how strongly Britain’s mindset rested on a view that China’s weakness and dysfunctionality were both a curse and a blessing. London’s policy through much of the nineteenth and early twentieth century was to exploit the country’s weaknesses while doing what it could to ensure that the Chinese empire — what Lord Palmerston, the British leader most associated with gunboat diplomacy, called “a rickety ship of state” — stayed afloat to perform whatever useful tasks it could.

This strategy helps explain Britain’s odd decision to help the teetering Qing defeat the Taiping rebellion in the 1860s. It also explains the remarkable fact that the Chinese Maritime Customs Service, a significant part of the Chinese state, was run by a foreigner, Ulsterman Robert Hart, from 1863 to 1910.

A China that was frustrating and sometimes fickle — a country that didn’t like foreigners but had to endure them, that needed propping up because the alternatives were less palatable — was a place Britain and other developed nations grew comfortable with. Reading the history, it dawned on me that this mindset has lingered, even to this day, and underlies the increasingly panicky response to Xi Jinping’s dramatic rebuttals of the tale of rickety dependence.

Nineteen forty-nine, the year Xi’s communist predecessors took power, is one of those dates that becomes more significant as time goes on. Despite the parlous state of the Chinese economy during the 1950s and 1960s, and despite the often self-harming policy contortions and mass campaigns of the Mao years, 1949 was when China started not just saying no to the outside world but also behaving like it meant it.

Clues as to how the new rulers intended to do business came thick and fast. Regarded as unlikely to intervene in the clash between North and South Korea in 1950, they mobilised more than three million “volunteers” and stopped the UN forces in their tracks. Seen as mere lackeys of the Soviet Union, they detonated their relationship with Moscow by the end of the 1950s and went it alone.

Whether Britain has ever really come to terms with that new, pushy stance is moot.

Has Australia been any more adaptable? As historian James Curran writes in his new history of the Australia–China relationship since the second world war, Australia’s China Odyssey: From Euphoria to Fear, both Britain and Australia briefly flirted with the idea of conferring diplomatic recognition on the newly established People’s Republic in 1949. Like London but unlike Washington, Australia didn’t view the victorious communists as an existential threat needing to be repelled at every step. Canberra’s view was ambiguous and pragmatic. But while Britain made the leap in January 1950, antagonising the Americans was a risk Canberra couldn’t take.

Just like their British counterparts, Australian leaders from Robert Menzies to Gough Whitlam, Malcom Fraser, Bob Hawke, Paul Keating and John Howard were gripped by the notion that China needed to be handled dextrously, with a view to the long term — while all the time keeping an eye on how the Americans reacted.

The high point of this attitude came in the Hawke era (at least before 1989) when, as Curran reports, the Australian leader apparently enjoyed such rapport with leaders like Zhao Ziyang and Hu Yaobang that he had twenty-hour meetings on visits to Beijing. Hawke and Hu even held each other’s hands from the airport to the city when the latter came for a visit to Perth in 1985. It’s hard to imagine such bodily intimacy between Xi Jinping and any recent leaders of Australia.

The lingering notion of China as a place to be engaged with — not so it could carry on as it was, but so it might become something else — always offered a decent counterargument to the many in Australia who worried about its rising economic and military power. Even after the dark days of 1989, when the Tiananmen massacre saw Hawke overrule his officials and tearfully grant 20,000 Chinese people the right to stay in Australia on compassionate grounds, the language of engagement was quickly reasserted. The problem was that no one in China had ever been asked what they thought of the hopes being projected onto them.

The thwarted expectation that the Chinese would change has been exacerbated by China’s mastery of plot twists. On Mao’s death in 1976, Australia’s ambassador to Beijing, Stephen FitzGerald, was one of the very few to wonder whether the country was about to do the wholly unexpected and renounce radical leftism. Within two years his maverick view was proved prescient, and Deng Xiaoping’s opening-up era began.

By then, China’s political system was generally assumed to be on its last legs. Tiananmen had been its moral unmasking. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, its isolation seemed complete. Yet, against all logic and predictions, the Chinese economy began experiencing one of history’s most explosive periods of growth. In fact, after 2001, it could be called the most explosive.

Australia was an early beneficiary of this new economic power. But the fact that China was not behaving quite as expected created deeper and deeper quandaries. On a prosaic level, though, Whitlam and Fraser’s gambit had worked. Engagement had yielded a huge material and economic dividend for Australia. During John Howard’s prime minstership alone, from 1996 to 2007, Chinese–Australian trade grew more than fivefold. By 2007, as Curran reports, China had become the country’s largest trading partner. Other countries always hoped for Chinese trade to make them rich, and even during the great financial crisis Australia proved this might actually be possible.

This plotline would have been fine had a friendlier and more politically and diplomatically compatible China emerged alongside it. In another twist, though, the richer China got, the more entrenched its one-party Marxist-Leninist system became. Even the missionary zeal of the Americans sputtered out by the mid 2010s. From 2012, under Xi Jinping, the world faced a partner that not only didn’t perform to the West’s expectations and ideals but also, to add insult to injury, was brazen and outspoken in its defiance and increasingly regarded the West as chaotic, incompetent and lazy.

When the facts change, as John Maynard Keynes famously counselled, then so should minds. What is truly puzzling is that the main response to China’s defiance of expectations — in Australia, Britain and elsewhere — has not been a deeper reconsideration of why we are where we are but little more than an intensifying resentment.

This attitude is widespread, but in Australia its emotional depth has been truly striking. Curran provides a good summary of what Kevin Rudd’s prime ministership, that key period of 2007–10, reveals. What was not to like about Rudd as an interlocutor? A Mandarin speaker with a stellar understanding of Chinese history, language and culture, he knew more about China than any other leader of a major developed country.

The enigma of the Rudd era was not that it was incoherent but that it was so deeply bifurcated. Rudd veered between declaring that Australia would fight alongside America against China (in ways that unsettled even the Americans) and intensifying the language of engagement in China itself. Visiting Beijing straight after Washington in 2008, having thought deeply and had long discussions with Australian scholar Geremie Barmé, he decided to use a new term for the bilateral relationship — not pengyou (friends) but zhengyou (true friends).

There was nothing wrong with the idea, in theory at least. What was truly baffling was Rudd’s decision to announce it during a public lecture at Peking University, and only formally communicate the shift to elite leaders later in the day. Is it really too hard to understand why politicians on their home turf might be rattled by a visiting dignitary declaring a significant policy change in a public meeting before even bothering to run it by them? Rudd’s idea was that Australia wanted a relationship in which both partners could talk frankly and critically to each other. He got it in spades when he met the then premier Wen Jiabao, who was furious at his diplomatic tactlessness and apparently made that clear.

While Curran’s chapters on the period from the 1950s up to Rudd are driven by a narrative coherence and internal logic, after this the story falls apart. This is no criticism of the author: he does a sterling job of tracing a lamentable series of events and decisions. The story he tells is disjointed and sometimes bewildering simply because he is trying to track rapid shifts and panicky changes.

Julia Gillard just about maintained some stability, but since then Australia has been blighted by abrupt changes of prime minister. That lack of stability, combined with what Curran calls a stunning poverty of ideas, contributed to the parlous situation we see today. Symptomatic of the lack of imagination is the way Malcolm Turnbull and then Scott Morrison shuffled through the words of Menzies, Howard and other former PMs to dredge up ideas that worked before to see if they could be recycled.

The result was sloganeering rather than sound policy, reinforcing an unsettling sense that what really drives contemporary Australian policymaking is a visceral fear, bordering on obsessional, of abandonment by the United States and a rising self-revulsion over the country’s lingering addiction to exporting commodities to China. Australia, seemingly economically dependent on its worst enemy, is unable to stutter out even a barely audible word of thanks.

Curran supplies what is usually absent from contemporary Australian discussions of China — a well-grounded sense of historical perspective. As I’ve already indicated, Australia is not alone. Becoming a little more familiar in recent months with Britain’s own long engagement with China, I’ve concluded that the one policy recommendation I would make to any major country is for the government to commission a trusted, objective historian to write a comprehensive history of its relations with China, a history that would help it work out where it has come from rather than always obsessing about where it wants to go.

As Curran writes in his introduction, until Australia picks up a mirror and looks at itself and its behaviour towards China more critically, its fears will continue to undermine good policy. Only by facing the past, as James Curran does in this book, can Australia move beyond panicky responses to Beijing’s shrill and unpleasant tone. That might not solve all the problems, but would at least help understand them, and even that modest step would be a huge improvement. •

Australia’s China Odyssey: From Euphoria to Fear
By James Curran | NewSouth | $34.99 | 352 pages

The post China syndromes appeared first on Inside Story.

But if they are eager to defend the patriarchy, they are even more devoted to the Fatherland. They act as online vigilantes on the lookout for anyone — Chinese, foreign, or foreign Chinese — who has “hurt the feelings of the Chinese people.”

The feelings of the Chinese people can be hurt in many ways, according to the most vocal and thin-skinned of their self-appointed representatives: call out human rights abuses in Xinjiang, support Hong Kong democrats or Taiwan autonomy, criticise Xi Jinping or ask #WhereIsPengShuai, to name some of the most obvious. Little Pinks keep a beady eye on artists and entertainers, trawling for current offences and past missteps, ready to foul the reputation and break the careers of any they’ve deemed to have crossed the Red line. Among those who have felt their wrath are Chloé Zhao, Oscar-winning director of Nomadland, for something she said (the mainland is a place of “lies”) and something she didn’t (“The US is now my country” — she actually said “not my country”). Another was a Chinese model living overseas who wished her followers “happy lunar new year” instead of “happy Chinese new year.”

The Little Pinks demand apologies, and frequently receive the most grovelling of ones, from those who want to keep working, or at least making money, in China. For one of the most bizarrely entertaining, see that of Fast and Furious star John Cena, apologising for calling Taiwan a country in mildly fluent if syntactically eccentric Mandarin, painfully wrestling each syllable to the floor as he professes his love for the Chinese people.

Little Pinks and apology videos were ripe for satire. The Malaysian-Chinese hip-hop artist and filmmaker Namewee and Kimberley Chen, an Australian singer living in Taiwan, have now delivered it in spades with their parodical music video “Fragile,” or “It Might Break Your Pinky Heart.” In the process they have, if not broken, at least cracked the internet.

The video begins with a tongue-in-cheek trigger warning for Little Pinks, opening in a Hobbiton-like rural idyl. A panda, dressed in pink camo overalls and matching military hat, wakes up and does his morning calisthenics while waving a banner that says NMSL (ni ma si le, “your mother’s dead,” one of the Little Pinks’ favourite terms of abuse). We see pinkish bales of cotton (symbolising Xinjiang) and garlic chives (internet slang for the cynical government and corporate view of people in China as a harvestable and replaceable resource: cut them down, and more grow back). As the duo sing lines such as “You never listen to what I have to say… you treat the world as your enemy… you say (I belong to you)… and want me to protect your fragile glass heart…” the panda frolics, plays wine glasses, breaks wine glasses, chops garlic chives and cooks up a pink bat stew. When the doe-eyed and hammily rueful Chen croons, “I’m so sorry” for hurting his feelings, she’s clearly anything but.

The song and video are a rich Where’s Wally of symbols, verbal puns, political barbs and piss-takes. Its frothy pink surface and sweet, energetic vocals are suffused with references to the forced closure of Hong Kong’s lively anti-Communist paper Apple Daily, re-education and forced labour in Xinjiang, the production of counterfeit goods, Covid-19’s origins, territorial claims in the South China Sea and Taiwanese autonomy. There’s even an allusion to Xi Jinping’s boast about humping one hundred kilos of wheat on a carrying pole for five kilometres during the Cultural Revolution without switching shoulders.

Namewee released the video on his YouTube channel on 15 October; by the end of November, it had more than thirty-four million views, hundreds of thousands of comments and almost one million “likes.”

“Fragile” has given a boost to what we might call “Pinkology,” with apologies to all the Redologists out there. Redology, hongxue, doesn’t refer to the study of communism or “Red China,” but is the field of academic study devoted to commentary and exegesis on the eighteenth-century novel Dream of the Red Chamber. But there is a link: like many other of China’s ancient literary classics, poems and songs, Dream is full of cryptic political and other references.

Chinese literary culture, with its accretion of thousands of years of references, intertextual quotations and riffs, has long provided satirists with what the scholar Geremie R. Barmé described to me as “a haystack of allusions in which to hide your needles.” Barmé and the linguist Stuart Jay Raj are among those who have contributed to Pinkology by decoding and contextualising the multilayered satire of “Pinky Heart” for an English-speaking audience.

Although Communists aren’t generally renowned for their sense of humour, Mao Zedong openly admired one of the greatest and most acerbic of modern China’s literary satirists, Lu Xun (1881–1936). Had Lu Xun, with his mordant wit and commitment to social justice, lived to see the founding of the People’s Republic, however, it’s not at all certain that he’d have survived communism itself. Despite official insistence that Lu Xun’s barbed criticisms of the Chinese character apply only to the “old society,” his work stubbornly continues to offer insights into today’s China. In fact, his most famous creation, the character Ah Q, thin-skinned, obsequious towards his superiors and a bully to those he considers his inferiors — a man who insists every slap in the face is a victory — might even be seen as the Great Ancestor of the Little Pinks.

Yu Liang, an influential journalist and academic at Shanghai’s Fudan University, has written a seminal work of Pinkology: “The Genealogy and Ecology of the Little Pinks, and the Future of Chinese Youth.” He traces their origins, and that of their style of action, to China’s overheated online fan club culture, in which fans typically mob-attack anyone criticising their beloved idol, band or team — in this case, Team China or Team CPC. Too young to know about the Cultural Revolution, or the early years of reform, never mind much of real life itself, Yu observes, “They were born on the Internet and will die on the Internet.” Yu, himself a proponent of China’s new nationalism, derides the Little Pinks’ ideology as “video-clip Marxism.” Their patriotism is entitled, middle-class and consumerist (their calls to action typically take the shape of consumer boycotts) and conforms, he notes, to a “welfare” rather than a “class” narrative.

Another person who has studied the Little Pinks is Fang Kecheng of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Despite their hardcore support for communism, he says, their biases mirror those of the Western alt-right: anti-feminist, xenophobic, Islamophobic, racist and ethnically (Han) chauvinistic. Some even voice support for far-right and neo-Nazi figures. They also share the right’s contempt for the liberal, progressive left: their favourite insult of baizuo translates perfectly as “libtard.” Yet their behaviour parallels the hyper-policing of identity politics and “cancel culture” of their left-wing peers in the West. Yu Liang wonders too “if Little Pinks share the fragile psyche of American youth.”

In response to “Fragile,” Chinese official media, on cue and without any sense of irony, have accused Namewee and Kimberley Chen of hurting the feelings of the Chinese people. The authorities have shut down the pair’s Weibo accounts and scrubbed their names and work from the Chinese internet. Namewee, implacable and seemingly delighted, told the BBC that the ban completed the artwork. As Chen sings in an ironic apology video, posted two days after the original went up:

Sorry to have hurt you. Weibo deleted me — whatever.
I can hear a sound — it’s hearts of glass shattering.
It’s okay, I still have IG and FB.
Maybe I shouldn’t be so direct, so super-direct.
I’m so sorry
YouTube trending at number 1. •

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Doshi makes much of what he describes as a “social science” approach to analysing China’s plans, drawing on Chinese Communist Party documents published over many decades. He cites documents identifying the United States as China’s principal opponent in world affairs, and others urging that China should “become a leading country in comprehensive national strength and international influence.”

China’s grand strategy, Doshi infers, is to replace the United States as the dominant world power and create a world order more congenial to its interests. I say infers because, on my reading and for all his effort, Doshi has not found a Chinese Communist Party leadership document that actually says so.

Let’s accept for a moment that China does indeed plan to supplant the United States as the dominant world power, and this intent can be ascertained by a reading of Communist Party documents. If true, what should the Americans do about it? What should Australia do about it? And can China achieve the global dominance Doshi says is its grand strategy?

Doshi recommends a strategy that (as he says) largely replicates China’s. China has blunted American naval power in its region by erecting missile defences, laying mines, deploying submarines and creating military facilities on islands. Doshi suggests the US counter-blunt by deploying carrier-based unmanned aircraft, hardening air and sea facilities on Okinawa to resist Chinese missiles, and developing greater mine-laying capacity to increase the cost of amphibious operations across the Taiwan Strait.

On the economic side, Doshi wants the United States to make it harder for Chinese businesses to acquire Western technologies. The United States should also crack down on China’s participation in US research projects. And he argues the United States should thwart China’s use of new multilateral institutions such as the Belt and Road Initiative and the Asian Infrastructure Development Bank by joining them and diluting Chinese control.

These suggestions would surely be unlikely to stop a truly determined China from ousting the United States as top dog, assuming that’s what it wants to do. Doshi’s is a program for a second-rate power to annoy a first-rate power.

If China really was planning to supplant the United States as the dominant global power, the most important part of the American response is not what Doshi suggests it do now, but what it has been doing for decades.

The United States spends three times as much on its military as China (and more than the combined total of the next twelve countries, China included). It has 750 military bases abroad in eighty countries, compared with China’s one (in Djibouti, jostling side by side with French, Italian, Japanese and US military bases). It has more than 5000 nuclear warheads to China’s 350. With its allies (Western Europe, Japan, Korea, Australia, and so on), it has long banned weapons sales to China and long maintained a policy of doing what it can to keep China one or two techno-generations behind the leaders. The United States has formal military alliances with many powerful countries; China has none.

By contrast with what the United States already does, the striking thing about Doshi’s program is its marginality. It is an implicit recognition that China’s size, success, strategic gains and integration in the global economy cannot now be undone. It cannot be bombed, invaded or disarmed — or not without the corresponding destruction of the United States. China’s biggest “blunting” of US strategic advantages occurred sixty years ago when it developed nuclear weapons.

China could conceivably be isolated economically through import and export bans and financial sanctions. But America can’t do that alone, and who else would support it? The disruption to the world economy doesn’t bear thinking about. China is now one-tenth of the global economy. It is the world’s biggest exporter of goods and services. Its household consumer market is considerably smaller than that of the United States, but much bigger than any other country’s.

Decoupling? Rightly, Doshi doesn’t recommend it. Last year US goods exports to China were higher than they had ever been, 2017 excepted. So far this year US goods exports to China are even higher than over the same period last year. While foreign direct investment around the world tumbled last year, foreign direct investment in China actually rose.

And is China’s threat to the world order one that now requires a novel response? China’s rise relative to the United States won’t continue inexorably. At market exchange rates China’s GDP is two-thirds of the United States’ GDP. It may well surpass the United States in economic size in a decade or two, though it may not. With all its troubles the US economy has done quite well overall, while China’s “miracle economy” phase is long over. Its workforce is declining, and productivity gains are harder to find. By the time it matches the United States in economic weight its growth rate will highly likely have slipped towards that of the United States. They will be roughly evenly matched in economic weight and in growth rate. China’s income per head will be one-quarter of the United States’.

Doshi has gone to immense trouble to collect and translate documents. But it should surely come as no surprise that China finds US global dominance unsatisfactory. This is how great powers behave, and always have. Whether or not China has a grand strategy, we can infer from its conduct that it seeks to exert its weight in regional and world affairs. It would be a historical exception if it did not. No surprise either that this pressure should grate against America, the current top dog.

Yet given that China’s immense economic success has occurred within what Doshi describes as the US-led liberal world order, and given it is very heavily invested in a world economy not unlike the one we have today, is a fundamental change in the global order in China’s interests? If an American-led world order exists, is not China its greatest economic success? •

The post Jostling giants appeared first on Inside Story.

Five years on, it’s officially a problem. At a business dinner in July, a manager and client of the ecommerce giant Alibaba pushed a female employee to get drunk and then sexually harassed and raped her. The distressed young woman reported the incident to her superiors and Alibaba’s human resources division. When they took no action, she posted an eleven-page account on the company’s intranet.

Word got out and Chinese social media blew up. The hashtag “firmly refuse vile business drinking culture” attracted 220 million views and tens of thousands of comments. Alibaba CEO Daniel Zhang went public to condemn the “ugly culture of forced drinking” and fired the alleged rapist. Two other managers who had failed to act on the woman’s complaint resigned. Even the Communist Party’s powerful anti-corruption body, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection weighed in, condemning the culture of compulsory drinking at business and other dinners as “odious.”

Out came other shocking stories of sexual assault and more. There was the boss who slapped a new employee for not returning a toast by a higher-up, and the professor who forced a postgrad student to drink so much he passed out — and then refused to teach him because he wasn’t a good enough drinker. Criticisms of the contemporary drinking culture — endless forced toasts, typically with strong spirits called baijiu, and a bullying power dynamic — had been growing for years. In 2021, they reached critical mass.

Some commentators have pushed back. Drinking, they claim, is part of traditional Chinese culture. The ancient Book of Odes, compiled almost three millennia ago, contains at least twenty references to alcohol. Wine played a role in formal rites and rituals. One of the most famous works of calligraphy, “Preface to the Orchid Pavilion Poems,” celebrates an afternoon playing a game involving drinking and poetry.

One of the pithiest and most-quoted tributes to drink came from the brush of Cao Cao (155–220), a military man and a poet. Part of a longer poem, it honours the semi-mythical inventor of fermented drink, Du Kang: “How to dispel one’s sorrows? Only Du Kang.”

Li Bai (701–762), considered one of China’s two greatest poets, was a renowned inebriate. Among his many tributes to the joys of intoxication, he penned the following lines, which may well resonate with the generation of young burnt-out workers who talk longingly of “lying flat” (dropping out and doing nothing), here translated by Amy Lowell and Florence Ayscough: “Why should one spend one’s life in toil?/Thinking this, I have been drunk all day./I fell down and lay prone by the pillars in front of the house.”

Yet the drinking culture of old was not quite what it seems. For one thing, when Li Bai, in another poem, hails “a cup, a cup, and yet another cup,” he is talking about a very small cup, filled with wine fermented from fruit such as grapes, or grains such as rice or sorghum, with an alcoholic content well under 20 per cent.

Distilled spirits, baijiu, only came to be produced in significant quantities sometime in the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). Up to 70 per cent pure alcohol, baijiu was cheap and potent, predominantly a drink of the poor. It did not appear at the banquets of the rich or powerful, nor did it fill the poets’ tiny cups.

Everything changed in 1935, when an army marched with sore feet into a small village in southwestern Guizhou province. The Communists’ Red Army was in the middle of the legendary Long March, a tortuous, two-year, 9000-kilometre retreat, during which it fought off bandits, warlords and attacks by government troops while traversing some of China’s most rugged terrain, from malarial swamps to snowy mountains.

In the Guizhou town of Zunyi, the Communists made Mao Zedong their leader. In the village of Maotai, they made the fierce local baijiu their drink. It didn’t just numb pain and stave off cold. It could sterilise wounds as well, and, as Red Army generals discovered to their delight, it was perfect for soaking their blistered, aching feet.

After the Communists took power in 1949, the state nationalised and combined the handful of baijiu distilleries in Maotai, and named the product after the village (spelling it Moutai in English). In 1951, premier Zhou Enlai created a standard for state banquets. The food would be of the refined and not-too-spicy southeastern Huaiyang cuisine. The drink would be the fiery Moutai. The proletarian sauce that had played such a welcome role in one of the party’s foundational legends became the national drink of the People’s Republic of China.

Baijiu manufacture boomed. In 1949, China produced 108,000 tonnes of baijiu; by 1975, annual production had reached more than 1.7 million. The Soviet Union, where no deals were done without lashings of vodka, also contributed to the reshaping of China’s drinking culture, especially among officials. Online commentators looking for the source of China’s toxic drinking culture point the finger at one man in particular: Dmitry Ustinov, the Soviet central committee member responsible for the Soviet Union’s military-industrial complex from 1965 to 1976 and defence minister from 1976 to 1984.

Some of Ustinov’s Soviet colleagues claimed he put an end to messy drinking culture within the Soviet defence establishment. By contrast, Chinese accounts, which credit Ustinov with an almost inhuman ability to hold his liquor, relate how he notoriously insisted that negotiations, over arms deals for example, begin with marathon bouts of drinking. He would get his guests so thoroughly pixelated that they would sign off on deals they’d wholly regret in the morning. In one infamous example, when India was trying to talk down the price of Soviet arms, six Indian negotiators ended up in hospital with alcohol poisoning; the ones who remained upright blearily agreed to double the original price.

In the early 1990s, in a case of what you might call “reverse Ustinov,” the Chinese historian of Sino-Soviet relations and the cold war, Shen Zhihua, fed up with the obstructively slow pace of Russian archivists, plied them with baijiu. The files fell open.

It was in the 1990s that the Chinese Communist Party expanded its economic reforms and businesses boomed. Entrepreneurs readily adopted official, Sovietised banquet culture, with its baked-in hierarchies and negotiations over endless toasts of baijiu. To refuse a drink was to cause one’s superior or host to lose face, or so they said. And a sip wouldn’t do — the expression ganbei was a command to drain the glass in one go. A straight line led from here to the scandal at Alibaba.

Forcing people to drink as a sign of subservience was not unknown in ancient times. Cao Cao is said to have laid on a banquet for a general who surrendered to him at which he toasted each guest in turn, a strongman with an axe by his side. Refusal was not an option.

These days, China leads the world in total alcohol consumption. The legal drinking age is eighteen, although enforcement is, to say the least, patchy. But China’s younger generation, and especially those among its better-educated, well-travelled middle class, are increasingly rebelling against “bottoms up” culture. A recent survey revealed that people under forty tend to consider baijiu both bad-tasting and old-fashioned; many prefer beer and wine and even low-alcohol drinks, and bars over banquets.

In another online survey, 84 per cent of the almost 700,000 respondents expressed “extreme disgust and zero tolerance” for coercive drinking at business and other banquets. Baijiu production peaked in 2016 at 13.6 million tonnes; by 2020 it dropped to less than 7.5 million.

At one point in my misspent youth, as a young magazine reporter attending a banquet with officials from the All-China Journalists Association in Beijing, I acceded to a drinking contest. Twenty glasses of Moutai later, I declared victory. The following morning, I woke up with drums in my head, the imprint of a toilet seat on my cheek, and colour literally drained from my vision for several terrifying, sepia-tinted hours. An end to coercive and competitive drinking? I say cheers to that. •

The publication of this article was supported by a grant from the Judith Neilson Institute for Journalism and Ideas.

The post Last call for China’s drinking culture? appeared first on Inside Story.

“Premier Zhou Enlai asked me with a smile, ‘Where did you study Chinese?’

“‘In America,’ I replied, a little surprised the world-famous premier had even understood my poor Chinese, with its Australian accent, let alone showed an interest in my studies.

“Zhou Enlai said with spirit: ‘That is a fine thing, for you, an Australian, to learn Chinese in America!’”

So begins Australian Bush to Tiananmen Square, the story of a boy from country Victoria who falls in love with Asia’s giant and becomes a Harvard professor. This Australian, who “grew up in a society fearful of China, because of the Korean War,” found his “inspiration to be a writer in interaction with China.” Australia, China and the United States “were to be the three countries shaping my life.”

The bush for Terrill is Bruthen, in a valley 300 kilometres east of “far distant” Melbourne. “The sounds of a Bruthen night return as if I had just woken there,” Terrill says. “The mellow chime of bellbirds. A sighing wind in the eucalyptus trees.”

As a country child of the 1940s, shoes were for church on Sunday and everyone went barefoot to school. “This was not because of poverty, but closeness to nature,” Terrill writes. “Climate was benign. Paths of soft earth and green grass were gentle on our sunburnt toes. We learned to look out for the occasional snake.”

From studies at Melbourne University, he wangles his way into the People’s Republic of China. “Few Westerners set foot in the PRC then. Australians needed permission from their own government to go there. Some got a green light, but Beijing guarded visas for people from non-Communist countries like precious jewels. Australia, in step with the US, still had not recognised Mao’s government, which made getting a Beijing visa tougher.”

Hitchhiking Eastern Europe in the summer of 1964, Terrill knocks on the doors of China’s embassies in Prague, Budapest and Belgrade, feeling like he was “in a revolving door, with a Chinese visa always just out of my grasp.” At his last stop in Warsaw, almost out of money, the boy from the bush boldly asks to see the Chinese ambassador. “Two cups of tea appeared before us; I made my case, offering the dubious opinion that the youth of Australia’s opinion of New China hinged upon my visit.”

Next day he got that rare visa, and the adventure began. Flying via the Soviet Union, he begins exploring the “shimmering abstraction” of Mao’s revolution. “I was too young to buy an abstraction, and energetic enough to hunt down a few realities.”

Beijing offers him the curved tiles of the Forbidden City’s palaces, the nasal cries of hawkers and stone grinders, the smell of Chinese noodles and sauces, and the open-air, leisurely sightseeing of a pedicab (although it might be “unsocialist” to be pedalled around by a Chinese worker).

In Canton, the clip-clop of wooden sandals on the pavements had almost given way to the rustle of plastic shoes. “It makes Canton quieter than before Liberation,” a shopkeeper tells him. The Pearl River is alive with boats, “some were sampans, with boxes of chickens affixed to the back, home for families who refused to live ashore, despite government efforts to remove them as a pre-Liberation relic. The only (live) cat I saw in China was on the deck of one of those sampans.”

He writes a six-part series on the 1964 China trip for Rupert Murdoch’s newly created newspaper, the Australian. Murdoch himself edits Terrill’s pieces: “He pruned my articles with a blue pencil and wrote out the payment cheque with a fountain pen.”

Wanting to learn Chinese and study modern China, Terrill applies to universities in Europe and the United States. Harvard and the London School of Economics both offer a PhD fellowship. Harvard wins because of his “hunch that life in the US would suit me better than life in ‘Mother England,’ as my grandmother called Britain.”

Initially, the US consul in Melbourne denies a visa because Terrill favours diplomatic recognition of China and opposes the Vietnam war, making his “views are incompatible with American national purpose.” To reverse the verdict, the Labor leader, Arthur Calwell, writes to the American ambassador, arguing that Terrill “is a social democrat with no communist connections.” Terrill heads off in 1965, “one of the very few people at Harvard who had been in Mao’s China.”

A decade later, Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew, visiting Harvard, remarks how hard it is for Americans “peering through a peephole” to get a clear view of China. “We Westerners don’t really understand China,” Terrill replies. “We invent Chinese Communist society according to our wish.”

Terrill’s “inventing” of China is more subtle than most. After a dinner in Hong Kong, he reflects in his diary on the contrast between chopsticks and the knife and fork:

The fork is explicit, as is the knife; its purpose is to spear the food; it is shaped accordingly. The purpose of the knife is to cut the food, and it is shaped for that. However, the function of chopsticks is ambiguous. With them you can cut, lift, spear, and separate. Differentiation lies in the movement of the hand.

He muses on what this says about Chinese thought and Chinese foreign policy: “Differentiations on the Chinese side are not explicit, and are missed if one expects Western ways.”

The Chinese language becomes “tyrant, mistress and illusionist at the same time.” Terrill learned to speak hundreds of words that he couldn’t remember how to write: “I copied each damn ideograph onto a ‘flash card,’ and carried the pack of square white cards around Harvard campus, like a thief bearing the code of a safe he hoped to crack.”

Whitlam shared Terrill’s passion, respecting the traditions, rationality and humour of Chinese people. “In many years of association with him,” writes Terrill, “Chinese were the only living people I ever saw him in some awe of (he esteemed the ancient Greeks and Romans).”

Whitlam’s effort to go to China in 1971 was risky, as Terrill writes: “Whitlam announced his appeal to Beijing for a visit before he telephoned me to try to make the invitation occur! He seemed more confident than I was that I could pull a few strings.” When the Beijing invitation is issued, Whitlam sends a cable to Terrill that reads simply, “Eureka. We won.”

Whitlam, he observes, had the “rationality of a bright lawyer; he wanted a logical, solve-all-the-problems Australian foreign policy.” Terrill quotes a 1967 view that Australia was dependent on the United States for its defence, Europe for its culture, and Japan and China for its markets, observing, “Whitlam wanted to tie all three strands together into one package.”

Overall, Terrill says, Mao and Zhou saw Australia in the context of its British heritage and American links — not, as Whitlam did, as a country within Asia. He quotes this exchange between Mao and Whitlam:

Mao asked, “Would your Labor Party dare to make revolution?”

“We stand for evolution rather than revolution,” said Whitlam, using a formulation I had often heard from him.

Mao: “That sounds like the theories of Charles Darwin?”

“I feel Darwin’s ideas relate to fauna and flora rather than to social development,” suggested Whitlam.

Having been the right man for the moment for Whitlam, Terrill played some of the same role for his teacher at Harvard, Henry Kissinger.

Waiting in Beijing for Whitlam to arrive in 1971, Terrill is puzzled that the Chinese are so interested in quizzing him about Kissinger, who by this time was national security advisor to President Richard Nixon. At the same moment, Kissinger himself was about to arrive in Beijing for a secret visit. He would later comment on Zhou Enlai’s “stunning” knowledge of his background.

Terrill, a man of the left, admired the realist clarity of Kissinger’s focus on US interests:

I found a striking virtue in Kissinger’s open mind about China. “What should we talk to the Chinese about?” he would ask me, a totally different approach from the more usual, “When are the Chinese going to become worthy of our recognising them?” An understanding of balance of power politics also made Kissinger a refreshing force in American policy toward Asia. He saw that China and America had a mutual interest in drawing closer to each other as a way of countering Soviet power. He felt the breakthrough with the Chinese would come on broad grounds and he was correct.

Terrill saw in Nixon’s 1972 trip to China the American capacity for renewal and enthusiasm. Nixon’s shift turned a bipolar world into a triangle, he writes, ushering in the age of economics in East Asia. The American market was the catalyst and the Chinese economy was the beneficiary. As America had gone to the moon, Nixon had gone to Beijing.

“Nixon eventually said his trip added up to ‘a week that changed the world,’” he writes. “As summit meetings go, the trip did indeed change the world. China emerged with a half-reassuring smile from the Cultural Revolution, triangular diplomacy was born, the Russians were agitated like ants on a hot stove, and most of the domestic critics of both Zhou Enlai and Nixon were (for the moment) silenced.”

When Mao died in 1976, Terrill recorded some positive thoughts about the chairman in his diary: “His early idea of rooting thought in observed reality. Of a leader keeping his compass on ordinary people’s needs. Of taking the long view. Of holding to a poet’s whimsy amidst griding struggle.”

Terrill devotes a chapter to what Chinese friends later told him about the turmoil and suffering of the Cultural Revolution. His biography of Mao, published in 1980, describes Mao as “discontented, militant, whimsical and anti-Soviet,” responding to complexities by blaming class enemies.

Mao was in a race against time for the Chinese Revolution, and for himself, Terrill reflects:  “[H]e sought quick renewal at once political and personal. A semi-Daoist trait of questioning even his own successes seemed to surface within Mao. The ‘monkey’ in him got the better of the ‘tiger.’”

Terrill judges that Mao unified and strengthened China, but he did not change human nature, nor “cancel the sense of honour, taste for materialism, and family-mindedness of the Chinese people.”

When Terrill’s New York publisher gives a visiting delegation of Chinese publishers one of the first copies of Terrill’s Mao, “they handled it like a hand grenade.” Eventually, Mao “was published in the PRC in Chinese and, to the surprise of author, publisher, and a nervous but cooperative Chinese government” became a bestseller.

Much was made possible because of the “stunning recovery” of Deng Xiaoping, “the chain-smoke Cultural Revolution victim” whose return to power delivered huge changes in China’s policy. Terrill marks the consequent shift in the views expressed by a senior Chinese diplomat. In the mid 1970s, the diplomat praised turmoil and talked about international class struggle; after a lunch in 1981, Terrill noted, “He sounded like a blend of Bismarck and an overseas Chinese businessman.”

Under Deng, China “weighed the balance of power, counted its foreign aid pennies, and tackled the unmodernised condition of its own armies. China was buying time, coping cleverly with the gap between ambitions and capacity. Its top priority was economic development at home.”

Lee Kuan Yew tells Terrill that Deng had told him in a conversation, “Marxism has failed in China.” Tragic as the Cultural Revolution was, it became a springboard for Deng to leap without qualms towards fresh thinking, Terrill reflects:

Deng Xiaoping tried to save communism with one hand and bury it with the other. He built a China economically minded at home and nationalistic abroad. His way was to achieve a desired result without regard to image, theory, or elegance of method. He never was a diligent reader or given to philosophising, but he displayed a knack for knowing what to do and what not to say. He once described his political style: “I cross the river by touching my feet against the stones, this one and that one, to keep my balance and get to the other side.”

As China opened up for its own people in the 1980s, Terrill feels the dualism that will deliver tragedy in Tiananmen Square in 1989. Here, as in much of the book, the story is driven by conversations with Chinese friends and contacts who embrace new opportunities but are sceptical about China without the Communist Party at the helm. Their ambivalence isn’t hard to explain: “the revolution set in place a Leninist political system, while reform sought a commodity economy — the two don’t mix.”

Australian Bush to Tiananmen Square concludes with the Tiananmen bloodshed. Terrill heads that final chapter “Epilogue,” and it is an epilogue, too, for a moment of hope.

Terrill was on the streets of Beijing when the tanks crushed the democracy demonstrations on 4 June 1989. His account is that of a historian with the eye of an on-the-ground reporter:

That night, despite the horrors, my view of the capacities of Chinese people was enhanced. The courage, humour, practicality, and sense of history of youth whom I talked with intensified my faith in the Chinese. Yet I also felt that the courage of the crowd was almost suicidal, for Communists when their grip on power is threatened have a strong tendency to behave like Communists.

A life devoted to going deep into China has taught Terrill much about what the party will do to its own people. He records the words one woman cried to him near Tiananmen on June 4: “Tell the world our government has gone mad.”

The boy from Bruthen was drawn to the exotic, but he judges that China’s exoticism is breaking down before the universals of the human condition. “I do not think individualism and political pluralism will come to China from the West,” he writes. “The demand for them will burst out within China, not as a diktat from a father-figure from on high but as people express themselves politically, grabbed from below.”

As a man who has written much in his lifetime, Terrill doesn’t need to cram everything in to this elegant work. Much that has already been written can be omitted. That body of work has some standout pieces. His 1972 book 800,000,000: The Real China was one of the Asia works of the 1970s — a Penguin edition usually sat near a pile of the weekly edition of the Far Eastern Economic Review.

The Chinese-language edition of Mao has sold 1.5 million copies. Terrill’s 2003 book, The New Chinese Empire: And What It Means for the World, is a deep meditation on the meaning of China, wedded to an optimism that the country will eventually produce a modern democratic state.

The oeuvre of the boy from the bush also has some wattle and eucalyptus, particularly the 1987 The Australians, reworked in 2000 as The Australians: The Way We Live Now. For an Australian-flavoured dive into Terrill land, download (free) his 2006 paper Riding the Wave: The Rise of China and Options for Australian Policy and from 2013, Facing the dragon: China Policy In a New Era.

The personal summing up of the memoir comes in the penultimate chapter, before the Tiananmen epilogue. “Am I married to China?” Terrill asks at its conclusion. “Sometimes, I feel China has conquered me, and taken control of my days as a would-be expert on China. Of course, that would be nothing, compared with China taking control of the West. Momentous challenges and benefits beckoned for both sides as the fateful year of 1989 unfolded. Knowing the past did not guarantee knowing China’s future. Still, it was a stirring life experience for a boy from the Australian Bush.” •

The post Conquered by China appeared first on Inside Story.

But a property crash in China would be vastly different from one in any other part of the world, and that’s because of the enormous amount of control the Chinese government has over the economy, the financial system, cross-border capital flows, labour markets, the media and the Chinese people.

Many believe that this level of control makes a systemic crisis less likely. This is true, but the optimism is misplaced. For China to achieve strong, sustainable and inclusive growth it needs an economy that sources its growth from productivity and innovation. History shows that these depend on well-designed free markets and a government that limits its interventions to delivering public goods and dealing with market failures. While government intervention is often required in crises, flexible markets are also much better at minimising their social and financial cost.

The Chinese government’s capacity to manage every facet of a property crisis — from the companies involved and the banks that lent to them through to cross-border capital flows, and what people do with their shares, savings and labour — reveals just how far China needs to go in liberalising its economy. It’s also a reminder of just how far backwards the country has gone under Xi Jinping.

A collapse of Evergrande is unlikely to significantly affect the rest of the world. China’s capital controls have limited the financial links between China’s property market and the global economy. While some foreign investors own bonds linked to Chinese property developers, most of the impact of the crisis so far has centred on specific Chinese firms within the property sector. Capital controls are preventing Chinese savers and investors from moving much of their money offshore, which would help limit falls in asset prices and relieve pressure to depreciate the exchange rate (which is also heavily managed by the Chinese government).

Property crises often spread through the banking sector. But a recent stress test of Chinese banks suggested the country’s banks are relatively stable. Although some smaller banks could get into trouble, the financial buffers across the system would be reduced by only 2.1 per cent in an extreme scenario. Evergrande is a big firm, but its debt amounts to just 0.5 per cent of total Chinese bank loans. And even if problems did emerge among banks, regulators have wide powers to clean up their balance sheets through forced mergers with other banks, forced reductions in the debt repayments being demanded by creditors, and forced “bail-ins” by shareholders, as well as direct bailouts and increased nationalisation.

The “shadow banking sector” is perhaps the biggest area of concern. These are the non-bank financial intermediaries that sit outside banking regulations. Almost half of Evergrande’s interest-bearing liabilities came from trusts and other shadow lenders in the first half of 2020. The opacity and lack of regulatory oversight, even by China’s standards, make it difficult to judge these risks. The offshore bond market is a similar concern given that Evergrande is the largest single issuer of dollar-denominated bonds through Hong Kong.

The direct financial implications for the rest of the world might be relatively muted, but that doesn’t mean there are no indirect effects. If the Chinese government pushed the economy away from property construction then China’s demand for other countries’ exports will change. With the price of iron ore already falling sharply, this is a particular risk for Australia.

Domestically, the Chinese government’s control over its economy has major drawbacks.

Its control of the country’s financial system stops savings from being directed to the entrepreneurs, startups and businesses that need them. That stops new businesses from forming, hurts job creation, reduces productivity, and results in a build-up of risk and speculation in asset markets.

Its control of labour markets prevents businesses from accessing the right workers, and stops workers from pursuing the jobs they most desire, reducing their productivity and efficiency.

Its control over the exchange rate has similar drawbacks. Its interventions have historically reduced the purchasing power of Chinese citizens, who then go without cheap goods and services so rich people in rich countries can have more.

And its control over cross-border capital flows stops citizens from getting the best possible return on their savings, crucial to funding their retirement given China’s weak social safety net. Foreigners can buy Chinese stocks 31 per cent cheaper than locals can. Why? Because foreigners have options and locals do not.

Nor is it correct to think that a trade-off exists between long-term growth and effective crisis management. Flexible economies are better for growth and better at preventing and managing crises. If people are free and able to leave industries, towns and cities to find new jobs, the effect of a crisis on employment will be smaller and the government won’t need to spend as much on stimulus. If businesses can easily close and redirect their capital elsewhere, the hit to GDP, incomes and savings will be smaller. If households are free to shift their assets, and prices, wages and the exchange rate are allowed to adjust, the economy recovers more quickly.

A liberalised Chinese economy is good for growth, and even better for crisis management. Sadly, China appears to be going firmly in the wrong direction under President Xi Jinping.

Xi’s campaign to rein in perceived capitalist excesses is increasing the government’s control over the economy. It is undermining the economic liberalisation China desperately needs. The government’s blocking of Ant Group (one of China’s biggest companies) from issuing shares, its punishment of Didi (a ride-sharing company) for listing its shares on American stock markets, its efforts to punish Evergrande, its banning of cryptocurrency trading, even its limitations on computer gaming are just recent examples of a steady increase in government controls.

China has achieved remarkable growth by combining modern technologies with an enormous population and an export-oriented growth strategy. But this is an old trick. It’s a model that only works for so long. Without sustained productivity and innovation, China risks getting old before it gets rich. •

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Shum loses US$100,000 in a game called Kill the Landlord, but that’s okay — it’s a good investment in connections. As the drink flows, Ningbo tycoon Yu Guoxiang boasts of the official favours that enabled his expressway and hotel deals.

Once they arrive, museums and art galleries aren’t on the itinerary. David Li, son-in-law of Chinese Communist Party heavy Jia Qinglin, wants to open an exclusive wine club in Beijing, so first there’s a dinner at the Pavillon Ledoyen in Paris, where the wine-tasting alone costs US$100,000, and then it’s on to a Rothschild estate in Bordeaux.

Next stop is the Côte d’Azur, where Xu Jiayin, the ex-steelworker who founded Evergrande — the property group whose US$300 billion–plus in unpayable debt is currently causing China systemic risk — wants to check out a yacht that might work well as a floating palace for entertaining contacts away from snoops. He looks over one being sold by a Hong Kong businessman, but even at US$100 million it’s not dripping with enough luxurious fittings for the purpose.

Then on to Milan, where the wives go crazy with top Italian brands. They do so much shopping that getting their value-added tax refunds delays the return flight by three hours, though it’s unclear why they are bothered with such small change.

The trip is just one episode in Shum’s tell-all account of his days as entrepreneur and fixer. Red Roulette is a mind-boggling window into the era of breakneck economic growth and excess that the enigmatic Xi Jinping would start shutting down eighteen months after the European expedition following his ascension to the pinnacle of power in China.

Shum’s book recalls, though with much less intimate detail, The Private Life of Chairman Mao (1994) by Li Zhisui, the personal physician to Mao Zedong. It also has a tinge of Mr China (2005) by British investment banker Tim Clissold, which recounted how, during China’s early switch to private enterprise, some of his clients found their ex-managers opening factories down the road making copies of their products.

Educated in Hong Kong and the United States after his parents got out of Shanghai, Shum was recruited by an American investment fund anxious to put money into Chinese startups. “I quickly learned that in China all rules were bendable as long as you had what we Chinese called guanxi, or a connection into the system,” he writes. “And given that the state changed the rules all the time, no one gave the rules much weight.”

One client was importing Heineken beer in massive quantities into Hong Kong, to be smuggled onto the mainland by various parties including the Chinese navy. Shum’s employers pretended ignorance of this and other transgressions. “A lot of Western businesses in China adopted a similar, don’t ask don’t tell business model,” he writes. “Abysmal working conditions in factories making high-end sneakers? ‘Who knew?’ Prison labour making blue jeans? ‘There must be a mistake.’ In business with the army or the police? ‘We weren’t aware.’”

Shifting to Beijing in 1997, Shum found foreign firms playing a higher-stakes game, using the offspring of high-ranking Chinese officials to gain favour. “These sons and daughters functioned like an aristocracy; they intermarried, lived lives disconnected from those of the average Chinese, and made fortunes selling access to their parents, inside information, and regulatory approvals that were keys to wealth.”

He got close to Jiang Minsheng, son of party general secretary Jiang Zemin, who was rolling out fibre-optic cable. One associate proved less reliable, marrying a granddaughter of previous supreme leader Deng Xiaoping and driving around Beijing in a red Rolls-Royce convertible with military numberplates — a bit too ostentatious, even for the red aristocracy. Other relatives of Deng got deals like supplying bottled Tibetan spring water to China’s high-speed rail network.

It was during those heady times that Shum got to know Whitney Duan, a woman from Shandong province who had parlayed a brilliant computer science degree into a job as assistant to the head of a People’s Liberation Army real estate firm, then branched out to selling IBM equipment to telecom companies and developing land owned by a state shipping company.

Whitney took Shum to be vetted by a mysterious older woman who turned out to be Zhang Peili, wife of vice-premier Wen Jiabao, who was on the verge of becoming premier. A trained geologist like Wen, she’d gained an interest in business via gemstones. Desmond passed the test, and he and Whitney married.

By then Whitney and “Aunty Zhang” were business partners sharing an office in a sought-after tower on the understanding that Zhang would get 30 per cent of Whitney’s profits. Famously nerdy and workaholic, Wen saw nothing of this, not even recognising the expensive rocks and US$10,000 Hermès handbags flashed by his wife.

Big breaks followed, including the well-timed acquisition of a 3 per cent stake in the insurance giant Ping An from the state shipping line, COSCO, that eventually turned a US$12 million investment into US$200 million for Whitney and Desmond.

The couple pushed for a new cargo hub to be attached to Beijing’s airport, which was being expanded for the 2008 Olympics. Airport chief Li Peiying and Sun Zhengcai, party secretary in neighbouring Shunyi district, were cultivated for their support, as were lots of underlings. Gifts included US$10,000 golf club sets and US$15,000 watches.

One of their employees took officials to bathhouses so many times his skin started peeling. The airport customs office demanded and got a US$50 million staff centre, and the quarantine office something similar. On a “study tour” to Los Angeles, an official collapsed, requiring a US$300,000 triple bypass, which Shum funded.

This kind of behaviour was essential, says Shum, “in a system where the rules regarding what was legal and what was proscribed were full of vast areas of grey and every time you wanted to accomplish something you had to wade into the grey.”

It was an intoxicating time for businesses with links to the red aristocracy. “In the 1990s, China’s well-off bought knock-offs,” Shum says. “In the 2000s, we bought the real thing — LV, Prada, Gucci, and Armani.” Whitney spent US$15 million on a pink diamond and US$5 million on a painting, She paid a big import duty bill for a Rolls-Royce, and gave Shum a half-million-dollar Swiss watch for his birthday that F.P. Journe had taken two years to craft. (It was seventh in a series, of which Vladimir Putin was reputedly given the second.)

It could be hard going, though, and risky. Sun Zhengcai moved on, and Li Peiying, who had no party ancestry, was arrested and eventually executed for corruption. “Red aristocrats got a prison sentence; commoners got a bullet in the head,” says Shum. Funding from state banks dried up. Whitney and Desmond had to kick in some of their Ping An profits to complete the airport project. Faced with bureaucratic niggling from Li’s replacements, the couple found a buyer for their stake, abandoning the idea of further airport logistics centres.

“I began to understand what some of my entrepreneur friends had been telling me all along: the smart way to do business in China was to build something, sell it, take money off the table, and go back in,” Shum says. If you stayed in, you could lose it all.

“Two thirds of the people on China’s one hundred wealthiest list would be replaced every year due to poor business decisions, criminality, and/or politically motivated prosecutions, or because they’d mistakenly aligned themselves with a Party faction that had lost its pull,” Shum adds, noting that “anyone running a sizable business was bound to be violating some law.”

By this time, it was widely believed that China would become more open and transparent once private enterprise came to dominate the economy. Indeed, in the early decades of the capitalist experiment, Communist Party thinkers were looking at Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party and Singapore’s People’s Action Party as models for one-party elected rule in perpetuity.

But the global financial crisis convinced party leaders that China had the right model after all. With Wen Jiabao’s term as premier coming to an end in early 2013, Whitney and Desmond thought they had a new patron emerging in Sun Zhengcai, the old party secretary in Shunyi, who had risen rapidly from mayor of Beijing to minister of agriculture, with membership of the Politburo standing committee to follow.

The top-level intrigue turned truly nasty with the approach of the 2012 five-yearly party congress, where the succession would be decided. The ambitious Bo Xilai, another red aristocrat, used his fiefdom in the vast Chongqing conurbation to promote himself via a campaign of Mao-era nostalgia. But his plan began to come unstuck when the British business fixer Neil Heywood, who was close to his wife, was found dead in a hotel room in November 2011. Three months later, the city police chief informed Bo that his wife had poisoned Heywood. Bo was enraged, and the police chief fled to the US consulate in nearby Chengdu; giving himself up to State Security not long after, he was taken to Beijing to tell his story.

According to Aunty Zhang’s account, says Shum, the scandal came to the Politburo standing committee in March. Zhou Yongkang, the powerful member supervising security agencies, argued that investigation should stop with the police chief, whose running to the Americans he considered the real offence.

Xi Jinping, still a relatively junior committee member, argued that all players in the affair should be pursued. Wen Jiabao backed Xi’s view, and in September 2012 Bo Xilai was sentenced to life imprisonment, putting him safely out of Xi’s way before the party congress.

Shum has since confirmed to the Lowy Institute’s Richard McGregor that this account came from Zhang, who would have heard it from Wen. If so, it is the first account of cut-and-thrust inside the Politburo standing committee, so far a black box for sinologists.

Dirt was meanwhile being thrown in all directions. In June that year, Bloomberg reported that Xi’s family had a billion dollars’ worth of assets. In October, the New York Times estimated Wen Jiabao’s family members held an estimated US$3 billion in assets. Aunty Zhang told Whitney the revelations had been fed to the newspaper by Bo.

The double whammy from the two American outlets enabled the victims to argue that the bad publicity was a foreign plot. The party closed ranks, and Xi’s and Wen’s families were encouraged to “donate” their wealth to the state. Whitney agreed to declare that Zhang’s wealth was actually hers. “She willingly became the fall girl to prove that Aunty Zhang had been right to trust her for all these years,” Shum says. Wen wanted to divorce Zhang and become a Buddhist monk: the party vetoed both moves.

Amid all this, Whitney and Desmond pursued a new project, the redevelopment of a rundown state hotel site in Beijing’s fashionable Chaoyang. Two office towers were built, together with a Bulgari hotel and apartment building designed by New York’s Kohn Pedersen Fox and a museum by Tadao Ando. The couple occupied a penthouse in this US$2.5 billion “Genesis Beijing” complex.

But they had become estranged, and after they divorced in 2014 Shum moved to Britain with their son. Their post–Wen Jiabao ally, Sun Zhengcai, had run into his own problems under Xi. Shifted to Chongqing to replace Bo Xilai, he was found to have not done enough to eradicate Bo’s influence, and an investigation for corruption followed. Purged from the standing committee, he was sentenced to life imprisonment in May 2018.

By then, Whitney’s problems had deepened in tandem with Sun’s. On 5 September 2017, after telling Desmond earlier in the year that she had been banned from leaving China, she disappeared from her office at Genesis Beijing, along with two executives and a personal aide. Shum wasn’t to hear from her for four years.

The silence was broken last month, shortly before Red Roulette’s release, when she telephoned Shum to implore him to stop its publication. Implying that their son might be at risk, she seemed to be reading from a script under duress.

Amid all the colour and movement of Shum’s account of those years, one central mystery remains: what did Xi Jinping have that his rivals for the top job lacked? He was consistently underestimated on his way up, says Shum, despite having made a mark by cleaning up corruption in coastal industrial domains (though selectively, like his later campaign as leader). The consensus among business contacts in those regions was that “he wasn’t even borderline talented.”

The couple’s only contact with Xi came when Aunty Zhang and Whitney had dinner with the future president and his wife, the glamorous People’s Liberation Army chanteuse Peng Liyuan. According to Whitney, Xi let his wife do the talking. “He sat looking a bit uncomfortable, cracking an awkward smile.” No rapport was established. But Xi often looks awkward, particularly posing with foreigners, when he often looks away from the camera. And he may well have been unaccustomed to being surrounded by women.

Since then, the idea that Xi was “signalling left to turn right” has been steadily dispelled by his moves to centralise power around himself, extend his tenure indefinitely, and elevate his ideological status close to that of Mao. Extreme wealth and celebrity is now decidedly out of fashion.

It remains to be seen whether the legacy of that wild period of growth — Evergrande’s debt, and some ninety million empty apartment dwellings — along with the country’s dire demography and his own crackdown on the most vibrant forms of private enterprise, will bring Xi’s dreams of rising Chinese power down to earth. •

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Yet this history has a striking feature: individuals like Xi might get plenty of attention, but the narrative is structured around congresses, plenums and other events — those party milestones with their unhelpful numbering and sometimes opaque titles. Few of us will get too excited by a mention of the Third Plenum of the Eleventh Congress — and yet it is widely regarded as a key moment in the Deng Xiaoping reform era that began in 1978. The equally unpromisingly named Third Plenum of the Eighteenth Congress saw Xi, still relatively new in power, setting out his own vision of reform.

Plenary sessions have tended to occur almost annually since China settled down after Mao’s death more than forty years ago. Roughly 200 members of the key party organisation, the Central Committee, spend a few days shrouded in secrecy in Beijing; then, on the final day, the official Xinhua news agency will release a summary of the key outcomes. No one has much idea about how these meetings are conducted, or what sort of debate goes on there. At best, particular sessions have been given themes: last year’s plenum, for instance, reviewed economic issues and probably finalised the Fourteenth Five-Year Plan, formally adopted at the National People’s Congress this March.

What’s important about this year’s Sixth Plenum of the Nineteenth Central Committee, likely to be held next month, is that it is the last full-scale party gathering before the main event, the Twentieth Party Congress, which is due next year. It’s then that Xi is more or less certain to be given a third term as party leader. It will be a historic moment: Xi’s two predecessors both served only two terms (although Jiang Zemin served slightly longer because of the unique circumstances of his appointment in the wake of the Tiananmen massacre). The 2022 Congress is therefore likely to usher in the era of Xi the perpetual ruler — at least in the headlines.

If there is even tepid opposition to Xi’s ambitions, then next month’s plenum might give some sign. At the moment, a calm placidity prevails. It is as though Beijing is windless and peaceful politically, with everyone harmoniously happy with — or at least reconciled to — the Great Leader getting what he sees as his due. But China-watchers will be looking closely at whether the announcements at the end of the plenum are less enthusiastically pro-Xi than expected.

There is good reason to be paying attention. After he secured his second term as party leader in October 2017, Xi made a long, high-stakes list of promises to the Chinese people. About a quarter of his speech was a crescendo of undertakings almost Boléro-like in its proportions. “We shall,” “we will” and “we can” were the key terms, and they were applied to issues like technological upgrading, better education, better jobs, better social welfare, better healthcare. The party would make the skies cleaner, the food better, the housing more affordable, lifestyles more rewarding.

All of this was propelled by the immense sense of confidence and optimism that served the most important theme of all: the rejuvenation of a great nation. That goal has been fundamental to the party’s vision during the Xi era. Rejuvenation is not something to be projected and aspired to — it is something that must actually be happening: rejuvenation in motion, as it were.

This is why the messaging coming out of this year’s plenum will be so important. It must exude unity: the new era can have no scrappiness or dissent. It must convey a strong impression that the party is delivering on its promises, despite the unexpected setback of the pandemic. And it must give some sense that — even under Xi — a new generation of leaders are at least peering through the bars of party discipline they are currently stuck behind.

Even if Xi stays, all those members of the Politburo standing committee who will be sixty-eight or older next year will need to move aside. The plenum will give us an idea of whether younger contenders like Hu Chunhua (fifty-eight) and Wang Yang (sixty-six) — figures long courted by visiting foreign dignitaries as strong contenders for the top job — will be elevated to pole position for the time, one day, when the Great Man moves aside.

Tone rather than content will be key. There may well be some declarations about climate change, though that will partly depend on just how well the COP26 climate talks go in Glasgow later this month and in early November. Even now, it isn’t clear if Xi will attend that conference. There will be noises about economic development, particularly in view of the recent crackdown on China’s high-tech companies and the turbulence surrounding the giant property developer Evergrande. The aim will be to give the impression that everything is under control, and all is going to plan.

That shouldn’t detract from the very radical nature of what we will be witnessing, even if indirectly. If things go according to what looks like the plan, then a party that has been dedicated to creating stable, predictable institutions, and that vowed in the late 1970s to never again let a single individual occupy as supreme a position as Mao, will have placed Xi Jinping in just as privileged a position. A party that has placed high-tech industry on a pedestal will have shown willingness to take on and humble some of the country’s most dynamic entrepreneurs and companies. And a party that defended progressive politics and stressed the need to build up internal democracy will have insisted that all schoolchildren are taught Xi Jinping Thought, and will have made dissidents almost extinct.

Normal is what the plenum will aim to look this year, but normal is certainly not what it will be. •

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Feng’s 600,000 followers gave the adorably weird video half a million likes within three days. Feng had already won fans and courted controversy by modelling, stunningly, the dress style known as qipao. But this time, he went one “peach peach” too far. Douyin banned him from the platform, officially for soliciting virtual gifts from minors but also, according to the Global Times, because “numerous netizens” complained that his videos lacked “masculinity.”

The Communist Party of China wants boys to harden up. It has gender-bending niangpao (“girlie guns”) like Feng in its sights, along with other offenders against cis-gendered heteronormativity such as K-pop-inspired “little fresh meat” boy bands and anyone whose initials even appear to include LGBTQI. “Girlie guns” don’t need to be as extreme as Feng Xiaoyi. They may simply be boys who like wearing nice clothes, enjoy shopping, or have close female friends, who are self-effacing, gentle and timid — all of which are deemed signs of excessive “feminisation.” The masculinity drive is part of its campaign against “unhealthy” social tendencies such as excessive online gaming, celebrity worship, and any expression of queer life in films and TV.

In June, the father of a seven-year-old boy became a hero to gender nonconformists after posting on Zhihu (a Quora-like website) about the day his son, who liked wearing skirts, wore one to school. The teacher harshly reprimanded him: “Boys should act like boys.” When female classmates leapt to his defence, saying boys should be “free” to wear dresses too, the teacher snapped that “freedom” was “an American thing.” The father decried the teacher’s intolerance. His post went viral, attracting tens of thousands of likes and mostly supportive comments.

Like their counterparts elsewhere, many mainland Chinese, especially younger ones, perceive rigid gender-based norms as oppressive. They are pushing back against the official promotion of “masculinity” across social media. Even some official media, including the Global Times, have published contrary views.

Yet party advisers, bloggers and others whose opinions dominate state media frame the problem of boys not “acting like boys” as nothing less than a threat to the survival of the nation. In a widely republished post, the ultra-leftist blogger Li Guangman wrote that “if we allow this generation of young people to lose their mettle and masculinity, then who needs an enemy — we will have brought destruction upon ourselves, much like the Soviet Union back in the day.” Vladimir Putin, alongside Jordan Peterson, is something of a pin-up for the boys-should-be-boys brigade.

Patriotism is embedded in native Chinese concepts of masculinity. A common phrase signifying a “manly” man, nanzi han, dates back about 2000 years, and originally described defenders of the Han dynasty against the Xiungnu, or Hun. As for the qualities that define masculinity, these are usually summed up as yanggang zhi qi — the qi, or vital essence, of yang (broadly: male, bright or positive energy) plus gang (morally upright). The phrase has etymological roots going back at least as far as the sixth century.

Yet it’s not strictly gender-specific, as acknowledged in the title of a recent education ministry document on the “problem” of “feminised” Chinese boys: “The Cultivation of yanggang zhi qi Doesn’t Distinguish between Male and Female.” The phrase denotes qualities of mind as expressed in speech and action. But officially sanctioned remedies for building up boys’ yanggang zhi qi focus on ramping up sports and physical education and recruiting more male teachers as role models, even those less qualified than their female counterparts.

The focus on physicality reflects a national anxiety that originated during the late Qing dynasty. Beginning in the 1840s, Western imperialist powers bullied and attacked the Qing for the right to push opium into China, establish semi-colonial enclaves in its ports and exploit the country’s resources. Reformist thinkers argued that in the “struggle for existence,” the “physical vigour” of the populace was as decisive as intelligence and moral rectitude. They promoted calisthenics and military drills. This push continued years after the republican revolution of 1911. In one of his first published essays, a young Mao Zedong wrote about the importance of exercise (for women too). Shortly after the revolution of 1949, the Communist Party introduced universal morning calisthenics, performed to radio broadcasts.

The party today speaks of the need to return to “revolutionary,” “socialist” and “traditional” masculinity. Yet both the revolution and the period of “socialist construction” that began in 1949 demanded physical strength and courage — yanggang zhi qi — from both men and women.

As for “traditional masculinity,” the classical ideal of manhood was an educated man who was upright, filial to his parents and ancestors, loyal to his ruler, and ideally a fine calligrapher and poet as well. The third-century warrior general Guan Yu, later immortalised as Guan Gong, the God of War, is typically portrayed with bright red skin, the result of his brimming yang energy — as “masculine” as it gets. Yet despite a lack of solid evidence that Guan Yu was literate, he is often represented holding a scroll as well as a weapon — further elevating his status in a society that esteemed men’s educational accomplishments over physical prowess.

Traditional culture offers many different types of male archetypes. As a number of recent commentators have wryly noted, Jia Baoyu, the female company–loving young male protagonist of the great eighteenth-century novel Story of the Stone, is an archetypal “girlie gun.” Just as the early twentieth-century male player of female roles, Mei Lanfang, created some of the most exquisite archetypes of femininity in the Peking Opera, so did a later female player of male roles, Pei Yanling, give opera fans some of the most indelible performances of heroic masculinity.

The odd thing about the current masculinity panic is that by any measure, China today is militarily and economically stronger than at any other time in the last 150 years. And for all the pretty boy actors and singers testing the party with their sculpted eyebrows and designer clothes, there are plenty of muscular, hard-bodied action stars like Wu Jing of the wildly popular Wolf Warrior films.

So what gives? Does the existence of more diverse forms of masculinity threaten the nation — or just the patriarchy? Lü Pin, founder of the banned media channel Feminist Voices, suggested the latter when she told America’s NBC News that “the concept of masculinity forces every man to be tough, which excludes and harms men with other types of characteristics. It also reinforces men’s hegemony, control and position over women.” The Global Times quoted a law professor who similarly argued that gender stereotypes victimise both men and women, trapping men in a “suffocating, outdated masculinity stereotype, which supposes being vulnerable means being emasculated” and excludes “fear, grief or tenderness.”

Promoting “masculinity,” in other words, could mean that men end up resembling a certain rugged-featured older bloke who posted one of a number of online “peach peach” parodies. His video simultaneously sends up Feng Xiaoyi and stereotyped notions of masculinity. In it, he bellows like a drill sergeant: “EAT PEACH PEACH!” Take that, men men! •

The publication of this article was supported by a grant from the Judith Neilson Institute for Journalism and Ideas.

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The boys grew up to become two of the most accomplished scholars, writers and administrators of their generation. Contemporaries in age — Wang Gungwu will be ninety-one in October and Amartya Sen eighty-eight in November — they both recently published absorbing memoirs of their lives as outstanding scholars and exemplars of a humble cosmopolitanism that is becoming increasingly rare.

Amartya Sen won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1998 and has been an international public figure ever since. He has been a faculty member of Cambridge, Oxford and Harvard, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, an adviser to governments and sought-after speaker.

There are many eminent Professor Wangs in the world, but anyone who has read into the history of Asia soon discovers there is only one “Gungwu.” As well as being an immensely productive and wide-ranging historian, Wang Gungwu has been a distinguished scholarly leader at the Australian National University and the National University of Singapore, and for nine years was vice-chancellor of the University of Hong Kong.

The professional lives are public knowledge. Many readers, however, will find the early lives of the two men tantalising. They provide an opportunity to ponder two questions: how the British Empire in its declining years affected two clever children; and the extent to which practices and traditions of China and India shaped two outstanding intellectuals.

As the titles of their books indicate, each has grappled with “identity” and the need to reconcile the values of family and mother tongue with the English language and the legacies of the British Empire. Wang was a national of China until 1949, when he became a citizen of the Federation of Malaya; later, in 1979, he became a citizen of Australia. Sen has remained an Indian citizen, in spite of being “very used to standing in long queues at passport checkpoints.”

Wang was born in 1930 in Surabaya in today’s Indonesia (then the Netherlands East Indies), where his father was headmaster of the town’s only Chinese high school. The Depression impoverished the school, and the family moved to British Malaya where his father became an inspector of Chinese schools in the town of Ipoh. When Wang was growing up in Malaya, “home” was China.

Sen’s experience of “home” was more certain and omnipresent. It was Bengal, perhaps the proudest region of India, and there was no dispute that Bengal was within India. His father, a PhD in chemistry from London University, taught at Dhaka University, but Sen was born at his mother’s home at Santiniketan in western Bengal. Until the age of eight, his family lived in Dhaka in eastern Bengal (today the capital of Bangladesh).

Three aspects of their childhoods contributed powerfully to making them the men they became. Their early experiences also highlighted similarities and differences between being Chinese or Indian in the last days of European empire.

First, both boys delighted in embedding themselves in the culture and languages of their families. “For many years,” Sen wrote, “Sanskrit was close to being my second language after Bengali.” He learned Sanskrit from an adored maternal grandfather, a teacher of Sanskrit and philosophy at Santiniketan, where the Bengali polymath Rabindranath Tagore had begun a progressive school before the first world war.

Out of empire: Sixteen-year-old Wang Gungwu with his parents, Wang Fuwen (left) and Ding Yan in front of their home in Green Town, Ipoh, Malaya, on the eve of their departure to China. From Home Is Not Here.

Wang Gungwu’s first language was “a variety of Mandarin,” and he soon learned “that there were many kinds of Chinese” — Hakka, Hokkien and the Cantonese he learned from the family’s servant. His father, a trained teacher of languages from what became Nanjing University, “decided to teach me classical Chinese himself.” Father and son sat together each night to read classical texts. “My father wanted me to learn a language that was not spoken and rarely used except in formal documents.”

It proved sound preparation for a scholar of Chinese history. Sen experienced a similar but less direct augury of his future when he discovered that “there was a strong complementarity between my interest in Sanskrit and mathematics.”

A second important element of the two childhoods was the encounter with English. Here their experiences differed, but the outcome was the same: both became masters of their third or fourth language.

In Sen’s family, there had been English speakers for at least three generations. It seems to have been expected that he would become fluent simply from lessons at school and occasionally hearing English spoken around him.

Wang’s father, on the other hand, was the first in the family to learn the foreign language. He had studied English in high school because he felt “he knew enough Chinese literature and needed to improve his understanding of the outside world.” He determined that his son should also learn and sent him to an English school in Ipoh. By early adolescence, with the help of lots of movie-going, “at a very basic level, I was now comfortable in both languages, Chinese and English.”

Sen, however, felt “my progress in English was very slow,” and even on the ship to Britain when he was twenty, he was perplexed by the question, “Would you care for some chocolate?” which, for a budding philosopher, opened up various possibilities about what caring for chocolate might entail.

The third great impact on both children was the second world war. For Wang it was close and personal. After the Japanese landed in Malaya and occupied Ipoh in December 1941, he and his parents fled the town and for a few weeks hid on remote rubber estates and in caves. When the fighting passed on, they returned to town, and eventually his father was absorbed back into the education system, now overseen by the Japanese.

To make ends meet, Wang and other children sold soap and small items in the bazaar. “One day, the Japanese came to the market entrance and placed several human heads on a high stand not far in front of our stall.” It was to warn looters. Later, he was part of a crowd that witnessed a beheading. “I was horrified and had nightmares.”

Sen’s experience was grim and insidious. In 1943 the “Bengal famine” killed up to three million people. In Calcutta, Sen saw human skeletons “dying on the streets.” Even in distant Santiniketan “perhaps 100,000 destitute people had passed through… on their long journey to the big city” where they hoped to find food. “The continuous cries for help… ring in my ears even today.”

His maternal grandmother told him to give one can of rice to anyone who came to the door, but only one — we “have to help as many people as we can.” As an economist, Sen earned a large part of his fame from his work on the causes and prevention of famine.

The war, however, had a curiously beneficial effect on both lives: it freed them from the regimentation of colonial school systems and from the rote-learning that had been part of classical education in China and India.

For Wang, these were wonderful “years of unfocused learning,” He mixed with people of all sorts — Malays, speakers of various Chinese dialects and Indian labourers with whom he occasionally drank toddy. In the two disorganised years after the war, he indulged his passion for movies, saw 400 films and, like a diligent historian, made notes about many of them.

For Sen, the war meant that he was sent away from Dhaka and Calcutta to the safety of Santiniketan. His education from the age of eight was “at the remarkably progressive school” founded by Tagore. The school’s emphasis was “on fostering curiosity rather than competitive excellence… I loved it.”

Moves to great colonial cities marked the end of childhood for both men. Wang left Ipoh for Singapore and the University of Malaya in 1949. Sen left Santiniketan for Calcutta and Presidency College in 1951. By coincidence, they both arrived in Britain in 1954 — Sen on the way to Cambridge, Wang Gungwu to the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.

There is much, much more in these memoirs than childhood reflections, and it would take a far longer essay to do them justice. They trace personal lives, careers and the circumstances that shaped research. Wang Gungwu’s two volumes include sections written by two of the women in his life — his mother and his wife Margaret, who co-authored Home Is Where We Are.

Sen’s is a great portmanteau of a book — the sort of suitcase you’d pack for days on the road with entertainments, lectures, historical visits, formal dinners and philosophical reflections. At one pole, there is a delightful dry humour and personal tales of ill health and undergraduate life. At another, there are exchanges with economists and philosophers, mini-essays on Indian history and ruminations on the research questions, such as social-choice theory or the economics of famine, that have occupied a lifetime.

Both men appear to have resolved the contests about where “home” is in favour of being “at home in the world,” concluding that friendship, respect and “home” can be found wherever we are — if we are curious and open to learn. It’s an enviable attitude in the current world of closures. •

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By committing suicide in their shared office, Xi implicated Tang in her death: in the traditional moral code, suicide was the ultimate reproach, and the unsettled ghost of the dead was said to linger until justice was finally served. But Xi didn’t leave a note, or at least none was ever found. Did she kill herself because Tang had invested — and lost — a significant sum of her money on the stock market? Or because he had suggested she become his concubine, as her family later alleged? The tragedy and the surrounding intrigue, which touched on so many facets of China’s transition to modernity, captured the public imagination and inspired an outpouring of commentary. No fewer than three books about the incident were published within weeks.

Historian Bryna Goodman has delved deep into a story that has since lain forgotten among the greater dramas of the era. More than two thousand years of dynastic rule had ended only ten years earlier, with the republican revolution led by Sun Yat-sen. But the government had already split into warring factions, with further challenges to its authority from regional warlords, who carved off chunks of territory to rule themselves. The patriotic May Fourth movement of 1919 had galvanised students, workers and businesspeople alike to fight for national revival and cultural rejuvenation and helped to inspire the founding of the Communist Party of China in 1921. The semi-colonial exploitation of the country that had begun under the fallen Qing dynasty, meanwhile, continued into the modern era, with European powers and Japan controlling a number of key ports and resources.

Semi-colonial, transnational Shanghai was China’s most modern city, yet old ways and thinking maintained a stubborn hold. In The Suicide of Miss Xi, Goodman draws on a huge range of original sources, including court transcripts (Tang was subsequently convicted of financial fraud) and Xi’s own writings, to show how this incident illuminates the social, political and economic contradictions and tensions of its time.

Both male and female supporters of women’s rights had argued passionately for women’s participation in education, work and nation-building. Yet many also agonised about how women could preserve their “virtue” in male-dominated workplaces. After Xi’s death, even feminists spoke of her according to what Goodman describes as a “formulaic pattern of virtue”; she was, they said, “quiet, diligent and chaste.” That Tang might have proposed concubinage to her — as a way, perhaps, of helping her out of the financial hole he’d helped dig for her — struck them as particularly odious given that Xi had previously vowed that she would never marry.

Feminists of the time tended to view concubines as embarrassing, even morally tainted, leftovers from the old society. New marriage laws forbade a man taking more than one wife, and marriage was henceforth to be an arrangement freely chosen by both sides, in theory at least. Betraying their elite perspective, many feminists failed to consider that concubinage, which persisted as a practice, may have remained the only option for some less-privileged women.

Instead, they assumed that concubines, along with prostitutes, had made their choice out of avarice. Progressive women’s associations in Shanghai at the time of Xi’s suicide typically denied membership to concubines or even former concubines. To their minds, Tang’s alleged proposal was both outrageous coming from a man of supposedly progressive ideals and a profound insult to Xi’s character and identity as a modern woman.

Then there was the question of her shares. It was one thing for a woman to want to achieve economic self-sufficiency — to become, as Xi did, a provider for her family — but quite another to be greedy and profit-seeking. Many commentators, sympathetic and less sympathetic alike, noted that Xi was hardly alone in having risked money in this way. Pretty much everyone in Shanghai with money to spare was investing in the stock market — or rather, markets. By the end of 1921, more than 140 stock exchanges were operating, including some that traded in single commodities. Tang’s Journal of Commerce was one of many outlets founded on progressive ideals that promoted investment in stocks as a social and political good. Progressives had observed how stock markets in the United States, Japan and elsewhere contributed to the strength of these countries by raising capital for their industries as well as helping democratise wealth.

This is one of the details that has been largely lost in the telling of the story of modern China. As Goodman notes, “Historians have not generally placed economics, let alone stock exchanges, among the structuring ideas of the early Republic or as a constituent element of May Fourth ideas of science and democracy.” Her work here is a major contribution to modern historiography.

As Goodman shows, regulation was a lot scarcer than enthusiasm. The markets were rife with speculation, insider trading and other forms of manipulation. When the inevitable crash came, it took with it the precious savings of many, making Xi “a symbol of human vulnerability, an individual swept into the whirlpool of financial temptations, in a city of untrammelled greed.” Some of the fury that Tang copped in the aftermath of Xi’s suicide resulted from his paper’s previously enthusiastic endorsement of stock-buying combined with his own vested interests in the exchanges: he became, as Goodman observes, “a perfect target for public rumination over the immorality of the new order.”

That rumination had a platform in the vibrant and diverse local press that sprang up in the early republican era. In response to Xi’s suicide, the papers published a great stream of cartoons, commentary, reportage and even poetry written by readers; several even featured word-by-word transcripts of Tang’s trial. Women’s groups, chambers of commerce, and hometown or home-province associations — indeed, grassroots public organisations of all sorts — weighed into the controversy as well. With a dysfunctional polity, both public associations and the press stood in as arenas for public life, testing grounds for democracy, and arbiters of social justice.

The semi-colonial nature of Shanghai factors into this complex story as well. The Journal of Commerce had its offices in the city’s International Settlement, which had its own courts separate from China’s legal system. When Chinese judicial officials determined to put Tang on trial for financial fraud, they had to kidnap him in the foreign concession and take him across the street to Chinese sovereign territory. Yet because Xi had clearly killed herself and there was no evidence that Tang had committed any crime, and given that China was still years away from its first civil law, the fact that he was arraigned was a travesty of justice.

When Tang went to trial, the courtroom was packed with members of the public, journalists and even actors from a theatre troupe preparing to perform a play about Xi’s death. Despite the evidence for criminal prosecution being, as Goodman writes, “illogical, unsupported, and unwarranted,” the judge dismissed the brief prepared by Tang’s excellent legal team as “confusingly irrelevant.” Although the charges revolved around financial misdeeds, the judge was more interested in the accusation that Tang had pressured Xi to be his concubine. In the end, he sentenced him to three years’ imprisonment. Moral judgement, including the view that the stock markets were intrinsically malevolent and unethical, trumped the law.

Among those disturbed by the verdict was Sun Yat-sen himself, who asserted, “It is particularly inappropriate for a court of law to ignore the evidence in favour of the popular sentiment.” What’s more, a military man whom Tang had offended over other matters ensured that he served more than twice his sentence, and in a military prison.

The People’s Republic of China today continues to wrestle with many of the issues raised by Xi’s suicide. These include the relationship between private wealth accumulation and national flourishing, the nature of the judiciary and its relationship to the law, and the contradiction between the opportunities available to young women and societal expectations. Even concubines — now called “mistresses” — remain a hot topic that divides Chinese feminists. If, as ancient Chinese historians liked to say, history is a mirror, there are plenty of apposite reflections to be found in this one. •

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Zhao’s (un)diplomatic style is named after the movie Wolf Warrior II, the highest-grossing Chinese film of all time. It combines aggression and a saviour complex: in dialogue that could have been lifted from any militaristic Hollywood blockbuster from Rambo to Saving Private Ryan, male lead Wu Jing intones, “I’ve come to rescue you.”

Peter Martin’s impressive new history of China’s foreign service opens with a decidedly undiplomatic scene from our near north. Papua New Guinea’s unassuming foreign minister, Rimbink Pato, enjoying his nation’s time in the sun as the host of APEC, suddenly found that four Chinese delegates had forced their way into his office on a mission to influence the wording of the conference communiqué. Security, and then police, stepped in.

Just a few months earlier, Nauru’s prime minister, Baron Waqa, had labelled China’s delegate to the Pacific Island Forum, Du Qiwen, as “very insolent” for insisting on his right to speak at a ministerial-level forum. And last October, Martin recounts, a cake decorated with the Taiwanese flag at a function at the Grand Pacific Hotel in Suva prompted two uninvited Chinese diplomats to provoke a brawl, landing a librarian from the Taiwanese trade office in hospital.

At the heart of Martin’s book are two parallel questions. How has it come to this? And is “wolf warrior diplomacy” really something new, or do we just have a name for it now?

To probe the worldview of China’s diplomats Martin has not only interviewed them but also mined the memoirs of more than a hundred former officials, which are about as far as you can get from a Hollywood blockbuster. He credits Zhou Enlai, Mao’s most politically savvy lieutenant (his savvy demonstrated by the fact of his survival), with providing the template and embedding it in the DNA of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. As one former diplomat has explained, “Zhou Enlai said the diplomatic corps is like the PLA in civilian clothing, it must have that kind of strict, iron discipline… [F]or the last few decades, we haven’t worn military uniforms, but we’ve always used this discipline to guide our work.”

Martin argues that Zhou’s military ethos has made the ministry remarkably effective in certain ways — it stays resolutely on-message about core issues such as Tibet and the South China Sea, and is very good at keeping secrets — but that its representatives have little capacity to persuade those with different views. Australia hosts one of China’s most able diplomats, the urbane deputy ambassador Wang Xining, who is sufficiently confident to appear on adversarial TV shows and at the National Press Club. So narrow is his remit, though, that he is like an accomplished ballet dancer performing with his legs tied together.

With the “two person move together” rule still enforced, meaningful contact with locals is impossible. Martin relates the story of a trainee Chinese diplomat in Vietnam in the sixties who was invited on a date. His superiors gave their assent after “earnest research,” but only as long as four other trainees joined him. As Martin notes dryly, “He didn’t get a second date.”

Martin argues that the wolf warrior instinct has long been a strand in the make-up of a ministry that took the lead in blowing up relationships with the outside world during the Cultural Revolution. Then, as now, junior diplomats were ahead of their superiors in adopting the aggressive tone that suited Chairman Mao’s taste. In London, young Chinese diplomats ignored the calls of their superiors and attacked protesters outside their embassy, taking to the streets wielding iron bars, bottles and an axe.

The unsurprising reality, though, is that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, like every other agency in China, is not as monolithic as it looks to the outside world. Doubtless many within the ministry are uneasy about the wolf warrior turn: as Martin explained recently on The Little Red Podcast, you join the diplomatic corps because you “want to explain your country to the world.” These diplomats recognise the problem with “all of these negative headlines and negative perceptions” created by wolf warrior tactics. “They’re as aware as we are of the damage it’s doing.”

Xi Jinping’s assertive international stance has benefits for the ministry. With politics rather than economics in command, its position is strengthened relative to other Chinese agencies and companies that muscled them out during the two decades in which China’s foreign trade and investment exploded. Its coordination role in the Belt and Road Initiative brings it clout in interagency struggles with the Ministry of Commerce and state-owned enterprises. Yet this new influence comes with constraints — just as in the Cultural Revolution, there’s no pay-off in being the voice of moderation.

The fervour of younger diplomats steeped in a patriotic education — originally a temporary measure in the wake of the Tiananmen massacre, later made permanent — may be genuine. Ambition surely plays a part, too, in displays of performative anger: for a young diplomat posted to Fiji, not a place where he’d be dominating the cable traffic, punching a librarian over a too-Taiwanese cake might seem like a sensible career choice. And much like the Red Guards storming the embassies in the 1960s, patriotic netizens are watching ministry officials for evidence of equivocation in the face of foreign foes.

Such pressure can lead to comical scenarios: patriots sending calcium tablets to the ministry’s headquarters expressing the hope officials might grow a backbone; one foreign minister, Li Zhaoxing, being forced to meet his Japanese counterpart in the men’s toilets at an ASEAN forum in Malaysia because he feared meeting him in public. But the pressure is shaping the behaviour of officials. When Liu He, China’s lead negotiator in US–China trade talks, looked to strike a deal in 2019, online nationalists piled on, comparing him to Li Hongzhang, a complex and brilliant Qing dynasty official who — in the flattened world of Han nationalists — is largely known as the man who gave Taiwan to Japan.

How much pressure domestic nationalism brings to bear on China’s diplomacy will be fascinating to watch. In 1999, I walked alongside Chinese students bussed in to vent their real but choreographed outrage about the US attack on the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. The regime was terrified about violence spiralling out of hand — as it did after Japan beat China in the 2004 Asian Cup Final.

In conversation with Martin, Jessica Chen Weiss, author of Powerful Patriots: Nationalist Protest in China’s Foreign Relations, recently argued that this overheated patriotism could become a dangerous influence on foreign affairs officials if a real crisis blows up. “Over time, when they’re looking out at what’s the strategic vision, there is room to dial it down [or] to dial it up, but in a particular instance, in which some foreign actor or government has crossed some line, they would face very intense pressure.” Perhaps those officials will need calcium tablets to stand up to their own citizens.

As Martin concludes, pressure from home means Chinese diplomats “spend more of their time looking over their shoulders than out into the world.” To understand why this is so — a question that is central to the future of our region — get the book. It’s a brilliant read. •

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These were the antithesis of the voices of official media — polished, political and performative, suffused with what the Communist Party calls “positive energy.” They sounded like my friends on the mainland, people I’d met, and people I wanted to know.

The voices I’ve heard since then on StoryFM — which now attracts about 700,000 listeners per episode — are those of “ordinary” people and they continue to speak about things that bring them joy, sadness, moral confusion, anger or even transcendence. One man described growing up on a small houseboat that ferried goods along the Yangtze. Another told of being gay, closeted and secretly in love with his straight best friend.

I’ve listened to people talk about surviving sexual abuse; dealing with relatives in prison or addicted to drugs; working as a zookeeper, telehealth doctor or nanny; having a mother who was a sex worker; losing a young wife to cancer; being “fat-shamed”; being kidnapped in Syria. They’ve spoken of first kisses and first jobs, of being a teenage mother, of surviving floods, and in one hilarious and surprising episode, of living in the United States, catching a thief and, feeling sorry for him, making him something to eat. Episode 541, which dropped not long after the fall of Kabul in August, featured a woman whose mountain-climber father had been murdered by the Taliban in Pakistan in 2012.

When StoryFM started, the Chinese podcasting scene was still small, DIY and relatively free of commercial pressures and official attention. Like elsewhere, podcasting grew off the back of blogging, beginning around 2004 but not taking off until much later. In the West, it was 2014’s phenomenally popular Serial, produced by This American Life (itself an inspiration for StoryFM), that really kicked things off. Yet, as one Chinese podcaster told the tech-media platform KrASIA, podcasting in mainland China still had the feel of “pirate radio” as recently as 2019.

These days, there are around 16,000 Chinese-language podcasts, reflecting the variety of contemporary Chinese life. Some are short-lived by accident or design; others, like StoryFM, are long-running. They focus on topics as broad as pop culture, entrepreneurship and technology, or as specific as app design, museums and the care of pets. Some are passion projects: Wang Yuezhou, the human resources manager at a Shanghai tech firm, collects the stories of places and people threatened by urban renewal for Urbanlog.

Many, like the popular The Unemployables, which covers freelance life, are wide-ranging “chatcasts.” Listening to the best of them feels like dropping in on a party full of fun and interesting people. I’ve heard men talk about why they love to knit, and young women reacting frankly (and none too positively) to the party leadership’s idea that they should consider having three children. On one recent episode of The Unemployables, an astronomer revealed how he found happiness by quitting academia, with all its internal politics and bullying of junior staff, to become a home renovator.

As Fang Kecheng, who researches digital media in China, recently told the Shanghai publication Sixth Tone, “When you’re tired of all the hate and irrationality circulating online and want to listen to light-hearted and civilised discussion, you tune in to a podcast.” (In this, China is not so different from the rest of the world.)

According to a 2020 survey by PodFest China, almost 90 per cent of the eighty-five million–plus subscribers to China’s podcasts are under thirty-five. They are typically single and live in first- and second-tier cities, and 86 per cent of them have university degrees (versus 20 per cent of the general population). When the host of The Unemployables opened the episode featuring the astronomer-turned-renovator by playing a snippet of Peter, Paul and Mary’s “If I Had a Hammer,” he could assume enough listeners would get the joke.

Financial sustainability, as in the West, can be tricky. Chinese podcasts may look to sponsorship, investment, subscriptions, built-in micropayments, virtual gifts from listeners or advertising to survive. The first podcasts used Apple as a platform, and some still do, though listeners may need a VPN to access them.

Ximalaya, the first China-based platform, which was launched in 2012, was a game changer. With 250 million monthly active users, today it is the local market leader; it looks after hosting, distribution and RSS feeds for podcasters, offers audiobooks, and has plans to become an “online audio ecosystem.” Other major mainland platforms include Xiaoyuzhou, which comes with inbuilt social media so listeners can follow one another, and Lingzhi.

Yet even as these local options have boosted the profile of podcasting, with popularity have come new pressures. Previously, so long as hosts didn’t draw undue attention from the authorities by touching on Xinjiang, Taiwan, Tibet or other hypersensitive subjects, they could speak relatively freely, including about LGBTQI life and other topics heavily censored in mainstream mainland media. But the space for free speech in the world of podcasting is shrinking, with commercialisation playing a part: advertisers and investors want more mass appeal and less political risk.

Chinese censorship is not just about policing from above, or clear red lines: across the media and cultural industries, creators and publishers must often guess where the lines are in the first place — and that promotes caution and self-censorship. It’s hard to say why, for example, some podcasts dedicated to LGBTQI topics stopped production earlier this year. Apple, meanwhile, has made some Chinese podcasts, including one that mentioned the events of 4 June 1989, either unavailable in the China region or difficult to discover.

Podcasters’ strategies for not attracting official attention include anodyne episode titles and descriptions. Then there’s cabianqiu, “the ball that scrapes the edge,” a term taken from table tennis to indicate a play that, daringly, is just within bounds.

In 2019, The Unemployables published an episode in which a mainlander in Hong Kong, having witnessed the protests there, confessed he found the mass solidarity in the face of political injustice inspiring. The episode is still accessible, but it’s now two and a half minutes shorter than it was. Another podcast, Surplus Value, hosted by three irrepressible young feminists, suddenly disappeared from Ximalaya after a guest criticised both hyper-nationalism and the government response to Covid-19.

The women of Surplus Value now host Stochastic Volatility, on Apple. In a recent episode the trio talked about seeing a male passenger upskirt a flight attendant on a plane. Whipping into action, they documented the man’s behaviour with their own phones while alerting the crew.

This segment segued into a lively, informed discussion of the sexualisation of flight attendants globally and a survey of their depiction in Chinese popular culture, a look at the sexist media commentary on female athletes’ bodies at the Tokyo Olympics, and a quick history of synchronised swimming, before circling back to where it began, with another true story about a man on a plane. And so, at least for now, Chinese podcasts are flying high. •

The publication of this article was supported by a grant from the Judith Neilson Institute for Journalism and Ideas.

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Under Xi Jinping, though, the space for even the mildest “loyal opposition” has shrunk dramatically. As Xu Zhangrun, a former law professor at the elite Tsinghua University, points out in Ten Letters from a Plague Year (published in Chinese earlier this year, and now being expertly translated by Geremie Barmé for China Heritage), this partly reflects the greatly enhanced capacity that technology has given the government. As he writes:

China’s present totalitarian order has imposed a regime of censorship the likes of which has never been seen before. Under it, editing has become a particularly fraught occupation and shepherding anything through to publication a hazardous process. Everyone involved in the industry is hesitant. Authors feel that they are treading on thin ice.

The experience of one of the figures Xu champions, the publisher and entrepreneur Geng Xiaonan, shows how easy it is to get caught up. Having supported Xu (and others) against the authorities, she was detained last year and sentenced to three years’ imprisonment in February. The brutality of her treatment is the subject of a long, forensic disquisition by Xu in which he labels Chinese laws as “portmanteau” in their structure and scope, written in such a way that anyone can be swept up.

So far, Xu remains “at liberty.” But we see from these letters, which were written last July and August to supporters and the Fairbank Center at Harvard University (where he has been made an associate), this is a marginal existence. With no job or livelihood, he seems to occupy a kind of spectral existence — which is perhaps why he ends his introduction to the letters by placing himself by the “Old River Bed, In the looming shadows of dusk.”

With a Weibo account, as he explains in one letter, he is able to observe the public world even though he is denied a voice in it. He watches debates online but isn’t allowed to participate; on a visit to a bookshop he notices the works of former colleagues who can still publish in China. This seems to be the kind of purgatory the party wants to consign problematic figures to. With Xi Jinping and his colleagues having defined a form of nationalism and patriotic fervour so potent it intoxicates a swathe of the public, someone like Xu resembles the sole sober person at a drunken party.

Xu is clearly a courageous man, and the high price he has paid for his views gives his writing a strong sense of pathos. The original Chinese, helpfully supplied by China Heritage, has an elliptical, almost classical style. His long 2018 essay “Imminent Fears, Immediate Hopes” figures as one of the very few truly critical pieces issued in the Xi era. After 2012, the kinds of dissident publication that had appeared in previous decades (the Charter 08 manifesto, for example, and the other writings of one of its authors, the late Liu Xiaobo) have become rarer and rarer, to the point of being almost non-existent.

This doesn’t simply reflect the party leadership’s effectiveness in silencing dissent. It is also a factor of this particular moment in China, where nationalistic emotionalism is abundant. And that mood has only been reinforced by conditions in the wider world. Xu’s idealism is laudable and poignant; in a previous era — in the 1980s and 1990s, perhaps — it would have received international backing, with the United States and Europe at least trying to live up to their ideals by offering a much more powerful alternative to the Chinese system.

In the populist and chaotic 2010s, though, things have become more complicated almost daily. Xu writes to his Fairbank colleagues with a moving sense of a collective moral and intellectual ideal that transcends country and language. But the storming of the Capitol in Washington in January, despite clear evidence of Donald Trump’s election defeat, and the coarsening of public discourse online makes it harder to imagine Xu’s noble ideals taking hold.

On top of this, dissidents have been speaking out in China long enough now for us to be able to make critical judgements. Within this tradition, Xu is a highly cerebral figure who clearly puts huge effort into the style and content of his writing. But those who have added activism to their intellectual efforts have enjoyed a mixed record. Yes, they have been up against vastly unfair odds and have suffered terrible injustices. But those who ended up in the outside world, in particular, have been curiously ineffective, or silent, despite all that is happening in China.

Many have wondered whether the Chinese government’s decision to allow these figures to move abroad wasn’t the easiest way of making them ineffective. Whether or not that was the thinking, it has proved tragically true. This is probably why Liu Xiaobo resisted all attempts to negotiate his release and exile prior to his death in 2017. Staying in China meant he maintained at least some moral stature. It is a hard thing to say, but many who went abroad (though not all) have failed to do that.

But it also needs restating that a Chinese dissident’s lot is not a happy one. Not least, carrying the label of dissenter implies that one’s position is defined wholly by what one opposes. Xu is much more than simply a person who dissents. In the eighth letter in this series, he uses his legal knowledge to show how his silencing on an issue vital to China’s modernisation — the need for a robust legal system — has been not only painful personally but also destructive for his country.

The pandemic, which overshadows his series of letters, is another case in point. The Chinese government did make mistakes (as did everyone else) and does need to answer questions, but the situation in the outside world and the rapidly deteriorating geopolitical situation means those shortcomings have morphed into an extra source of popular support. All of this distracts from the need for real self-criticism and reform to ensure this kind of calamity never happens again. In this context, it is hard not to read Xu’s writings more as a lament than a call to action — and that, in itself, is a sign of the strange times we live in. •

The post A dissident’s lament appeared first on Inside Story.

Testing “public sentiment” in Australia has almost as long a history as in the United States; in September, it will be eighty years since the first Gallup poll, run by Roy Morgan, started gathering Australians’ opinions on a range of issues. Since 1971, when the Australian Sales Research Bureau (for the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age) and the Australian Nationwide Opinion Poll (for the Australian) broke the Morgan monopoly, Australian newspapers have commissioned various polling companies to test opinion when public interest in an issue has been “at its height” but also when public interest has barely been engaged.

What is new this year is the arrival of the Resolve Political Monitor. Until now, issue-based polling has been dominated by the Essential Report, whose findings appear fortnightly in the Guardian Australia. In April, to some fanfare, the company that produces the Monitor, Resolve Strategic, run by Jim Reed, began polling monthly for the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age. Newspoll remains dominant in what it, and most of the political class, sees as the main game — calculating two-party-preferred voting intentions.

Until April, neither the Herald nor the Age had commissioned regular polling since the May 2019 election, when both mastheads — and the Australian Financial Review — predicted a Labor win. All three relied on Ipsos, which estimated that Labor led 51–49 on the two-party-preferred vote, an error slightly less egregious than that recorded by other pollsters, but an error nonetheless.

Resolve, which assures potential clients that it does “the best work,” having been set up “to introduce the advanced research techniques practised by political parties to the communications industry,” wasn’t around for that debacle. Reed insists that survey research questions need to be “understood,” response categories need to be “appropriate,” and there could be “no proxy for proper testing.”

For its latest Monitor, conducted 8–12 June, Resolve was commissioned to “test public sentiment” on Australia’s quarantine capacity, carbon emissions and relations with China, and the uptake of the Covid vaccines. To work one’s way through the Herald’s coverage of the results is to find the odd question without tables or graphs, the odd graph that doesn’t report the response distribution for the sample as a whole, and accounts of the questions that differ between print and online versions if you have sufficient ingenuity to find the two. It is also to become increasingly aware of the poll’s weaknesses (including its polling on individual behaviour around  the vaccine, to which we’ll return); its capacity to mislead readers; and, to the policymakers Gallup privileged, its limited utility.

Some of the weaknesses of the poll should be clear to anyone who has even a passing awareness that polls shouldn’t ask questions many respondents will be in no position to answer. Some of the weaknesses might be evident only to a reader who knows something about how questions should be asked. And some of its weaknesses can be illustrated by reference to other polls — the most recent Essential Media, but also the annual Lowy Institute Poll, whose 2021 poll, conducted 15–29 March, was published in the same week as the Monitor.

QUARANTINE

With the federal government under pressure to allow more Australian citizens back into the country and provide alternatives to the hotel quarantine provided by the states, the Monitor saw an opening: “There has been some debate in the media recently about whether Australia should increase or decrease its quarantine capacity to allow more people to enter the country, and if so how this is best handled,” it told respondents. “On this, which of the following comes closest to your own view?” The responses? “I think the number of people entering Australia should be reduced (36 per cent); I think the number of people entering Australia is about right now (19 per cent); I think we should increase hotel quarantine capacity so more people can enter Australia (7 per cent); I think we should increase purpose-built quarantine camp places so more people can enter Australia (30 per cent); Undecided (9 per cent).” For David Crowe, the Herald’s chief political correspondent, those percentages showed that “there is only minority support for increasing arrivals, even if it is done with more purpose-built facilities.”

But piling the various preferences (fewer, the same, more) and possibilities (“purpose-built quarantine camp places,” “hotel quarantine”) into a single question may not have done justice to what respondents actually wanted — or might have been enticed to consider. Those who wanted fewer arrivals might have been happy to accept the present number if more quarantine places (of either kind) had been on offer. Those who wanted “purpose-built quarantine camp places” may have been equally happy with “hotel quarantine capacity,” and vice versa, had they been allowed to say so — and the response may have changed again if “purpose-built quarantine” had not been described as “camp places.” Some may have wanted to increase the numbers entering Australia but not wanted either more “purpose-built quarantine camp places” or an increase in “hotel quarantine” places.

In the latest Essential poll, also conducted online, in this case on 16–20 June, no fewer than 65 per cent favoured “purpose-built quarantine facilities” as “Australia’s long-term approach to safely quarantining international travellers,” compared with 16 per cent who favoured “home quarantine” (a possibility the Monitor did not entertain), and 9 per cent who favoured “hotel quarantine.” While the two questions are not the same, some of the differences — the much clearer preference for “purpose-built quarantine camp places” over “hotel quarantine capacity,” and the reference to “purpose-built quarantine camp places” rather than “purpose-built quarantine facilities” — are instructive.

CARBON EMISSIONS

According to David Crowe’s lead story accompanying the first results of the June Monitor, “A majority of Australians want the federal government to cut greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050 but do not want a carbon price.” Crowe based his conclusion on a question that asked respondents whether their “preferred method for Australia to reduce its carbon emissions” was by putting “a cost on emissions” (preferred by 13 per cent) or by using new technologies (61 per cent). In the print version of the story, the question is prefaced by the words “while both these methods can be used”; but “both methods” was not an option the question went on to offer.

Given the choice, respondents chose “new technologies” over the alternative — the alternative that involved a “cost.” Who would have thought? Not for nothing does the prime minister promote the idea of “technology not taxes.” Surely, he didn’t need the Monitor, or Crowe, to tell him he was “tapping into community sentiment with his vow.” Not many people would choose to pay for a lunch — assuming they might be forced to pay — when they could get one free.

If no one else is paying for your lunch, however, it doesn’t follow that you would not be prepared to pay for it yourself. The possibility that Crowe — and Resolve — had overlooked was that someone who prefers a new technology, especially when their attention is not drawn to any associated costs, may still be willing to have a “cost” put on emissions if new technologies (alone) won’t solve the problem. While the conclusion that people “do not want a carbon price” may have been correct, the reasoning behind it was invalid.

What of the timeline for any “cut”? And how far should the “cut” go? Responding to a separate question — a response that would become the premise for Crowe’s conclusion — 55 per cent of respondents supported “the federal government adopting a 2050 ‘net zero’ emissions target,” a figure revealed in the text of Crowe’s article but not in the accompanying table. The proportion of respondents either opposed to this proposal or “neutral/undecided” (45 per cent) was almost as great as the proportion in favour. In short, there was nothing like the consensus implied by either the front-page headline “Net Zero: Public Is Ready for CO2 Cuts,” or the online headline “Voters Want Australia to Set a Net Zero 2050 Emissions Target, but No Carbon Tax.”

And what did the very large proportion of those who classified themselves as “neutral/undecided” — about a third of the respondents (the report provides no precise number) — understand by words like “adopting,” “emissions targets,” and “net zero” — especially when the prime minister, no less, chooses his words around “net zero by 2050” so carefully? Respondents may have been less clear about what the question meant than the Monitor assumed they would be or the Herald imagined they were.

Perhaps respondents who were reluctant to commit to net zero by 2050 wanted the government to commit to a more modest target but one that could be achieved more quickly. “Asked whether it was more important to concentrate on meeting Australia’s 2030 commitment or to adopt a new 2050 goal [zero emissions?], 42 per cent of voters preferred to concentrate on the earlier target while 29 per cent wanted more importance [sic] on 2050,” Crowe reported; the exact question was published neither in print nor online. The reporting tells us nothing about those who were “neutral/undecided” about net zero by 2050: the 55 per cent who supported net zero may have included those who would have preferred “to concentrate on the earlier target”; but the 42 per cent, for the most part, may have been a different group. As to what, if anything, respondents were told about “the 2030 commitment” — that remains a mystery.

The fact that so many respondents (26 per cent) were “undecided” when asked to choose between “new technologies” and putting “a cost on emissions” may have reflected another problem with this question: it didn’t allow for respondents who did not want Australia to reduce its emissions or didn’t believe that it needed to.

In the Lowy Institute Poll, the majority of respondents (55 per cent) said that the government’s “main priority” in relation to “energy policy” should be “reducing carbon emissions” rather than either “reducing household bills” (32 per cent) or “reducing the risk of power blackouts” (12 per cent). On this evidence, the majority of those who wanted net zero by 2050 may have been prepared to countenance a “cost.” In addition to his reasoning being invalid, Crowe’s conclusion — and Reed’s — that the majority of Australians do not want a carbon tax may have been misleading.

CHINA

Most of the issue questions in June’s Monitor were about China. First, respondents were told that “Australia has taken a number of actions in relation to China in recent years, including those listed below. For each, please tell us whether you support or oppose the action that was taken.” The order of the list, Reed tells me, was randomised or rotated. The options were: strongly support, support, neutral/undecided, opposed, strongly oppose.

Published in descending order of support, Australia’s actions were described in these ways: “Cancelling visas of Chinese citizens suspected of being covert agents” (supported by 71 per cent, opposed by 6 per cent); “Speaking out against human rights issues involving the Uighur” (69–5); “Calling for an investigation into the source of COVID” (66–8); “Launching trade restriction cases against China via the WTO” (63–7); “Reviewing the 99-year lease of Darwin Port” (60–12); “Criticising China on its approach to Hong Kong and Taiwan” (59–10); “Banning Huawei from Australia’s 5G network” (58–9); “Criticising China on its taking over of the disputed Spratly Islands” (56–9); “Cancelling Victoria’s ‘Belt and Road’ agreement” (54–8); and “Warning of the chances of armed conflict with China” (45–19).

The first thing to say about most of these actions is that, unless they were prepared to endorse whatever Australia had done simply because Australia had done it — a point to which we will return — large numbers of respondents would have had little or no basis on which to answer. How many respondents would have heard of or known much about: covert agents and the cancelling of visas; the Uighur; the WTO, even had the acronym been spelled out; the ninety-nine-year lease of Darwin Port; China’s approach to Hong Kong and Taiwan; Huawei or Australia’s 5G network; the Spratly Islands; or Victoria’s Belt and Road agreement, let alone the cancelling of it. And how many would have heard about Mike Pezzullo (secretary of the Department of Home Affairs) or Peter Dutton (defence minister) “warning of the chances of armed conflict”? Most Australians’ knowledge of, or interest in, the finer points of China’s or Australia’s foreign policy is unlikely to be particularly extensive — something that a poll putting words into people’s mouths should not be allowed to disguise.

Just how many respondents had little or no basis on which to answer these questions we cannot say, but the proportions that ticked the box marked “neutral/undecided” provide one clue. The proportions that declined to register a judgement ranged from 24 to 26 per cent (the three actions most widely supported) to 36 to 38 per cent (the three actions least widely supported). These are high numbers; a comparison with the single-digit figure for the “undecided” on the Monitor’s quarantine question is striking.

Those self-identified as “neutral/undecided” in the Monitor no doubt included respondents who knew something of the matter at hand and were genuinely undecided about its merits; but the greater number are likely to have been respondents who hadn’t heard of the matter or given it much thought. And since many respondents will have been unwilling to admit that they knew little if anything about what was being asked, and simply indicated their support for whatever the government had done, the real number of those not in a position to answer is likely to have been much greater than the “neutral/undecided” figures suggest — very likely, over half. Reed himself concluded, on the basis of a quite different survey, that “no matter how inane and ill-conceived your question, and regardless of the inappropriateness of your response categories, a large proportion — perhaps all — survey respondents will try to give you an answer if compelled to do so.”

Had a preliminary question been asked along the lines Gallup once suggested — “Have you read or heard anything about…” — readers (politicians included) would have been much better served; even better, had the substantive question included “Do you have an opinion on this?” or, better still, “Have you thought much about this issue?” Any of these questions may have shown that support for Australia’s actions, not just opposition to them, was the preserve of minorities not majorities; and that the gap between supporters and opponents was narrower than the Monitor figures suggest. Properly pre-tested, these questions may not have been asked at all.

The second thing to say is that the Monitor’s question format lends itself to acquiescence, also known as agreement tendency or yea-saying. Having been told that these were all actions that “Australia” had taken — “Australia” being a cue, for most respondents, likely to carry a high positive affect — and knowing little or nothing about the substance of the actions, a substantial number of respondents are likely to have gone down the list, ticking “strongly support” or “support,” one after the other. Note that in relation to the top nine actions, the range of both “strong support” (33 to 41 per cent) and total “support” (54 to 71 per cent) is quite narrow. Opposition to any of the actions fluctuates even more narrowly (5 to 12 per cent). Both are precisely what we would expect if acquiescence loomed large and cognitive engagement was low.

On what basis would respondents, with little knowledge of these things, dissent? As Reed told the Herald ahead of the Monitor’s launch in April, “What people are thinking about [right now] is how they’re travelling themselves, in their own families and households, as we adapt to life under a global pandemic, and they’re thinking about how our leaders are performing in their response to this extraordinary challenge.”

Had respondents been told that these were the actions of the “Liberal–National Party government,” rather than the actions of “Australia,” respondents would have been given a rather different cue. We might then have expected some respondents to have supported or opposed the ten actions according to whether they were Labor or Coalition voters — more, if Labor objections to any of the Coalition’s actions had been noted; less, if Labor’s support for any of the Coalition’s actions had been noted. Had such a cue polarised the response, it would have narrowed the gap between the proportion that supported and the proportion that opposed the action. While the desire to avoid such a cue is understandable, more thought might have been given to the potential skew introduced by the cue that was chosen in its stead.

Having been taken through this list of Australia’s actions, respondents were then asked: “Do you think Australia should compromise on any of these points if it meant better trade and diplomatic relations with China? Please either pick ‘no’ or choose as many of the options as you like.” Most (56 per cent) of the respondents picked “no.” But “no” wasn’t just one option among many; it was the easiest option — physically, cognitively and emotionally — and in each of these senses the set of options was biased, however unwittingly, in its favour.

Only 12 to 17 per cent went to the trouble of ticking one or more of the other ten boxes, each identifying a different action on which they would be prepared to compromise — the same determined respondents, possibly, ticking more or less all of them. Again, the lack of discrimination — roughly the same low proportion willing to compromise over “criticising China on its taking over the disputed Spratly Islands” and “criticising China on its approach to Hong Kong and Taiwan,” for example — suggests low cognitive engagement. How many ticked no box at all (as many as 27 per cent, potentially, but no doubt fewer) was not reported. The full table was made available online but not in print.

“Some people have said that Australia should not antagonise China as it is a major trading partner with a large military, while others say that Australia should stick to its values, speak up or act against neighbours like China when we feel they are doing the wrong thing. Which of these views comes closest to your own?” This question on China is notable for being the only one that presented Australia’s dispute with China, and what to do about it, in terms of argument and counterargument rather than support for or opposition to a particular government response.

Whether the argument and counterargument were “balanced” is another matter. On the one hand, respondents were presented with a statement about China as “a major trading partner” (an implied risk) with “a large military” (a threat); on the other, they were given a rather longer statement about “Australia sticking to its values” (principled behaviour) against those who are “doing the wrong thing” (unprincipled behaviour). The outcome, surely, cannot have been in doubt: less than a quarter (23 per cent) thought that Australia should “think twice before antagonising” while nearly two-thirds (62 per cent) thought Australia should “stick to values & speak up,” to quote the labels on the pie-chart. On this question, as one would also expect, relatively few (15 per cent) were “undecided.”

Is this a finding worthy of an online headline of this kind — “Australians Wants Nation to ‘Stick to Its Values’ in China Dealings” — in an upmarket daily? Perhaps. But one would have to search quite a way through the annals of polling to find a majority in any country that favoured surrendering to an immoral bully — let alone doing so in the absence of a serious threat of war. Even if respondents imagined that the chances of war were substantial — and the public may be wont to exaggerate such threats — most respondents (75 per cent according to the latest Lowy poll) would have drawn comfort from their belief that “the United States would come to Australia’s defence if Australia were under threat.” Before crafting the question, it might have been a good idea to have considered the pattern of response it was likely to generate, and what — if anything — the pattern would mean.

Having asked about past actions, the Monitor moved on to test the water about future actions. “The Chinese government has said that it may block or place tariffs on other Australian imports in the future. If such trade sanctions were to occur, would you support or oppose the following potential courses of action?” In descending order of support, Australia’s “potential courses of action” were described as: “Focus on finding new export markets outside China” (supported by 79 per cent, opposed by 4 per cent); “Continue to seek a quiet diplomatic solution with China” (63–8); “Take each case to the WTO to try and reverse China’s actions” (56–7); “Restrict or place tariffs on the import of Chinese goods in retaliation” (53–12); “Add export [sic] tariffs on exports to China to compensate affected industries” (53–10); “Push for compensation from China for starting the COVID pandemic” (41–21); “Boycott the 2022 Winter Olympics, to be held in China” (33–30); “Break off diplomatic relations with China, including expelling diplomats” (29–30); “Do nothing so as not to antagonise China and make the situation worse” (15–48).

Here, clearly, respondents discriminated — at least at the top (63 to 79 per cent) and the bottom of the range (15 to 29 per cent). It helped that the two suggestions that were most widely supported referred to actions that no one in Australian public life had opposed: “focus[ing] on finding new export markets outside China”; and “continu[ing] to seek a quiet diplomatic solution with China,” a question that told respondents what Australia was (ostensibly) doing already and essentially invited them to endorse it. It also helped that the two least popular suggestions were actions that no one of any consequence had proposed: “Break off diplomatic relations with China, including expelling diplomats,” and “Do nothing so as not to antagonise China and make the situation worse,” a proposal that might have been understood as rejecting all of Australia’s past actions as well as precluding the search for “new export markets,” and the pursuit of “a quiet diplomatic solution.”

Every proposal that won majority support had to do with trade. Designed to respond to a Chinese tariff wall, proposals that ventured beyond trade — demands for compensation for Covid-19, boycotting the 2022 Winter Olympics, or breaking off diplomatic relations — failed to win majority support.

Noteworthy, too, is that without the comfort of knowing what “Australia” had already done, the levels of support for various future actions were lower at both the top of the range (56 per cent) and the bottom (33 per cent) — ignoring the two most popular and the two least popular suggestions — than they were for past actions (69 per cent and 45 per cent, respectively).

One of the most remarkable features of the Herald’s coverage of the poll is that the high “neutral/undecided” responses — and the exceptions — formed no part of its narrative. Overall, the proportion of respondents who classified themselves as “neutral/undecided” was lower in relation to past actions (an average of 31 per cent) than in relation to future actions (34 per cent); but it was still extraordinarily high. The only question that most respondents could relate to in the list of “potential courses of action” was the one that engaged with the wholly familiar and widely accepted idea of finding new markets; here, the “neutral/undecided” dropped to 17 per cent.

“I think the prejudice,” said Reed, commenting on the results of the questions on future actions in relation to China, “is ‘if this gets resolved and China starts buying our beef and barley again, that’s excellent.’ People see value in the trade relationship and they realise there’s an issue here.” This mercantilist framing of public opinion may be correct, but it is not one that sits particularly well with what the other questions on China purport to show. Nor does it fit well with the findings of the Lowy poll, where “Chinese investment in Australia” was also seen as a negative — and a big one (by 79 per cent) — as were “China’s military activities in our region” (93 per cent). Both were seen as “negative” by substantially largely proportions than in 2016, the last time the Lowy poll checked. And if there were still any doubt, one could look at how China’s favourability ratings have tanked across much of the First World.

DOING THINGS BETTER

All of these questions in the Monitor — the one on quarantine, at a time when the government was pondering whether to move beyond hotels; certainly, the ones on emissions, built around the prime minister’s slogan; but also, those on China — could have been written in the prime minister’s office. The fact that they weren’t tells us that those involved in constructing the poll held strong views of their own; the Herald’s Peter Hartcher, in particular, has just written a book on China. On seeing the results of all the questions, Hartcher wrote of his hope that they would “encourage the federal government in standing against Beijing’s list of 14 demands, and Labor to continue to stand with the government.”

Perhaps that was the point of the polling: to show that public opinion backed the prime minister. In this sense, polling that found majority support for “cancelling visas of Chinese citizens suspected of being covert agents,” for “speaking out against human rights issues involving the Uighur,” for the very public calling-out of China on Covid (though the question wasn’t exactly phrased this way), and so on, while at the same time finding majority support for what the poll, without a hint of irony, described as “continu[ing] to seek a quiet diplomatic solution,” could hardly have been bettered.

If providing cover for government policy wasn’t the point — if the Age and Herald would shudder to think of their polling as a form of propaganda — then the two papers need to reconsider how polls should be done. Crafting questions on matters that are keenly contested — questions that are worth asking in an appropriate manner — means having to take account of more than one view.

An important limitation of the Gallup model, which conceives of polling on an issue as a kind of referendum on that issue — a “sampling referendum” Gallup called it — is that referendums typically involve a single proposition with voters limited to either supporting or opposing it. A question in the Lowy poll, which didn’t follow the referendum model, found that while the majority (56 per cent) supported the proposition that “China is more to blame for the tensions in the Australia-China relationship,” and hardly anyone (4 per cent) agreed that “Australia is more to blame,” more than a third (38 per cent) supported the proposition that “they are equally to blame.” No doubt, had the Monitor asked this question, it would have found something similar.

One way of having polling that acknowledges alternative ways of framing issues is to involve those who hold alternative perspectives in the process of constructing the questions. In the case of China, what the Herald might have done was to have Hartcher sit down with someone like Geoff Raby, whose views on Australia’s relations with China are rather different. The fact that Hartcher and Raby barely reference each other in their respective books might make an exchange between them all the more refreshing. Raby is not necessarily better on China than Hartcher; that question isn’t relevant when it comes to constructing a poll. But Raby is at least as well credentialled. On China, as there are on Covid or on climate policy, there are any number of people who could have helped.

The job of the pollster is to work out how to ask the questions, to advise on the use of argument and counterargument as against approve/oppose, to think about the various assumptions the question makes about respondents or the demands it puts upon them, to pre-test or to build in filters, to contemplate the use of split samples, to organise the sequencing/rotation of questions, and so on.

According to its website, Resolve sees its work as “Always quality,” “Always insightful,” “Always practical” — this last, a dig at “academics, researching for the sake of knowledge or debating theory.” But it’s not just academics who might beg to differ. It would be difficult for anyone concerned with standards in the industry to say that the Monitor’s questions on quarantine, climate or China exemplified “quality” or “insight”; and if they fell well short on either, that the results offered something that was particularly “practical.”

The questions in the Monitor on the Covid vaccine — asking respondents whether they had been vaccinated, whether they were “likely” or “unlikely” to get vaccinated, and so on; and seeking reasons why they may have hesitated — were somewhat better. But these were questions of a different order. First, because asking respondents to report on their own actions, past or planned, is quite different from asking them about issues of public policy, even if people are not particularly good at predicting their own behaviour, especially in unusual circumstances, and response categories can still make a big difference. Second, because following up with a list of fourteen possible reasons, which allows for multiple responses, seems to cover almost all the possibilities, even if respondents are not necessarily very good at explaining their own motivations for doing — or not doing — things; a notable absence from the list is “don’t know.”

The Australian Polling Council, set up in the wake of the 2019 debacle to lift standards in the polling industry, and pollsters’ accountability, is not a body that Resolve wants to join, Reed tells me; apart from not wanting to join a club whose members include some he sees as beyond the pale, he doesn’t want to have to divulge “trade secrets.” If Resolve were to join the APC it might be obliged to lift its standards — if the APC can be persuaded to match the demands of the British Polling Council — and to raise its level of transparency not just by making available its computer tables with the questions, answers and question order but also by revealing some of its other “trade secrets.” The Herald and the Age, endlessly concerned with holding others to account, should insist on nothing less.

“We can’t put all of it in the data centre because of the scale of the results,” Tory Maguire, the Herald’s national editor explained, when announcing the launch of the Monitor, “but we will report on as much of it as our readers find interesting.” As it happens, none of the answers to any of the issue questions (or vaccine questions) polled in the last three months have found their way into “the permanent data centre.” How the Herald judges what its readers find “interesting,” only it would know. But as anyone may judge, there is nothing about “the scale of the results” that would prevent the “data centre” functioning as a repository for every one of the Monitor’s questions and the top-line results. What had sounded promising when it was announced pales by comparison with the repository established by the Lowy Institute. It’s not just the Monitor that needs to reconsider what it does; fifty years after breaking the Gallup monopoly in Australia, and showing that there are other ways of conducting polls, it’s also the Age and Herald that need to reconsider. •

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Beyond the light shows, the awards ceremonies, the patriotic pop and rap songs and the grand spectacular at Beijing’s “Birdsnest” stadium, a ubiquitous media, cultural and educational campaign is unfolding, all of it designed to propagate the official version of party history.

The story of the date hints at the challenges of trying to reconstruct party history. So many official versions have circulated over time, and most of them — rather inconveniently — have been preserved. In the early 1960s, Vice-Premier Lu Dingyi, a long-term political commissar and party member since 1925, came up with one solution to the problem when he explicitly forbade the writing of any party history at all. This helps to explain why, if you compare different accounts of the meeting at which the Communist Party of China was born, you’ll discover no one can even say confidently whether twelve or thirteen delegates were in attendance.

Almost certainly, two advisers from the Kremlin’s Communist International, or Comintern, were present: the Dutch communist Henk Sneevliet, who went by the alias Maring, and Vladimir Abramovich Neiman Nikolsky. The fact that Nikolsky was killed in Stalin’s Great Purge in 1938 might explain why he sometimes drops out of the story. (Mao admired Stalin.) Because no original Chinese documents from the meeting survived, the official Chinese records are translations of Russian-language Comintern documents — and these, together with the memoir of Chen Gongbo, a founding member who left the party soon after, provide just about the only evidence as to what transpired at what was, after all, a secret meeting.

At the time of the meeting, China was in chaos. Ten years earlier, in 1911, a republican revolution had dethroned China’s last dynasty, the Manchu Qing, which had been in power since 1644. Military aggression, land grabs and unequal treaties imposed on China by imperialist powers including Great Britain, France, Japan and Czarist Russia had left China impoverished, humiliated and, as the saying went, “carved up like a melon.” The first president of the new republic, Yuan Shikai, sabotaged the attempt to establish a stable democratic government when he declared himself an emperor of the “China Empire” in 1915. From then on, warlords — military men with a territorial base and an army to defend it — fought each other and what remained of the central government.

A New Culture movement had arisen on the campuses of newly established Western-style universities, demanding cultural, social, intellectual and political change, including individual freedom and rights for women and workers. Among the movement’s figureheads was Chen Duxiu (1879–1942), editor of the hugely influential magazine New Youth. Chen would be elected, in absentia, the party’s first secretary-general.

A radical thinker, Chen had readily agreed when a critic accused him of setting out to “destroy Confucianism.” He’d be happy to see the destruction of China’s “national essence,” he wrote, if that’s what it took for the survival of the Chinese people themselves. Although he had previously embraced Enlightenment and Western democratic ideals, he was captivated by the Russian Revolution of 1917.^⁠ In 1919, after the Soviets relinquished^⁠ all former Russian imperialist claims on China, making the Soviet Union and Marxism even more attractive to thinkers like Chen, who began to establish proto-communist organisations such as Marxist study groups. The party that today has over ninety million members claimed not much more than fifty adherents in 1921.

Having been arrested in Beijing for publishing “inflammatory literature,” Chen moved to Shanghai’s French Concession. The fact that Chinese law didn’t apply in such semi-colonial holdings — an outrageous assault on Chinese sovereignty embodied in the treaties — made them a refuge for all kinds of outlaws, including political ones. Unable to attend the founding meeting, possibly because he was by then in trouble with the French authorities, Chen sent a twenty-three-year-old student leader called Zhang Guotao in his stead.

The group convened on 23 July in a tidy grey brick house on Wantze (now Xingye) Road in the French Concession that was owned by the brother of one of their number, Li Hanjun. The Comintern representatives reportedly gave speeches on the first day, and on the second the Chinese delegates exchanged information about the work they and their comrades were doing. The next several days were devoted to drafting the party’s platform and plan.

On the evening of 30 July, tipped off by a spy who’d intruded on the meeting a short time earlier, French Concession police raided the meeting and searched the premises. Although they made no arrests, it spooked the delegates. The following day, they decamped to Zhejiang province’s South Lake, where they rented a brightly painted houseboat and continued the meeting.

This boat, rebuilt since, is now hailed as an object of veneration, a symbol of the party’s “Red Boat Spirit” and a major site for “Red tourism.” Or, as a China Daily writer put it, in a stellar example of Red prose, “That boat has sailed through turbulent rivers and treacherous shoals and voyaged across violent tidal waves, becoming a great ship that navigates China’s stable and long-term development.”

The first party congress established the Communist Party of China as a “militant and disciplined party of the proletariat” that aimed to organise workers into a revolutionary army to overthrow the bourgeoisie and seize the means of production from capitalists. Years later, following schisms within the leadership that would see Mao Zedong, one of the founders, rise to power, the party broke with the Soviet model of urban-based revolution, placing the peasantry, rather than industrial workers, at the movement’s centre. The Leninist style of party organisation they adopted at the meeting would, however, remain.

The Comintern delegates convinced the group to form a strategic alliance with the Kuomintang party of the republican revolutionary Sun Yat-sen, then leading a government in exile in the south, in the ongoing struggle against warlords and imperialists.

Mao Zedong (left) and Dong Biwu at Tiananmen in October 1949. Mondadori Portfolio/Getty Images

Only two of the Communist Party’s founders, Dong Biwu and Mao, would mount the rostrum of Tiananmen for the ceremony of the founding of the People’s Republic of China on 1 October 1949. By then, Mao was the party’s undisputed leader and would remain so for life. Dong went on to occupy various high-level positions in the party and state, including president of China, which he held for three years before his death in 1975 at eighty-nine, a year before Mao, too, “went to meet Marx.”

As for the first chairman, Chen Duxiu, he was kicked out of the party in 1929 for differences of opinion, including with Mao, and for his criticisms of Stalin. A Trotskyite, he spent thirteen years in a Kuomintang prison, later dying in obscurity in an isolated Sichuan village in 1942.

As for the other two original members of the “Central Bureau,” one, Li Da, also left the party in the 1920s due to differences of opinion, although he re-joined after 1949. When Red Guards attacked him in the Cultural Revolution (1966–76), he appealed to Mao, but Mao declined to save him, and he was “struggled” to death. Zhang Guotao, the third member of the Central Bureau alongside Li and Chen Duxiu, left the party in 1938 after a leadership tussle with Mao. He went into exile in Hong Kong and then Canada, where he converted to Christianity and died at the age of eighty-two in 1979.

Several founders died for the cause. The strategic alliance with the Kuomintang ended when the hardline anti-communist military man Chiang Kai-shek became effective leader of the party after Sun Yat-sen’s death. In 1927, he launched a “White Terror” that claimed the lives of 70,000 communists and sympathisers, including suspected sympathisers, among them many students.

Deng Enming, only twenty at the time of the congress, was arrested by the Kuomintang in 1929 and executed publicly two years later. He Shuheng was killed in 1935 by Kuomintang troops while engaging in guerrilla warfare in Fujian province, not long after Mao and others broke out of a Kuomintang encirclement and began what would become known as the Long March. Chen Tanqiu was killed by a warlord in 1943. A warlord also murdered Li Hanjun (1890–1927), although by then he had left the Communists for the Kuomintang.

One founder died of illness: Wang Jinmei, who participated in the party’s fourth congress in Shanghai in January 1925, succumbed to tuberculosis at the age of twenty-seven just seven months later.

After the Japanese invasion and occupation of China, two founders served as ministers in the collaborationist puppet government. One was Chen Gongbo, the author of the memoir mentioned above. The other was Zhou Fohai, who had first abandoned the communists for the Kuomintang in 1924. In 1946, the Kuomintang executed Chen for treason. Zhou, his sentence commuted to life thanks to connections, died in prison in 1948.

Two others had more complicated stories. Liu Renjing became a Trotskyite, and was first imprisoned by, and then worked for, the Kuomintang. After 1949, he wrote a statement of regret for his political sins and the Communist Party accepted it, allowing him to work in minor positions in publishing. He was victimised and imprisoned during the Cultural Revolution, but survived, and reputationally “rehabilitated” in the early 1980s. In 1987, at the age of eighty-five, he was run over and killed by a Beijing bus.

Bao Huiseng, meanwhile, had also switched sides, joining the Kuomintang, but after a brief spell in Macao, returned to the mainland with Mao’s permission. Following a period of “political study” he became a researcher in the State Council. Red Guards beat him viciously too during the Cultural Revolution^⁠, leaving him so badly traumatised it’s said that he never fully recovered. Sadly for historians, he burned approximately one hundred letters from Chen Duxiu he’d kept carefully hidden for forty years, terrified what the Red Guards might do if they found them. He died in his early eighties in 1979.

As for Maring, the Dutchman was executed by the Germans in 1942 for his part in the communist resistance to the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands.

If “history is a mirror,” as Xi Jinping likes to say, quoting a Tang dynasty emperor, some polishing has certainly been going on.

Just ahead of the centenary, Xi helped inaugurate a spanking new exhibition hall devoted to party history: the Museum of the Communist Party of China. Located in a nouveau-Stalinist pile near Beijing Olympic Park, it holds some 2600 photos and 3500 “relics”^⁠ that present the story of the party’s history over the last century exactly as its leaders want it told. It is, in Xi Jinping’s words, a “sacred hall.”

Language like that suits a party that describes itself as “Great, Glorious and Correct” and has launched what amounts to an enormous campaign of catechism in party doctrine. There is even a hotline for dobbing in heretics — or in the party’s language, “historical nihilists,” anyone who questions the official version of party history. Xi believes “historical nihilism” contributed to the fall of the Soviet Union.

The spectacle and the careful polishing of the historical mirror are all about cementing the party’s legitimacy as the rightful rulers of China, for the next hundred years and beyond. The central role of Xi Jinping and “Xi Jinping Thought” in the celebrations shows that he has every intention of guiding it as far into that future as possible. But if there are any lessons to be had from stories of the founding fathers, it’s that where you begin is not necessarily where you end up. •

Funding for this article from the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund is gratefully acknowledged.

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My book charts Beijing’s successful attempts to repress public memories of the 1989 killings. When I wrote it, Hong Kong’s annual candlelit vigil was the only place on Chinese soil where the bloody suppression could be marked. I had interviewed mainlanders who slipped across the border to attend, including one who had taken part in the protests. I had even met a tour group at the city’s Tiananmen Museum, whose boss had financed their Hong Kong trip specifically to visit the exhibit. For them, Hong Kong was a portal to their own past.

This year, as the authorities asserted political control over the territory following the massive pro-democracy protests of 2019, residents were warned that attending the vigil could mean a five-year sentence for illegal assembly. Anyone who even publicised the event could face a year in prison. One of the vigil organisers, barrister Chow Hang Tung, was arrested the morning of the event; several others, including activist Joshua Wong, were already serving prison terms of up to ten months for illegal assembly after attending last year’s vigil.

The Tiananmen Museum, meanwhile, had been shuttered just three days after it opened, ostensibly for not having the correct licence. The public broadcaster pulled a story about a long-distance run to mark the killings, then sidelined the team that put together the program.

Authorities seemed to be doing their utmost to extend to Hong Kong the mainland’s veil of silence over Tiananmen, citing the need to respect the national security legislation imposed sight unseen on the territory in June last year. The day after it was introduced, the law was used to arrest ten people, including a man on a motorbike carrying a flag with the protest slogan “Liberate Hong Kong, Revolution of Our Times.”

The logical outcome of that legislation is that Tiananmen memorials will become as subversive in Hong Kong as they are on the mainland. Preventing them will also strike at Hong Kongers’ collective identity, rooted in the freedom to protest and publicly remember what their counterparts in China cannot. Yet the annual Tiananmen vigil is so much a part of the political calendar, I can’t imagine Hong Kong without it.

My book’s fate is an inconsequential data point on Hong Kong’s precipitous slide into authoritarianism. The dizzying speed of the changes since the security law was passed makes them almost impossible to chart, turning any narrative into a litany of lightning-speed loss, as all the city’s cherished freedoms are dismantled pretty much simultaneously. The changes have undermined the neutrality of the territory’s civil service, the robustness of its academic institutions, the professionalism of its police force and, above all, the much-prized independence of its judiciary.

Democratic politicians have been jailed, forty-seven of them for attempting to hold a primary poll to choose election candidates. They face life in prison for conspiracy to incite subversion. The electoral system has been rewritten to ensure “patriots” have the majority in the legislature, even though there is effectively no political opposition. Civil servants have been forced to take loyalty oaths. National security education has been introduced into schools and universities, and curricula are being rewritten at speed. In response, Hong Kongers are leaving in droves, choosing emigration over this new, politically restrictive existence. Some are seeking political asylum overseas, while others try to smuggle themselves out by speedboat in desperation. The territory is no longer a refuge; it has become a place to flee.

Despite all this, and despite the 7000 extra police officers patrolling the streets, last week’s heavy-handed attempt to stop Hong Kongers commemorating Tiananmen failed. Hong Kongers thronged the streets around the vigil site at Victoria Park, defiantly bearing candles or holding mobile phone torchlights aloft. They are not mainlanders; they have not been trained by decades of violent political campaigns to reformat their memories by fiat. And they are showing they will refuse to have amnesia imposed on them.

I’m now writing a book about Hong Kong. Following the passage of the national security legislation, it risks becoming an exercise in subtraction, as ever more names and details are pruned from the text to protect interviewees. When I think about what will be left, I think of a line from a song by a local indie band called My Little Airport. They sang it at a concert in November 2019 while fans chanted slogans that would be banned just eight months later. As purple lights bathed the stage, the singer’s plaintive voice rang out over the melancholy guitar chords: “This is a revolution where no one wins in the end. But would you please stay and be a witness with us?” •

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The towering figure of Labor leader Gough Whitlam led the way through echoing corridors flanked by Red Guards. When the visitors were finally ushered into the austere grandeur of the East Room, Chinese premier Zhou Enlai stepped forward and greeted each member of the delegation in English. To their astonishment, Zhou then invited the twenty Australian journalists and their Chinese counterparts to remain throughout the almost two hours of official talks “to bear witness to the fact that the people of China want to be friends with the people of Australia.”

Whitlam’s bold decision to embrace China while Australian troops were still fighting in Vietnam was widely regarded as a reckless adventure. Even allies of the opposition leader feared it would endanger the big gains Whitlam had made at the 1969 election towards ending two decades of conservative rule in Australia.

Prime minister William McMahon ridiculed the China visit as “instant coffee diplomacy” and denounced Whitlam for disloyalty to Australia’s alliance with the United States. “In no time at all,” he declared, “Zhou Enlai had Mr Whitlam on a hook and he played him as a fisherman plays a trout.”

Days later, it was McMahon who was beached and gasping for air when it was revealed that US presidential envoy Henry Kissinger had secretly visited Beijing on 9 July — four days after Whitlam’s meeting with Zhou Enlai — to pave the way for Richard Nixon’s visit to Beijing in February 1972. As Whitlam’s successor, Bill Hayden, would remark, that news transformed “a disaster in the making” into “a stroke of genius.”

The presence of the big media contingent in Whitlam’s entourage would be important in turning public opinion. As historian Billy Griffiths wrote in his book The China Breakthrough: Whitlam in the Middle Kingdom, 1971, “The journalists shared his sense of adventure and their presence proved crucial to the success of the visit. Importantly, the stories that filtered back to Australia gave the public rare insights into a forbidden and unknown land.”

After his landslide election victory in December 1972, one of Whitlam’s first foreign policy acts — as well as ending Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam war — would be to establish diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China. Along with the first Australian diplomats to arrive in Beijing in 1973 were three Australian correspondents establishing permanent bureaus — Margaret Jones of the Sydney Morning Herald, Paul Raffaele of the ABC and Lachie Shaw of Australian Associated Press. It would be another five years before the first American journalists were accredited in China.

The importance of the Australian media’s engagement with China over the subsequent half century has been underscored by the publication this month of The Beijing Bureau, edited by former China correspondents Trevor Watson and Melissa Roberts. The book carries firsthand accounts by them and twenty-one other Australian journalists of a half century of tumultuous events: the final years of the Cultural Revolution, the economic liberalisation through the 1980s under Deng Xiaoping, the crushing of the democracy movement at Tiananmen and, most recently, the ascendancy of president Xi Jinping, the persecution of the Uighurs and the upheaval in Hong Kong.

While the book includes a surfeit of old ABC China hands, it reminds us of the high calibre of Australian journalists who have reported from Beijing through the decades for both domestic and international media outlets, particularly the likes of Richard McGregor (the Australian and the Financial Times), Stephen McDonell (ABC and BBC), and Jane Perlez and Chris Buckley of the New York Times.

Conspicuously absent from a line-up that boasts “Australia’s most acclaimed journalists” are Tony Walker of Fairfax and the Financial Times, who served longer — from 1978 to 1983 and from 1993 to 1998 — than any other newspaper correspondent; the Age’s Peter Ellingsen, the only one to win the Graham Perkin Australian Journalist of the Year award, for his outstanding coverage of the Tiananmen massacre; and Robert Thomson, initially posted to Beijing by the Sydney Morning Herald before becoming the first staff correspondent in China for the Financial Times. Thomson went on to edit the London Times and the Wall Street Journal before being appointed chief of Rupert Murdoch’s publishing empire.

But perhaps the most striking feature of the book is the contribution of Michael Smith of the Australian Financial Review. The expulsion of Smith and ABC correspondent Bill Birtles from China in September last year marked the first time since 1973 that no staff correspondents of mainstream Australian media organisations are reporting from China, a telling sign of the depth of the deterioration in the bilateral relationship over the past few years. As Smith writes in his own book-length account of those events, The Last Correspondent (published this month by Ultimo Press), describing his thoughts as he sheltered in the Australian consul-general’s residence in Shanghai before flying home to Sydney: “There was only one conclusion. Relations between Australia and China had become so bad that journalists were now political pawns in a wider diplomatic game.”

Just as the Australian media played a key role in Gough Whitlam’s reconciliation with China in the early 1970s, journalists have been reduced to bargaining chips in the alarming unravelling of that accord. And while the crisis in the relationship owes much to the increasingly assertive, if not aggressive, leadership of Xi Jinping, it has been brought to breaking point by the missteps of the Morrison government.

Scott Morrison is the bull in our China shop. His reckless mismanagement has driven Australia’s vital relationship with Beijing into a state of cold war, done nothing to advance the issues at the heart of the crisis, and along the way wiped out billions of dollars of export revenues via punitive retaliation by the Chinese.

How has it come to this? The government’s increasingly hardline approach towards Beijing has been driven by growing alarm at Xi Jinping’s actions at home and abroad, and emboldened by a souring of perceptions of China in the Australian community. But there is nothing new in much of China’s disturbing conduct. China’s minorities have been abused, patronised and politically sidelined since the People’s Republic enshrined Han Chinese chauvinism. Mainland China has remained in a state of restrained hostility towards Taiwan — and insisted on its return to the motherland, if necessary by force — since Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists fled there in 1949. And Beijing’s ambitious claims over the waters and resources of the South China Sea have always challenged those of its neighbours. The only difference now is that a richer, more militarily powerful and more determined China under Xi has far greater ability to silence dissent at home and deliver on its threats abroad.

So what has changed in fifty years? Australia’s diplomatic recognition of China was forged at the height of the Cultural Revolution, during which millions of Chinese perished. The relationship endured the Tiananmen massacre and its brutal aftermath. Save perhaps for the brief interlude between those events in the 1980s, when Deng Xiaoping opened the country to the world and embraced economic liberalism, China has been synonymous with repression: a communist state that embraced capitalist economics but never democracy.

The appalling treatment of the Uighurs is essentially a sequel to the religious, cultural and economic subjugation of the Tibetans that gathered unstoppable momentum in the early 1980s. And while nothing can excuse the abuses committed in both Tibet and Xinjiang, they are partially explained by Chinese paranoia about security on its western frontiers. Tibet straddles the long-troubled frontier with rival India, and Xinjiang with its predominantly Muslim population is perceived as a potential gateway for separatist Islamic extremism.

And however shocking the trampling of democratic freedoms in Hong Kong has been over the past two years, it is not surprising that Beijing has torn up its agreement to respect the autonomy of its Special Administrative Region under the “one country, two systems” formula. The only real surprise is that it took so long to do so — and then only after sustained protests in the territory posed a fundamental challenge to its sovereignty.

When British prime minister Margaret Thatcher flew to Beijing in 1984 to toast with Deng Xiaoping the signing of Britain’s agreement to hand back control of its colony to the communist regime, it was window dressing for what at heart was a Faustian pact with illusory benefits for the bedevilled Iron Lady. The bottom line was that Hong Kong was real estate stolen from imperial China by the opium-peddling Victorian British, and the expiry of Britain’s ninety-nine-year lease over the New Territories in 1997 made its continued rule of the entrepot untenable beyond that date.

The West’s anguish and indignation over Beijing’s ruthless suppression of democracy in Hong Kong ignores or is ignorant of the inconvenient truth that the enclave was snatched by rapacious imperialists who governed by decree for most of their reign and showed racist disdain for the rights of their Cantonese subjects. The rule of British law might have enabled Hong Kong to flourish, but the prosperity of the colonial masters was always paramount.

The exhaustive Hong Kong negotiations in the early 1980s were essentially a game in which the Chinese held an unbeatable hand and the British knew they must ultimately fold. The Sino-British agreement that emerged was a fig leaf for Britain that was destined to wilt unless democracy took root on the Chinese mainland — a possibility crushed when the tanks rolled into Tiananmen Square in June 1989.

In the face of the deteriorating security outlook in North Asia, the challenges for Australian diplomacy today are the same as they have always been: to stand up for our principles while recognising the limits of our ability to exert diplomatic pressure, to respond proportionately to perceived challenges, and to act in concert with our allies to maintain regional peace and stability. Above all, we need to understand that while the actions of the Chinese regime make it difficult, if not impossible, to be close friends, it is sheer folly to turn it into an enemy.

At a time when deft diplomacy is needed more than ever, though, the skills that have enabled Australia to navigate the tricky relationship with our most important trading partner appear largely to have deserted us. The Morrison government’s reckless decision early last year to jump ahead of its allies in demanding an independent inquiry into the origins of Covid-19 — with Morrison advocating that the World Health Organization have “weapons inspector powers” to investigate future outbreaks — infuriated Beijing with the still-unproven implication that it was covering up its culpability in the pandemic, or worse. The retaliation against Australian coal, barley and other exports was swift and devastating — and largely avoidable, had we taken the prudent step of acting in concert with our allies in reasonably seeking answers to the genesis of the pandemic.

Since that turning point, things have gone from bad to worse. The expulsion seven months ago of the last Australian journalists in China was at first interpreted as yet another heavy-handed provocation by Beijing, but it is now clear that it was in fact a tit-for-tat response to another apparent overreaction by Australian authorities.

In late June last year, Australian Security Intelligence Organisation officers conducted simultaneous early morning raids on the homes of four Chinese journalists based in Australia, as part of an investigation of alleged Chinese political interference. One of the journalists, believed to be Yang Jingzhong, the Australian bureau chief of the official Chinese news agency, Xinhua, said his daughter had been traumatised during the seven-hour dawn raid by ten ASIO agents, during which his mobile phone, computer, iPad and work documents were seized. The four journalists, who have since left Australia, insisted they had done nothing wrong and, almost a year after the raids, no specific allegations against them have been made public.

At almost every turn, Scott Morrison’s interventions on China-related issues have been clumsy, uninformed and counterproductive. His recent pronouncements about Taiwan (confusing its status with that of Hong Kong and then doubling down on the blunder when called out) have revealed a man out of his depth in managing a relationship that requires diplomatic finesse. And recent public speculation by Morrison’s new defence minister, Peter Dutton, and others in the government about the possibility of armed conflict across the Taiwan Strait has broken a fundamental diplomatic taboo and reportedly raised alarm in Washington, Tokyo and Taipei itself. As former prime minister Kevin Rudd has rightly, if self-servingly, observed, “This government lacks the temperament to manage the profoundly complex national security challenges that lie ahead.”

The loss of experienced Australian journalists reporting from China — and the loss of Chinese journalists reporting from Australia — has made a volatile situation even more dangerous. Those Australian journalists, and the many other foreign journalists evicted from China in recent years, were the ones best equipped to report with expertise and balance, the ones who often spoke the language, the ones with Chinese contacts and friendships who understood that China is a far more complex, sophisticated and diverse society than its monolithic leadership implies.

In this vacuum of informed reporting and analysis it is harder to temper the fearmongering, and sometimes warmongering, of lightweight partisan journalists peddling conspiracy theories in the mainstream Australian media. We risk a situation in which the media — and its social media echo chamber — serves to worsen the bilateral crisis. The journalism that drove us closer to China could become the journalism that drives us further apart. •

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After more than a year of disruption and uncertainty — a time when coping with anxiety was a major challenge — this might seem like the last perspective we need. In spite of its portentous title, though, this is no empty indulgence in doomsaying. Grant wants to make an urgent case for a fundamental political reorientation.

With the Falling of the Dusk is mainly a book about China, and about Grant’s experience as correspondent for CNN in Hong Kong — during 1997, the year the territory began its long reckoning for a century and a half of British control — and Beijing. Recent events in Hong Kong have served to confirm a grim challenge: how many times does the Communist Party leadership need to tell the West that they reject liberal democracy before we accept the reality?

Grant has chosen the politically potent metaphor of the virus deliberately. Under Stalin and Hitler, targeted populations were characterised as infections to be eradicated. The totalitarian state itself, as Francis Fukuyama warned in his 1989 book, The End of History and the Last Man, “could replicate itself throughout the world like a virus.”

Fukuyama’s big-picture view of history is in tune with Grant’s way of thinking. Both acknowledge the influence of the early nineteenth-century German philosopher G.W.F. Hegel, who drew an arc from imperial China through the foundations of democracy in the classical world to the French Revolution and its Napoleonic aftermath.

Mention Hegel, and you have to explain him, or at least explain enough to justify the allusion. That’s no easy task in a book designed for readers unlikely to be interested in the metaphysical wranglings of the Enlightenment. Grant devotes only a few pages to the task, though he insists that “Hegel looms over us” and we cannot understand our own political environment without some grasp of his ideas.

Hegel may also throw light on Grant’s enterprise in a way that he doesn’t mention. According to the great German theorist, history can be done in three ways: through first-hand witness and documentation; by situating events in the longer sweep of time; and as a form of philosophy, identifying overarching patterns in the march of civilisation. By braiding all three strands, Grant builds a sense of urgency.

The reporter who has been sent to Papua New Guinea, North Korea, China, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq to witness some of the darkest scenes in recent history is backed up by the historian who places them in the larger scheme of things. The philosopher is compelled to ask where all this is heading, and whether we still have the time or the awareness to stave off the worst of what the future may hold.

Many foreign correspondents write books, but few do so with such intellectual ambition and historical sweep. And I doubt many of them read Hegel, who may seem a remote and abstruse figure to most of those who front world crises. Yet the work of bearing witness to human cruelty and derangement also prompts a need for larger structures of understanding in which reason holds its place as an article of faith.

Rationality and optimism, though, don’t necessarily go together. When Fukuyama, in a mood of Hegelian buoyancy, rashly proclaimed the end of history, he believed that the grand narrative of humanity’s march towards freedom was at last being brought to its conclusion: capitalism had triumphed; the totalitarian regimes of communism were a spent force.

Fukuyama himself has clarified and largely retracted those predictions; and Grant’s ongoing determination to wrestle with them, which he has done numerous times in reports for the ABC, seems driven by a conviction that Fukuyama was not just wrong, but wrong in a critical way. History has returned with a vengeance, with China as the model towards which the major political traditions are converging. And now the virus may prove to be the instrument through which freedom itself is terminally weakened.

Grant’s brief as Beijing correspondent involved covering major political moments, such as the accession speech of Xi Jinping, but also gave him licence to hunt the length and breadth of the country for stories illustrating all aspects of contemporary life. He provides a distressing account of the wet markets in Guangdong at the time of the SARS outbreak in 2002. Poverty shapes destinies in many ways. Near Lanzhou in the northwest, where the suicide rate is high, a fisherman adapts his inherited trade to make an income hauling in the corpses of those who have jumped from the bridge. He posts the photographs online, and relatives can then pay to view the corpse for identification.

Ever-present official minders and trackers must be evaded on an expedition to Chengdu on the Tibetan border to speak to Buddhist monks protesting about the crackdown in their homeland. Reporting in this country is a cat-and-mouse game that is by turns dangerous and absurd: new tactics are constantly needed to hide footage and outwit the surveillance.

The assiduous journalist alternates between chasing emerging stories in the provinces and delving into the background of the people who steer events, but the weave of destiny is always his underlying story. The roles of reporter, historian and philosopher merge seamlessly in Grant’s narrative.

In search of insights into how a new form of leadership has emerged in China, he visits Mao’s living quarters in Yan’an, where the Long March ended. A photo hanging outside shows the young Mao still in political exile, weakened by hunger and depression, who was spending days and nights alone in the mountains planning the guerilla campaign that would change the course of the revolution.

Mao and Xi carried bitter experience of privation and exclusion into positions of supreme power, and the consequences are still playing out in the reign of Xi, who calls himself “son of the Yellow Earth.” Like Mao, Xi has ridden the wheel of political fortune. Tainted by the reputation of a father who was purged from the party, Xi spent his childhood in a re-education program, so ragged and underweight he lacked the strength for the farm labour to which he was assigned.

Such reversals of fortune are emblematic of revolution itself, expressing the capacity of the people as a whole to rise from the worst of human conditions to become a force of destiny. This is Hegel with a twist. How is it that the rise of the people as an expression of the world spirit has led only to a worse form of despotism?

And there is no cause for complacency in the West, where a very different narrative of freedom has led us to a state of delusion. “History hisses at us like the devil,” Grant warns, yet we fail to hear it. There are parallels with 1914, when the worst-case scenario played out because so many believed it could not. Even since the publication of this book, talk of potential conflict with China is recklessly leaking onto the front pages in Australia.

But might such pessimism itself be a dangerous indulgence? If we are at a crucial hinge point, perhaps a journalist who has supped full of horrors from the worst places of human suffering and cruelty is not the best guide to the way forward. “The things I have seen weigh heavy on my soul,” Grant acknowledges. But these things do exist out there in the world.

Just over halfway through the book the focus shifts to Pakistan, where Grant made several visits in the mid 2000s, and found another order of horror unfolding, one without even the pretence of reason and justice that inspired the revolutionary leaders of China. It is there that he finds his way to “a place beyond grace,” in a town square in the Swat Valley where headless bodies are dumped and the heads impaled on posts or left on doorsteps.

Zibahkhana Chowk, or “Slaughter Square” as it is now called, is an exhibition of extreme human pathology. There may be versions of it in any war zone. It is the heart of darkness that Conrad found in the Congo and Coppola recreated for Apocalypse Now in an abandoned Angkor Temple near the mouth of Cambodia’s Nùng River. In Coppola’s version the presiding spirit is Kurtz (Marlon Brando), a colonel in the US army who has gone into full-blown psychosis and used his military authority to create hell on earth.

Grant finds “the devil incarnate” in the very different guise of Imran, a tall, red-haired Pashtun man taken captive by Pakistani troops. Imran has a voice like honey — smooth, quiet and alluring — and the demeanour of a holy man. It has been his job to mentor the boys who will become suicide bombers, poisoning their minds with visions of a higher destiny. Reason, the core business of Hegelian history, has no place here.

The world is what it is, and journalists must report it as they find it. If Grant’s primary aim were to provide an overview of his experiences as a foreign correspondent, the accounts of what he witnessed in Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan would clearly belong here. But he is attempting something much more. He wants to do the historian’s work of analysis and correlation, and the philosopher’s work of interpretation.

His Hegelian paradigm is convincing when it’s applied to China, where the long march of history is a drama by turns heroic, tragic, harrowing, euphoric and ominous. As he was told repeatedly during his ten years in the country, there’s no China without Mao, no Mao without Marx. And no Marx without Hegel. In a revolutionary scenario, big ideas lead to big events, not vice versa.

The chapters on China have a cohesiveness and depth that is missing from the rest of the book. There’s an atmosphere, too, created from the opening paragraphs, where Grant recalls the train journey into China with his family on Christmas Day in 2004, feeling “the pull of the earth” in a land that seems to pulse with memory.

As the landscape unfolds in the morning light, his attention is caught by a solitary figure working in the field. The man looks old, and must have lived through tumultuous changes: the birth of the People’s Republic, the reign of Mao and the Great Leap Forward. Grant, as a Wiradjuri man bearing a heritage of dispossession, senses a fellow time traveller. “We were twinned with fate,” he writes. “We belonged to old cultures whose worlds had been upended by the march of modernity.” This upending brings with it a legacy of anger towards the modernising nations, with their presumptions of moral authority and powers to enforce it.

Grant’s style may be cool and measured, but at its heart this is an angry book. Civilisations have long memories, he warns, while nations think only of tomorrow. As China and Australia face off in an absurdly mismatched game of sanctions, and our great ally America is trying to work its way out of a political quagmire, a reckoning looms.

So what are we to do? No world-historical individuals are in sight, at least from our side of the picture, which could be a blessing. One of the bitterest lessons of a failed democracy is that the people have only themselves to blame. Perhaps they are also to blame for states of post-revolutionary dictatorship. At the end of his documentary novel Stalingrad, Vasily Grossman launches into a tirade against the people, seeing the underlying cause of Stalin’s regime in a resurgence of “the soul of the serf” among the Soviet citizenry.

When things get fraught, it feels good to lay some blame, even if it means blaming oneself. It may feel good, but whether it does any good is another matter, and that depends on whether the hinge point is a point of no return. This would not be the first time the spectre of 1914 has reared its head and faded again. If we are not there yet — and as Grant claims, “destination is a Western idea” — a moment of reckoning may be to some purpose.

Grant contrasts his vision of the Chinese peasant working in the fields at daybreak, heralding a world of possibility and a new story to tell, with the image of his title, taken from Hegel. “Wisdom is not gained in the dawn; the owl of Minerva spreads its wings with the falling of the dusk.”

Hegel wrestled with the question of whether the long march of history was on some predetermined course. He rejected such a view, believing it left no real place for human freedom and agency. There are times when events seem to converge in inevitable ways, and it is perhaps this, above all, that is the most dangerous assumption.

For all his apparent pessimism, Grant raises the alarm with the conviction that a change of course is possible. The reckoning he calls for involves recognition of political responsibility at all levels: not just by governments, elected or otherwise, but by all of us who in our diverse ways may have some influence on the course of events. This is in many respects a compelling and convincing book, though not one that will help you sleep easily. •

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On the mainland, though, the departure of Japanese forces had allowed the civil war to resume between Chinese Communist Party forces and the army of the Republic of China, led by the Kuomintang, or Nationalist Party. When Communist troops captured Nanjing, the Chinese capital, in April 1949, the Nationalist forces retreated initially to Guangzhou and eventually to Taiwan. During the months after Mao Zedong announced the creation of the People’s Republic of China on 21 September, hundreds of thousands of refugees and defeated Kuomintang soldiers arrived on Daishan and other Zhoushan islands. They made the islanders work for them, confiscated their food and assaulted islander women.

By May 1950, with the islands no longer safe from the forces of the People’s Republic, the Kuomintang prepared to leave. On that fateful day, the fifteenth of the month, Jiang and two of his classmates were abducted by a group of Kuomintang soldiers. The three boys were among 13,521 male Zhoushan islanders press-ganged into military service and taken to Taiwan.

Jiang had little choice but to serve in the Kuomintang army. He would later remember his service as a form of slavery. When he tried to escape, he was caught and sentenced to three years in prison. It was not until 1982, inspired by the 1977 American television miniseries Roots, that he sneaked back into China. He was reunited with his parents on Daishan Island, but only as a visitor, and never returned permanently to his native island.

The title of Jiang Sizhang’s memoir, published in 2008, translates as “Nostalgia: Diasporic Displacement, Memory and Grief of a ‘Mainlander.’” The quote marks around “mainlander” are significant. Jiang, the abducted Daishan Islander who now considers himself at home in Taiwan, is one of the protagonists of Dominic Meng-Hsuan Yang’s outstanding book The Great Exodus from China, which examines what it means to be a “mainlander,” or waishengren.

“Taiwan,” in the words of Sydney University’s Salvatore Babones, “has a messy history of invasion, occupation, colonisation, refuge, and intermarriage.” The history he is talking about began in the seventeenth century, when Hokkien- and Hakka-speaking Hoklo and Hakka settlers from coastal southeastern China began displacing the island’s Indigenous population, and Taiwan became part of the Chinese empire. After the Japanese replaced the Qing emperors as Taiwan’s colonial masters in the late nineteenth century, they set about Japanising the island and its inhabitants. Hundreds of thousands of Japanese moved to Taiwan; rebellions, by both Indigenous and Chinese Taiwanese, were brutally put down.

After the Japanese were defeated at the end of the second world war, the Kuomintang took over control of Taiwan. As far as most Hoklo and Hakka were concerned, the departure of one coloniser meant only the arrival of another. When the local population revolted against the Kuomintang government in 1947, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, the director-general of the Kuomintang and the undisputed leader of the Republic of China, despatched troops to Taiwan. Thousands of Taiwanese were killed in the “228 Incident” (so-named because the massacre took place on 28 February).

Two years later, the Kuomintang were defeated by the Chinese Communists on the mainland. About a million mainlanders then either fled, were evacuated or were forcibly taken to Taiwan. They joined tens of thousands of refugees and Kuomintang personnel who had moved to Taiwan before 1949. Chiang Kai-shek’s government set up shop in Taipei, declaring it the “provisional capital” of the Republic of China. The Nationalist government’s imposition of martial law on 19 May 1949 initiated the “White Terror,” thirty-eight years of Kuomintang dictatorship. The island’s Nationalist rulers also embarked on the (re)Sinicisation of the islands and its inhabitants.

The influx of Chinese in the late 1940s left Taiwan with four distinct ethnic groups: the island’s Indigenous inhabitants (the yuanzhumin), who today comprise about 2 per cent of the population; the Hoklo and Hakka (referred to jointly as benshengren, meaning “people of the local province”), who between them make up about 85 per cent of islanders; and waishengren (“people from outside of the province”), the mainlanders who arrived after the Kuomintang was driven from the mainland, and their descendants. As long as Chiang Kai-shek was alive, waishengren ruled supreme. After his son Chiang Ching-kuo took over in 1975, the Kuomintang slowly relinquished some of its power and the waishengren’s supremacy gradually eroded.

Once martial law was lifted in July 1987, a process of democratisation began alongside a “localisation” of politics and society. A greater emphasis on a distinct Taiwanese identity naturally privileged the ethnic groups with longer ties to the island. Taiwan’s first direct presidential elections were held in 1996. Four years later, the Taiwanese elected their first non-Kuomintang president. In 2016, the Democratic Progressive Party’s Tsai Ing-wen, of Hakka and yuanzhumin descent, won the presidential race, and her party won a majority of seats in parliamentary elections — the first time that the Kuomintang had lost the majority in the Legislative Yuan, Taiwan’s legislature.

Taiwan, once the country notorious for spending the longest period under martial law, had become a model representative democracy. In the Economist Intelligence Unit’s most recent Democracy Index, it ranks first in Asia, and eleventh globally, ahead of longstanding democracies including Britain, the United States and Switzerland.

For many of Taiwan’s waishengren, democratisation also meant the loss of the privileges they had enjoyed under the Kuomintang dictatorship. Taiwanese-born Canadian historian Yang traces a series of traumas experienced by waishengren in and on their way to Taiwan, and explores the malleability of their social memories and identities. Drawing on interviews, published memoirs and archival sources, he shows how people who once thought of themselves as exiles — and who were convinced that they would soon be able to return to mainland China — became Taiwanese. “[W]hat we are witnessing in contemporary Taiwan,” he writes, “is a paradoxical case of diasporic narratives/memories being used for an anti-diaspora purpose to claim a local identity — turning the concept of diaspora on its head.”

The Great Exodus from China begins with the arrival of waishengren in Taiwan, in itself a complex story. Some of the newcomers were military and government officials who were ordered to move to Taiwan with their families when the island became the last Nationalist stronghold. Some were civilian refugees who anticipated retribution at the hands of the victorious Communists. Others, like Jiang Sizhang, ended up in Taiwan against their will.

For some, the exodus out of China was an orderly and well-prepared departure; for others it was a risky escape. In January 1949, the ocean liner Pacific sailed from Shanghai towards the Taiwanese port of Keelung. It carried about a thousand refugees and was dangerously overloaded. A few hours out of Shanghai, it collided with a cargo ship. Only thirty-six of its passengers and crew survived, rescued by an Australian warship, the Warramunga, that happened to be in the area.

While the departure from mainland China was traumatic for many of the refugees and exiles, their arrival was no less traumatic for those already in Taiwan. “The great exodus disrupted normal social life and transformed living conditions on the island,” Yang writes. “A floating male population, many of them defeated soldiers and traumatised army abductees, contributed to a rise in the frequency of robberies, rapes, and other violent crimes — crimes that terrified the native Taiwanese.” The refugees were at once invaders and colonisers, taking what wasn’t theirs because they had the support of the Nationalist regime. “Displaced people from China with political clout forcibly displaced local people in Taiwan with little clout,” Yang notes.

But the mainlanders hadn’t come to stay. Taiwan was meant to be merely a temporary refuge. After all, the civil war hadn’t ended in 1949 (skirmishes would indeed continue for many years); soon, they thought, the Nationalist army would launch a successful counteroffensive, and then they would all return to mainland China.

It was only in 1958, after the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis, that waishengren began to doubt that they would ever go home. In return for US assistance, the Americans had forced Chiang Kai-shek to publicly renounce the use of military force as the primary means of reconquering mainland China.

Yang calls the effect of those doubts the “social trauma of the diminishing hope (for return)”: “When the displaced waishengren thought they might not be able to return home in their lifetimes — and never again see the parents, grandparents, spouses, siblings, and children they had left behind, let alone resume the lives they once knew or be buried in a communal graveyard with their ancestors — intense feelings of loss, disorientation, and depression began to set in.” They had thought of themselves as sojourners, but now they became “reluctant migrants.”

From the 1980s, though, mainlanders were at least able to visit their home towns and villages. Jiang Sizhang, for example, entered China via Hong Kong with the help of a fake identity in 1982. Afterwards, he and other former soldiers formed the Veterans’ Homebound Movement to lobby for an opening of the border. Their efforts effectively forced the hand of the generalissimo’s successor, Chiang Ching-kuo, who in October 1987 “lifted the ban on residents in ‘Free China’ traveling to the ‘communist bandit territory’ of mainland China.” This decision, which was not the “logical corollary to the larger democratisation process” but the outcome of pressure on the regime by disenfranchised veterans, was perhaps as momentous for the future of Taiwan as the lifting of martial law had been three months earlier.

The government’s announcement resulted in what the Taiwanese media called the “visiting relatives fever.” Hundreds of thousands of waishengren travelled to the mainland, Yang reports, seeking to “rekindle old feelings of home: warmth, affection, and a sense of belonging.” For most of them, though, visits “home” turned out to be hugely disappointing. They couldn’t reconcile what they saw with their memories, and were confronted by greedy kin who expected the long-lost relatives from comparatively affluent Taiwan to shower them with gifts. They returned to Taiwan “physically exhausted and emotionally drained — many of [them] only with the clothes on their back,” Yang writes. “It was a déjà vu all over à la 1949. In a seemingly bizarre historical coincidence, elderly former exiles arrived back in Taiwan not too differently from how they first set foot on the island nearly half a century ago.”

Only a small minority decided to move back to the mainland for good, and even many of those decided to live with other former exiles rather than their own kin. As disappointed waishengren realised that their destiny lay in Taiwan rather than on the mainland, they began to remember their own past differently. Where once they had identified as people from particular home provinces and native places on the mainland, now they began to think of themselves as waishengren who had in common the traumatic experience of the great postwar exodus. They mobilised memories that had previously been publicly suppressed.

The waishengren were partly responding to how, during Taiwan’s democratisation and localisation, the formerly repressed majority of the population were increasingly treating them as remnants of the Nationalist dictatorship. “Behind the exilic/diasporic narratives is an autochthonous claim to a Taiwan-based identity,” writes Yang, “an identity that resists, negotiates, and at the same time, adapts to the rising trend of Taiwanisation and Taiwanese nationalism following democratisation.”

Would the trend of Taiwanisation necessarily pit waishengren against benshengren? As much as anything, “Taiwanese” identity had been an outcome of the Japanese occupation of the island. Hakka and Hoklo were presumably able to bury any differences they had when they found themselves at the receiving end of Japanese discrimination (before 1945) and mainlanders’ discrimination (after 1945). So far, the threat posed by Communist China seems not to have turned loyalist mainlanders against separatist islanders, as Beijing hoped; on the contrary, China’s increasingly blatant attempts to interfere in Taiwan’s affairs may have aided the Taiwanisation of the island’s entire population.

The Great Exodus from China is a carefully researched, intellectually ambitious and thoughtful history. Dominic Meng-Hsuan Yang cast his net wide in terms of both source material and the academic disciplines that informed his analysis. In the process, he throws fresh light on wider issues: the meaning of diaspora and exile, and how trauma persists and is used by people — particularly those who have been forcibly displaced — to form their identities. His observations also apply to aspects of other histories and contexts, not least that of Palestine/Israel.

The book is also an empathetic, and at times moving, history of waishengren’s multiple traumas and their memory- and history-making. In the epilogue he confides that he began his research “being rather unsympathetic and sceptical of waishengren’s trauma.” Yang himself was born to Hakka and Hoklo parents; one of his grandparents had been imprisoned by the Nationalist regime for having served in the Japanese army, and a grand-uncle had been executed by Chiang Kai-shek’s troops during the 228 Incident. “[T]he traumatic experiences I am writing about are not my grandparents’ or parents’ experiences; rather they belong to people who had wronged and injured my family,” Yang notes, as if he too was surprised.

“How can we bring people with dissimilar pasts and incompatible historical memories together?” he asks. The Great Exodus from China is a plea for a “mending [of] fences between mnemonic communities wrapped in the aggrieved, self-righteous, or sublime ambience of their own historical wounds,” as well as an exemplary attempt at understanding. Mutual recognition of the strictures of identity and memory-making would go a long way towards reconciling communities at loggerheads with each other. Such recognition would entail an empathetic listening to others’ grievances and histories, but also a self-critical awareness of how one’s own narratives are used to justify injustices, lay claim to illegitimate possessions, and denigrate others.

In “a land of fantasy,” Yang writes, such a mutual listening would also be possible between those living in the People’s Republic of China and those in Taiwan. A mutual listening could help deconstruct the memories undergirding territorial claims and identities. It might acknowledge that the Chinese Communist Party’s One China Policy, according to which Taiwan is a breakaway province that needs to be reincorporated into China, is itself the outcome of China’s “powerful victim consciousness”: the existence of an independent Taiwan is a permanent reminder of the “century of humiliation” in which China was invaded and divided by foreign powers.

Back in the world we inhabit, US admiral Philip Davidson told the Senate armed services committee in March that China was poised to invade Taiwan as soon as six years from now. A couple of weeks later, John Aquilino, the US admiral who was recently appointed to lead the US Indo-Pacific Command, refused to be drawn on that time frame, but he was no less alarmist: “My opinion is this problem is much closer to us than most think.” Arkansas Republican senator Tom Cotton even suggested that China might act immediately after the Beijing Winter Olympic Games in February next year, in the same way that Russia invaded the Crimea four days after the conclusion of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.

The United States and their allies have their own geopolitical rationales, of course, for deterring China from swallowing Taiwan (as they had their own reasons for recognising the Communist government as the only legitimate representative of the Chinese people and agreeing to Taiwan’s expulsion from the United Nations in 1971). In the world we inhabit, the fact that Taiwan is a vibrant democracy counts for little. The attempts of Taiwanese — waishengren, benshengren and yuanzhumin — to work through their messy histories of invasion, occupation, colonisation, refuge and intermarriage count for even less. •

The Great Exodus from China: Trauma, Memory, and Identity in Modern Taiwan
By Dominic Meng-Hsuan Yang | Cambridge University Press | £75.00 | 330 pages

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The first question was the starting date. Beginning with the first written records, 3500 years ago, would have been reasonable. But that would have meant leaving out one of humankind’s oldest ancestors, Peking Man, not to mention the Neolithic communities that established patterns of Chinese agriculture and built communities that lasted well beyond the Stone Age.

Yet even starting back then would be to ignore the mythic origins of Chinese culture and civilisation that are still common reference points in political and other discourse. And if I went that far, why not go all the way back to the legend of how a horned giant named Pangu created the universe after hatching from a giant egg of Yin and Yang? The narrative would need to move at a good clip to get from Pangu to Xi Jinping.

A history of China must necessarily tell a story of rulers come and gone, the intrigues in their palaces and the popular rebellions that threatened their rule. Among them are many larger-than-life figures, not least the plus-sized Ming emperor Wanli, who, in a fit of pique at his ministers, spent the last twenty years of his reign banqueting, designing his tomb and consorting with his true love, who was not among his assigned empresses. Some emperors, empresses, kings, presidents and chairmen (all men so far) ruled wisely, some less so. Their realms’ global prestige, economic wealth, and technological and scientific vibrancy, and their people’s livelihoods, rose and fell accordingly.

For long stretches, sometimes hundreds of years, the land was fractured into rival, even warring states. These precarious times instilled into the collective psyche a fear of the chaos that comes with division. The knowledge that corruption contributed to the fall of many a ruling house, meanwhile, has left leaders from ancient times to Xi today determined both to persecute venality within their courts and to silence criticism lest the people discover its extent.

The violence of so many leadership successions — from the “axe blows in the night” of imperial times to the mysterious loss of the plane carrying Chairman Mao’s erstwhile “closest comrade-in-arms” and chosen successor, Lin Biao — has also long haunted those aspiring to stable government. It was important to pack (and unpack) these themes as well: division vs unity, the scourge of corruption and the challenge of orderly succession.

Underpinning all this are the unique schools of thought that have shaped Chinese governance and society for thousands of years. Any history of China, however short, must consider the influence of Confucius (born 551 BCE), who advocated for good, moral government and an ordered society. Equally, it must take account of the competing philosophy of Legalism, which argued that right and wrong were whatever a ruler wanted them to be. The Legalists didn’t believe, as Confucius did, in governing by example; rather, they favoured laws that shaped behaviour through punishment and reward. In reality, most rulers have drawn from both streams of thought. The social credit systems being rolled out in the People’s Republic of China today owe much to Legalism.

Art, poetry and literature are densely woven into Chinese history too; they illuminate its patterns with their bright, shining threads. To fully understand the implications of a poem Mao wrote about heroism, you need to know he was riffing off an eleventh-century poem that reflected on a third-century battle which, thanks to a fourteenth-century novel, has been a big part of popular culture and political rhetoric ever since.

Much of what we know about the lives and concerns of ordinary people, meanwhile, comes from ancient folk songs, literary works and paintings. The story of the evolution of the Chinese language itself is another inextricable part of China’s story.

My carry-on was bulging. But I wasn’t about to leave the women behind: from ancient warriors to fierce early-twentieth-century feminists to the “mother of Chinese computer science” who built China’s first computer in 1960 and a whistleblowing physician in 2020, women deserve more attention than they’ve been given in most general histories.

Likewise, I was compelled to include the great nonconformists, eccentrics and dissidents who, from ancient times to the present, have demonstrated that China has always been a multiverse, full of wit and humour and defiant individualism. As I write in my introduction, its unruly complexity has always been part of its greatness. •

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The story begins with the Rizhao-based Landbridge Group’s successful bid for a ninety-nine-year lease of the Port of Darwin in 2015, which prompted soul-searching in Canberra about how best to protect strategic assets from the large sums of Chinese cash sloshing around international markets. The result was a set of new laws and procedures to regulate investments by companies owned or controlled by foreign governments (China is never mentioned by name). And those laws came with what seemed like a minor footnote — an enforceable public register for lobbyists — that began throwing fresh light on Australia’s underregulated lobbying industry.

Since 10 December 2018, anyone lobbying Australian officials on behalf of a foreign government or a company controlled by a foreign government — and almost all Chinese companies are likely to fall into that second category — must sign up to the Transparency Register. Failure to fill out the form comes at a significant price: violations of the 2018 Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme Act can lead to prison terms of up to five years, depending on the seriousness of the omission. Landbridge’s high-profile Australian consultant, former trade minister Andrew Robb, reportedly ended his association with the Chinese company during the new legislation’s grace period.

Because the legislation applies only to what it calls “foreign principals,” the Transparency Register illuminates a very narrow subsection of the lobbying industry. Lobbyists representing Australian businesses or foreign companies that aren’t government owned or controlled are still free to ply their trade without having to worry too much about the separate but much weaker Australian Government Lobbyist Register, which was established under the 2008 Lobbying Code of Conduct.

Even so, the Transparency Register represents progress for a country that has a comparatively weak record of transparency — a record compounded by the inadequacies of Australia’s freedom of information laws and the absence of rules to prevent officials from moving freely between government and private enterprise. By contrast, the US Lobbying Disclosure Act forces all lobbyists to sign up to a public register or face a fine or a jail sentence of up to five years.

But for those with the time and inclination, a delve into the Transparency Register does offer real insights into how “foreign principals” target government ministers and MPs. It tells us, for example, that former foreign minister Alexander Downer is registered as a lobbyist on behalf of the British overseas territory of Gibraltar now that Britain has taken back control of trade negotiations from Brussels. It also tells us that Sanlaan, the firm of Howard government minister Santo Santoro, has engaged in “general political lobbying” and “parliamentary lobbying” for the Port of Brisbane, partly owned by a Canadian superannuation fund backed by the provincial government of Québec, and has also worked for Beijing Jingneng Clean Energy (Australia) and other Chinese renewable energy companies.

Other celebrity lobbying figures on the Transparency Register include one Anthony John Abbott, who declares that he is an “unpaid adviser to the UK Board of Trade” with the role of “advocat[ing] for free and fair trade, especially trade with the UK and its allies.” In other words, the former PM will be lobbying his former colleagues in Australia to help bring about a trade deal that British prime minister Boris Johnson desperately needs as part of his post-Brexit narrative.

Abbott’s decision to register is controversial because he once described calls for him to sign up as a result of a gig speaking to foreign conservative leaders as “absurd.” He also warned journalists “to rethink the making of such misplaced and impertinent requests in the future.”

Kevin Rudd, another former prime minister, has made his dissatisfaction with the law’s lack of clarity publicly known via an essay in his Transparency Register entry describing the uncertainty about whether he needed to register. Rudd lists all the government-owned foreign media outlets he has appeared on — from the BBC to the Dutch Broadcasting Foundation and Radio New Zealand — because they are state-owned and, he argues mischievously, may fall within the law’s current wording. He says that requiring a former prime minister to list his media appearances, as well as unpaid speeches to the European Parliament and the National University of Singapore, amounts to an absurd interpretation of the law, albeit one that he has been forced to accept.

More importantly, though, while the Transparency Register may reveal that Kevin Rudd isn’t above appearing on Canada’s TVOntario, the information he provided is still insufficient to allow the public to join the dots. We may know that Alexander Downer is lobbying for the Gibraltarians, but we don’t know whom he has spoken to and the matters being discussed. That information is key for anyone trying to establish a connection between lobbying efforts and government decisions. What’s more, the Transparency Register offers no insight into the activities of companies that aren’t owned or controlled by foreign states.

What these cases highlight is that Australia’s transparency system doesn’t stand up well internationally. If you type the name of Chinese technology giant Huawei into the search engine of Ireland’s lobbying register, for example, you will find a list of meetings held by the company and an explanation of the matters discussed. On 17 January, Huawei disclosed that it had met Heather Humphreys, an Irish minister, to discuss “the investment of €70 million in Irish R&D and the creation of 100 new jobs.” That’s marketing spin, to be sure, but when added to previous entries it’s clear Huawei was lobbying to play a part in the country’s rollout of new 5G technology. We also know that the company was in touch with the government via PR and lobbying firms, whose telephone numbers and email addresses the Irish register helpfully includes.

That’s not to say that Ireland’s transparency regime has all been smooth sailing. I was working in Europe when the register took effect, and an Irish lobbyist told me that when he saw a local politician at the supermarket at the weekend he would turn the other way to avoid having to spend his Monday morning filling out disclosure forms. What’s more, the administrative burden of such transparency requirements tends to fall more heavily on small community groups. Extensive and probably time-consuming entries in the register tell us, for instance, that the charitable Irish Guard Dogs for the Blind organisation has been in regular contact with the Irish government.

Australia’s Transparency Register tells us, for example, that between March and December 2019 former defence minister Brendan Nelson took on a role with the Thales Group, the publicly listed, Paris-based company that provides technology for military, aerospace and transport projects. But whom did Nelson speak to on behalf of Thales? And what did they discuss? The register doesn’t offer any answers and the arrangement was only picked up because of the French state’s 25 per cent ownership of Thales.

The parallel Lobbyist Register, which lists third parties but not direct contact from company managers, doesn’t mention either Thales or Brendan Nelson. As for the network of state-based transparency registers, Thales only appears in New South Wales, where it’s represented by a firm listed as Lyndon George, co-owned by a former senior adviser to John Howard, Hellen Georgopoulos. None of this information sheds light on what Thales got out of its relationship with Nelson and how his work may have affected government.

This leaves freedom of information requests as the only fallback, and here the frustrations multiply. Several years ago, I heard that US software company Oracle had met with officials at the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner to brief them on privacy concerns surrounding Google. We know that Oracle had been fighting the search giant in a US court for over a decade, but what was said in those meetings? Neither the ACCC nor the OAIC revealed whom they spoke to as part of their investigations, and Oracle wasn’t talking either.

Even if the foreign-lobbying laws had applied back in 2017, they wouldn’t have picked up these meetings because Oracle isn’t owned or controlled by a foreign government. The more general Lobbying Register would not have been much use either, because it only includes “third party” lobbying firms rather than direct contact between the company and state officials. And unlike, say, the European Union’s competition commissioner, the ACCC doesn’t publish daily lists of meetings attended by its top officials, making cross-referencing impossible.

I made a freedom of information request to both the ACCC and the OAIC that yielded correspondence confirming the meetings had taken place but little about what had been discussed. The central slideshow presentation made by the visiting Americans couldn’t be released, I was told, because the company had objected. Almost two years after I had filed my FOI request, an Administrative Appeals decision produced the full slide show, which laid out what became the ACCC’s consumer-law court action against Google over the data collected by its Android devices.

That’s not to say there was a causal link between the two — the ACCC may well have been planning the enforcement action anyway. Transparency is simply designed to let the public know who is being lobbied by whom, and about what. A two-year wait for documents frustrates and ultimately derails any attempt to understand how lobbying unfolds.

The Transparency Register came into being as part of Australia’s revamp of foreign investment and security policies after the Port of Darwin controversy. The sweeping changes included tougher rules for foreign investment, a new agricultural land register, and the creation of the Critical Infrastructure Centre, which would draw a line in the sand for foreign government–backed companies looking to invest in Australia. New laws also awarded the government the power to veto significant investment plans signed by Australian states and territories involving foreign companies owned or controlled by foreign governments — the same laws that last week dismantled Victoria’s Belt and Road deal with China and may now be used to unwind Landbridge’s control of Darwin’s port.

These rule changes also revealed fissures between Treasury, traditionally supportive of foreign investment, and a home affairs department preoccupied with espionage and the security implications of Chinese control of key infrastructure. Until now, the Foreign Investment Review Board has assessed foreign takeover bids and the treasurer has had the final say. But the new Critical Infrastructure Centre is part of home affairs and its focus is rooted in security concerns rather than economic considerations.

Chinese control of Darwin’s port may indeed raise espionage concerns — this is the criticism that was levelled in 2015 by former US secretary of state Richard Armitage, who was concerned about the movements of US navy ships being monitored by the Chinese-run operation. And Canberra’s August 2018 decision to exclude Huawei and fellow Chinese telecommunications company ZTE from the 5G rollout could also be justified on those grounds.

But stopping Chinese companies from owning gas pipelines or agricultural land remains highly controversial. Some observers question the fear that China could turn the tap on a domestic Australian pipeline during a conflict or export food from Australian farms without Canberra’s consent. Yet the Critical Infrastructure Centre’s job description is indeed to list “those physical facilities, supply chains, information technologies and communication networks which, if destroyed, degraded or rendered unavailable for an extended period, would significantly impact the social or economic wellbeing of the nation” — a definition that shoehorns the home affairs minister into a Treasury-based decision-making process.

But perhaps the Treasury and home affairs perspectives were already converging. In November 2018 treasurer Josh Frydenberg announced he would block the $13 billion acquisition of APA Group, Australia’s largest natural-gas infrastructure business, by a consortium led by Hong Kong’s CK Infrastructure. Treasury already appeared to be falling into line with home affairs — a shift that had arguably been on the cards since former ASIO head David Irvine was appointed to run the Foreign Investment Review Board.

Of course, the push for greater transparency in foreign lobbying doesn’t appear to have been motivated by a broader interest in aligning Australia’s lobbying rules with the United States or some European countries. In fact, you could argue that the erosion of funding for the OAIC, which attempts to oversee freedom of information, and the government’s unwillingness to release unredacted documents continue to tarnish Australia’s international reputation.

Nonetheless, as a map of foreign political lobbying in Australia by foreign companies, the Transparency Register is an important tool. It also provides a blueprint for an expanded and legally enforceable lobbying register that could shed important light on what takes place behind Australia’s closed doors. •

The publication of this article was supported by a grant from the Judith Neilson Institute for Journalism and Ideas.

The post China’s gift to transparency campaigners appeared first on Inside Story.

Is Xi akin to Joseph Stalin after the Soviet purges of the 1930s — a leader who has so thoroughly eliminated rivals and cowed the system that he will remain in power until he can no longer perform the duties of office? Or will the system react against his all-encompassing power, forcing him out of office prematurely, or at least pushing him to set a timetable for his departure?

Political scientist Bruce Dickson has described China’s transition from one leader to the next as “the central drama of Chinese politics almost since the beginning of the People’s Republic in 1949.” During Mao Zedong’s leadership, from 1949 to 1976, succession battles were frequent and fierce. In the late 1970s, Mao’s handpicked successor, Hua Guofeng, was himself sidelined by Deng Xiaoping. Later, the two leaders Deng had chosen to take charge were unseated amid intense political turmoil and infighting among China’s elite.

But the instability and volatility extend much further back. Harvard University’s Wang Yuhua has calculated that roughly half of the 282 Chinese emperors across forty-nine dynasties were “murdered, overthrown, forced to abdicate, or forced to commit suicide.” Less than half of them designated a successor, the majority only in the final years of their reign, and these successors were frequently murdered by rival members of the political elite.

While the fallout from those power struggles was largely confined to China itself, a twenty-first-century succession crisis would ripple across the globe. Despite the dangers, though, Xi continues to concentrate political power and personalise his rule, steadily increasing the likelihood of a crisis.

If he clings to power well into old age — if he remains general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, chairman of the Central Military Commission and president of the People’s Republic — then China’s political system could calcify into rigid repression. The implications for the rest of the world could be profound.

Xi’s success in forcing through the constitutional amendment that allows him to stay in office indefinitely was the climax of a consolidation of power that began almost as soon as he took office in 2012. His high-profile anti-corruption campaign increased his popular appeal while sidelining rivals and instilling fear up and down the bureaucratic hierarchy. His ideological campaigns tightened controls over thought, expression and debate. His “modernisation” of governance eliminated the division between the party and the government, with the former subsuming the latter. And his personalised propaganda campaigns and self-designation as the “core” of the party’s central committee solidified his power in a way not seen since Mao’s death.

What happens next? In the report on which this article draws, we discuss four scenarios that might play out in Beijing over the next few years. Xi might surprise us by handing over the top job in 2022; he might prepare a plan to retire at the party congress in 2027 or 2032; he might succumb to a leadership challenge or coup; or he might unexpectedly die or become incapacitated. With the first option appearing increasingly unlikely and the fourth entirely unpredictable, we’ll focus here on the second and third possibilities.

The second scenario rests on the fact that Xi is aware of the importance of a well-functioning leadership succession process. As he declared at the 2014 National People’s Congress, “The best way to evaluate whether a country’s political system is democratic and efficient is to observe whether the succession of its leaders is orderly and in line.” Assuming this sentiment is sincere, Xi’s likely failure to retire in 2022 might not signal the complete breakdown of the succession process. Rather, Xi may have decided to delay retirement until he feels that he can safely retire and that his ambitious domestic and international legacy will be preserved by his chosen successor.

Xi might also believe that 2022 is too early to hand over power, especially to someone who hasn’t had time to prepare for higher office. All of the other current members of the Politburo standing committee will be past retirement age by 2027, so any potential successor would almost certainly have to be appointed to the leadership’s inner sanctum at next year’s party congress and be younger than sixty-three.

Ensuring a safe and prosperous afterlife ranks high on the list of concerns for any autocratic leader. Unlike the former leaders of most modern democracies, who can generally be confident they will remain at liberty and largely free to engage in political life, authoritarian leaders must do deals to protect their own safety, their family’s safety, and their financial assets once they step down. Political scientists Alexandre Debs and H.E. Goemans have found that 41 per cent of autocrats are exiled, imprisoned or dead within a year of leaving office, compared with 7 per cent for democratic leaders.

In China, all of Mao’s potential successors died or were brutally ousted. Deng’s two handpicked successors were both removed from public life, with one spending decades under house arrest. By contrast, the two Chinese presidents who relinquished power voluntarily, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, have enjoyed a safe retirement and have kept their immediate families out of jail.

What could give Xi the confidence to retire in 2027 or 2032? One possible path is for Xi to stay on as president of China while relinquishing his other two roles, thus giving him one important way of maintaining an element of control and oversight. Granted, the presidency comes with little actual power compared with the role of general secretary of the party. But Xi would keep some control over personnel appointments and officially represent China on state visits. In effect, he would retain a public role as the diplomatic face of China, even if a great deal of power had been shifted to his successor.

Alternatively, he could keep his position as chairman of the Central Military Commission, a position much more powerful than that of president, though without the same ceremonial role or visibility. Jiang Zemin kept this position in 2002, in a power play that trimmed the authority of his successor, Hu Jintao.

Xi might spend the period between 2022 and 2027 (or 2032) promoting a more thoroughgoing anti-corruption campaign to fully and finally clean house of any actual or would-be political opponents, using their dismissal as an opportunity to install an entire generation’s worth of cadres loyal to him. While this would not completely remove the possibility of a post-retirement purge, it would significantly mitigate it and allow Xi to “rule from behind,” much as Deng Xiaoping played kingmaker after he gave up his final remaining leadership title in 1989.

While Xi has already built a small-scale cult of personality, this could reach new heights after next year’s party congress, as he looks to elevate his status within the party’s political and organisational DNA to a level comparable to Mao’s. As Yale University’s Milan Svolik writes, “Under established autocracy, the dictator’s outward appearance of invincibility is as important as his actual power.” While such facades of power can and do collapse, Xi can increase the cost of a potential leadership challenge by imprinting his name and persona throughout the party’s ideological and organisational structure. Just as Xi has insisted on protecting the legacy of Mao Zedong, his successors might be bound to Xi lest they unravel the foundations of the Chinese Communist Party’s power.

But even if Xi does retire in 2027 or 2032 — in part or in full — he will continue to exercise enormous power, as Deng Xiaoping did after 1989. The record of once all-powerful leaders voluntarily and fully relinquishing power, formally or informally, is not robust.

Our third scenario — a plot to overthrow Xi and his administration — might sound like the product of fevered imaginations, but it’s a possibility that has been widely spoken of by senior Chinese officials, including Xi himself. Some of the talk dates back to the early months of 2012, underlining Xi’s belief that rivals wanted to prevent him from taking over the party leadership later that year. More recently, amorphous accusations of unnamed “plots” by anonymous “traitors” have surfaced, probably calculated to justify Xi’s shake-up of the party bureaucracy and his wide-reaching intra-party discipline campaigns.

In an internal speech published in 2016, Xi spoke of “political plot activities” designed to “wreck and split the party.” That same year, the then head of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, Liu Shiyu, accused disgraced officials of “[plotting] to usurp the party’s leadership and seize state power.” Vice-president Wang Qishan echoed Liu’s remarks, warning that “some [senior officials] even sought to… seize party and state power.”

Of course, fears of political plots and coups are the norm for most authoritarian leaders, just as worries over election challenges are the inevitable concern of politicians in democratic systems. “An overwhelming majority of dictators lose power to those inside the gates of the presidential palace rather than to the masses,” says Milan Svolik. “The predominant political conflict in dictatorships appears to be not between the ruling elite and the masses but rather one among regime insiders.” While coups in one-party communist regimes are infrequent, the fate of authoritarian leaders who are overthrown are grim, with 73 per cent of defeated leaders facing exile, imprisonment or death, according to political scientists Erica Frantz and Elizabeth Stein.

While Xi’s consolidation of power is impressive, even the most powerful leader relies on the support of a coalition of key figures and interests. Their backing, always conditional, is based on shifting domestic and international variables. While the precise bargain between Xi and members of the political, economic and military elite is unknown, a dramatic economic slowdown or the repeated mishandling of international crises is likely to make Xi’s job of managing his ruling coalition more difficult and tenuous. In short: every coalition has a breaking point. This, of course, is why attempted coups are dealt with so severely: would-be challengers must be discouraged vigorously. As Gambian president Yahya Jammeh warned after a failed coup attempt in 2014, “Anybody who plans to attack this country, be ready, because you are going to die.”

Successfully organising a coup against an incumbent leader — especially one in a Leninist one-party state — is also a daunting challenge. An aspiring coup leader faces numerous barriers, beginning with the need to gather support from key members of the military-security bureaucracy without alerting the leader and the security agencies. In the absence of a systemic crisis, the chances of a coup against Xi at the moment are exceedingly small. Given the technological capabilities of the party’s security services, which Xi controls, such an endeavour is fraught with the risk of detection and the possible defection of early plotters who change their mind. Xi certainly has a host of enemies in the party, but the obstacles to organising against him are near insurmountable.

Yale University political scientist Dan Mattingly points to another important reality: Chinese leaders are well aware of possible coup threats and thus take explicit actions to prevent any such efforts. Using a dataset of more than 10,000 appointments within the People’s Liberation Army, Mattingly finds that Xi has overseen personnel rotations within China’s military that favour command-level officers “whose ethnic, class, and ideological backgrounds make them unlikely to back anti-regime protesters.” Xi’s ability to move lower officials into senior military leadership positions would go a long way to stopping a coup attempt before it could even begin.

A conventional leadership challenge, which would proceed according to a more formal process, shares some of the same problems. Xi’s increasing grip on domestic security services means communications between would-be challengers would be next to impossible. Despite their enormous power, senior members of the party and the army lack the basic ability to move about and communicate unnoticed by Xi’s all-seeing security apparatus.

A challenge could come seemingly spontaneously during a convening of the Politburo or the full central committee, but that would require several officials to trigger a cascade of disapproval of Xi’s leadership. This option also suffers from the basic fact that until colleagues raise their hands to register their dissent, it is impossible to know how many are willing to join the effort to unseat Xi.

Our four scenarios aren’t offered as precise or exhaustive blue-prints of China’s future. Other possibilities exist, including Xi’s retirement in 2035, at the midpoint between China’s two “hundred-year goals.” Instead, our aim is to highlight genuine problems in China’s political trajectory under Xi Jinping, most notably his challenge to the country’s process of transferring power in a peaceful and predictable manner.

For decades after Mao’s death in 1976, China’s political system seemed increasingly stable, the occasional outbreak of top-level turmoil notwithstanding. Today, though, its political path is shrouded in great uncertainty. While leadership succession is not a topic Chinese officials are willing to discuss in public, the world has a huge stake in how China deals with this emerging problem. •

Richard McGregor and Jude Blanchette’s report, “After Xi: Future Scenarios for Leadership Succession in Post-Xi Jinping Era,” was released this week by the Center for Strategic and International Studies’s Freeman Chair in China Studies and the Lowy Institute.

The post Is there life after Xi? appeared first on Inside Story.

Four days earlier, Chinese president Xi Jinping visited a naval base on Hainan island for the commissioning of three new warships, including a giant amphibious landing vessel capable of putting hundreds of marines ashore by helicopter and hovercraft. Two more are under construction, and Chinese media listed Taiwan among their potential targets.

Here in Australia, Michael Pezzullo, the powerful secretary of the home affairs department — a man given to dark warnings — spoke on Anzac Day about the “drums of war” beating louder, declaring the need to avoid the mistakes of the 1930s by arming to deter aggressors.

In Canberra’s political, official and media circles, Taiwan is suddenly a big strategic question. Will China use force to gain control of the island of twenty-four million people it claims as ancestral territory? If so, when? How far will the United States go to defend it? And if Joe Biden is drawn into a war over Taiwan, will Australia be fighting alongside him?

Answering the last question is possibly the easiest for many of our most seasoned officials. “There’s absolutely no doubt that if the Americans were to go to war over Taiwan we would be in it,” says John McCarthy, a former Australian envoy to the United States, Japan, Indonesia and India.

“Australia is not a major player,” Cavan Hogue, a former ambassador to Russia, South Korea and the Philippines, tells me. “But if the Americans decided to defend Taiwan they would expect us to join in — or at least offer our flag even if the military contribution were minimal.”

The Americans would be hoping for a fair bit more than that, says Scott Harold, a senior China analyst with the RAND Corporation think tank in Washington. “US policymakers would be expecting, at a minimum, intelligence support, political-diplomatic support, probably facilities access of some sort,” he tells me, adding it would not be surprising if Washington also expected some “niche” capabilities, such as special forces, anti-submarine operations and air and surface ship deployments.

The Australian Defence Force has spent decades working up the capability to join in such an operation. The navy operates three Aegis destroyers that can be networked into a theatre air-and-missile defence system. Its submarines have American combat systems and weapons. Its two landing ships can each carry a battalion of troops to take back islands. The air force flies American F-35, P-8 and Wedgetail aircraft. All three services have senior officers rotating through US command positions. Seamless “interoperability” with US forces is the doctrine.

It would be hard for Canberra to decline. “If we lost a war against China over Taiwan and Taiwan was forcibly absorbed, and our allies stood on the sidelines,” says RAND Corp’s Harold, “then it’s quite clear that would be the end of the liberal international order in the Indo-Pacific, and quite possibly worldwide.”

Even if the United States did fight off a Chinese assault on Taiwan without visible help from Australia, it would mean the effective end of the ANZUS alliance, according to Australian strategic thinker Paul Dibb.

Only in recent years has a war of this kind become a contingency that the United States and its allies needed to worry much about. In the early decades after nationalist general Chiang Kai-shek fled to Taiwan with the remnants of his Kuomintang forces in 1949, it became something of a pariah state. Washington transferred its recognition to Beijing in 1979, leaving the Chinese nationalist regime in Taiwan in a kind of diplomatic limbo. American defence assistance was promised only so long as the Taiwanese didn’t start a fight with China or provoke one by declaring independence.

But circumstances began changing after Chiang’s son ended martial law and his successor, a native of Taiwan, opened up contested elections. Since then, government has alternated between the Kuomintang and the Democratic Progressive Party, which promotes a Taiwanese identity and has veered close to outright separatism.

Under president Tsai Ing-wen, the DPP has held power since 2016. Elections, a female leader, and liberal social policies have made it a successful testbed for Chinese democracy. Its handling of Covid-19, a danger it recognised before Beijing sounded the alarm, has added to its kudos. The transformation has weakened the argument, still held in some quarters, that Western powers and Japan, with their records of meddling and exploitation, should stand back and let two not-entirely-admirable Chinese regimes settle their differences.

Rather than the convergence many expected in the 1970s, the democratic transition set Taiwan on a path of political divergence from the communist mainland. The gap has widened, especially since Xi became China’s leader, tightening internal political and ideological control, promoting an expansion of China’s global influence, and crushing hopes of autonomy in Tibet, Xinjiang and Hong Kong. He has raised the recovery of Taiwan to a sacred goal and has devoted huge budgets to converting the People’s Liberation Army into a high-tech force that can contest American control of nearby seas.

Xi’s deadline for taking back Taiwan is unknown. It is unlikely to be the hundredth anniversary of the Communist Party of China in June this year — the preparations would have been apparent to US satellites. Xi himself has set 2035 as a target for some of his other plans.

In recent weeks, US Pacific fleet commanders have signalled to Washington their concern about a window of vulnerability within the next five or six years, before their own modernisation programs take effect. Scott Harold points out that America is responding to China’s growing power by dispersing its forces from bases vulnerable to Chinese strikes. It could be seen as a window of opportunity closing for PLA commanders.

Would Xi risk an all-out attack on Taiwan? It would almost certainly involve missile strikes on US bases in Japan, drawing Japan into the conflict by triggering the carefully drawn provisions about self-defence in its constitution. PLA generals talk about using nuclear weapons, which would invite retaliation in kind, shattering the carefully built-up economy and perhaps the party’s domestic grip.

“Would a communist regime really put those equities at risk when Xi Jinping knows that as long as I don’t do something incredibly stupid, I’ll still be the effective emperor of China tomorrow?” asks Harold. But hidden power plays within the Chinese Communist Party could work a different logic: “Xi could be pushed to be more hawkish than anyone else.”

Mark Harrison, a China specialist at the University of Tasmania with a deep knowledge of Taiwan, thinks all-out invasion is highly unlikely. China’s leaders know that seizing the island would be just the start, involving an occupation force of hundreds of thousands of troops who would be vulnerable to blockade. “It’s a crisis that would go on forever, and be incredibly testing of the PLA and China’s military infrastructure,” he says.

“Australia would be involved” in such a large-scale scenario, says Harrison. “But China is more likely to act in a way that makes it much more equivocal for the US and its allies, including the Taiwanese, about their best response. What we’re much more likely to face is a smaller event where you don’t have a clear choice. And Beijing will seek to use that to its tactical advantage.”

Smaller operations could include grabs for the Taiwan-held islands on the Fujian coast — islands like Kinmen, which the nationalists held against attack in the 1950s, or the remote Pratas islands in the South China Sea.

“It’s almost a version of grey-zone coercion,” says Harold, referring to China’s use of swarms of fishing boats and coastguard vessels to push its maritime claims. “A little bit beyond that because it’s actually occupying territory and kills a limited number of Taiwanese people. That’s a pretty serious threat, and to not respond to it would feel a bit like the militarisation of the Sudetenland” — Hitler’s occupation of German-speaking parts of Czechoslovakia in 1938.

“There would be some people saying it’s either this or we fight the big war, and are we going to fight the big war over this small thing?” Harold adds. “The reality is that’s how status quo powers get manipulated by aggressive, risk-accepting, risk-manipulative rising powers.”

Since taking office, US president Joe Biden drawn Washington back behind the Chinese “red lines” that Donald Trump trampled all over when he sent high-ranking officials to Taiwan. But his secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has declared “rock-solid” support for Taiwan, and supplies of missiles, extra F-16 fighters and other advanced munitions continue. When Biden met with Japan’s Yoshihide Suga the two leaders reiterated their support for “peace and security” in the Taiwan Strait — a coded signal that alarmed Beijing.

“In a sense,” says Harold, “this is in some ways more threatening because it suggests the US is returning to a recognition that it needs to be an active leader, not necessarily the only one but certainly the most capable one among others. If you look at the calculations of Tokyo and Canberra, clearly those are much more closely aligned with trying to respond to and support Taipei’s continued de facto independence from Beijing.”

Taiwan itself has been angling for more explicit support from Canberra, notably during a long interview with foreign minister Joseph Wu on the ABC last year. Some analysts see a division between Australia’s defence and foreign affairs departments. But foreign affairs secretary Frances Adamson, who has served in Beijing and Taipei, told a Senate estimates inquiry that Canberra had made several representations to China about Taiwan recently. Nor are defence secretary Greg Moriarty or his deputy secretary for strategy Peter Tesch — both former ambassadors — noticeably pushing for change. ADF chief General Angus Campbell says a conflict over Taiwan would be “disastrous.”

Australia’s official position is still strictly “one China” — that Taiwan is part of China — while urging that reunification happens by consent, which is now a forlorn prospect. Yet reports do suggest that the defence department is updating its scenarios for Taiwan to include some major military assets. ANU strategic expert Brendan Taylor sees this move as a response to pressure from Washington for Canberra and Tokyo to add their weight to American deterrence.

“Because of the capabilities that the Chinese have been developing it’s going to become more and more difficult for the Americans to come to Taiwan’s defence in the way they were able to, not without cost but relatively easily in the past,” says Taylor.

Harrison, at the University of Tasmania, sees no likelihood of an upgrade in relations with Taiwan. “There is a view in certain quarters that Australia is particularly belligerent towards China, but that really isn’t the case,” he says. “In really significant areas — Hong Kong, Taiwan, Xinjiang — Australia’s actually been very reticent.”

Canberra’s loudest drumbeat of war comes from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, whose dire scenarios are lapped up by the media and some politicians. “The place is getting a lot hotter under the collar than it should,” complains former ambassador McCarthy. “Everybody is whipping everybody else up.” •

The publication of this article was supported by a grant from the Judith Neilson Institute for Journalism and Ideas.

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Pottinger was travelling with Alexander Gray, the NSC’s newly appointed director for Oceania and Indo-Pacific Security. Gray’s appointment was a first: never before had a US administration appointed a White House NSC official responsible not only for Australia and New Zealand but also for the Pacific islands.

The White House’s concern was justified. Six months after the visit, Solomon Islands prime minister Manasseh Sogavare announced his country would end its long relationship with Taiwan in favour of diplomatic ties with the People’s Republic. Days later, President Taneti Maamau of Kiribati followed suit, leaving Taiwan with just four diplomatic partners in the region. Donald Trump, already in the midst of his trade war with China, announced that the United States would engage more deeply with the Pacific islands.

The Biden administration looks likely to try to maintain this outreach. Island leaders have welcomed the new US president’s early commitments on development funding in the region and his decision to rejoin the Paris agreement on climate change. But they’re aware that Biden’s Pacific strategy is largely driven by the US defence department, and that his emerging “Indo-Pacific” policy is focused less on island nations than on India, Australia, Japan and other larger strategic partners.

Island leaders are particularly worried that they will be trampled in the intensified competition between the United States and China. Some of them are voicing fears that the new Western-initiated strategic concept of the “Indo-Pacific” will downplay the region’s own security priorities. “The big powers are doggedly pursuing strategies to widen and extend their reach and inculcating a far-reaching sense of insecurity,” says Samoan prime minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi. “The renewed vigour with which a ‘free and open Indo-Pacific’ strategy is being advocated and pursued leaves us with much uncertainty. For the Pacific, there is a real risk of privileging ‘Indo’ over the ‘Pacific.’”

Donald Trump’s foreign policy failures were many, but his administration did bolster staffing and resources for Pacific island engagement. To promote the administration’s “free and open Indo-Pacific” strategy, Matt Pottinger and Alex Gray intensified White House engagement with security and intelligence officials in Australia and New Zealand, and — in an unprecedented move for National Security Council officials — visited Canberra, Wellington, Port Vila and Honiara in early 2019.

Pottinger also played a key role in preparing the top-secret 2018 “US Strategic Framework for the Indo-Pacific,” which was unexpectedly declassified during Trump’s final chaotic days in office. Prioritising strategic competition with China, the strategy aimed to strengthen ties to India, Japan, Korea and Australia and “ensure the Pacific Islands (e.g. the US territories, Freely Associated States, the Melanesian and Polynesian states) remain aligned with United States.” (The freely associated states, which have a formal compact with the United States, are the Federated States of Micronesia, Palau and the Marshall Islands.) Among its action proposals were efforts to “solidify our diplomatic, military, intelligence, economic, development assistance, and informational advantages across the Pacific Islands.” The sentence immediately after these words was redacted.

Even as the Trump administration deepened its trade war with Beijing, Australia and New Zealand were becoming increasingly concerned about growing Chinese influence in the islands region. Both ANZUS allies were working on the “step change” in engagement proposed by prime minister Malcolm Turnbull at the 2016 Pacific Islands Forum in Pohnpei.

Three months after deposing Turnbull in August 2018, Scott Morrison announced his own “Pacific step-up” in a major speech at Lavarack army barracks in Townsville. To complement the intensified US engagement, Morrison outlined a range of economic, diplomatic and military policies. Major focuses were infrastructure investment and defence cooperation, including new aircraft and patrol boats under the Pacific Maritime Security Programme, a new Australia Pacific Security College and a new Pacific Fusion Centre for real-time intelligence sharing. Despite its policy differences with Washington, Jacinda Ardern’s government in New Zealand also expanded its “Pacific reset.”

Coinciding with these efforts by the ANZUS allies were media scares about purported Chinese bases in Vanuatu and French Polynesia, and propaganda about Chinese “debt-trap diplomacy.” (The latter has since been debunked by studies showing that most Pacific debt is owed to the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank.)

Despite the hyperbole, the growing concern that Pacific Islands Forum countries are engaged in “South–South” cooperation with China is not misplaced. Over the past two decades, Beijing has expanded its economic links with island nations to the point that even Micronesian countries aligned with Taiwan — including Palau and the Marshall Islands — trade extensively with China and receive investment from Chinese corporations.

One of the United States’ northern Pacific allies, the Federated States of Micronesia, has long maintained diplomatic ties to the People’s Republic of China rather than Taiwan. In early 2017, the island nation’s president at the time, Peter Christian, was welcomed to Beijing by president Xi Jinping and accorded a full military review outside the Great Hall of the People. “China was impressive,” Christian said later. “If that’s the way they welcome other countries, we were flattered. I was flattered that for a small country they would exhibit such formality.”

Christian’s state visit was one of Beijing’s many diplomatic exchanges with Pacific nations since 2000 (though these have actually declined in number over the past decade). After visiting Fiji in 2014, Xi Jinping made his second visit to the Pacific islands in November 2018, attending the APEC Summit in Port Moresby along with US vice-president Mike Pence. With US and Chinese diplomats battling over trade policy, the summit ended without a formal communiqué. Pence joined Australia’s Scott Morrison and Japan’s Shinzo Abe to offer infrastructure funding to the islands in competition with China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

Concerned by Xi’s high-profile engagement, the Trump administration launched a series of diplomatic initiatives across the islands, proposing new diplomatic posts and sending defence attachés to Fiji, the Federated States of Micronesia and Papua New Guinea. In January 2019, US Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats issued the intelligence community’s Worldwide Threat Assessment, which charged that “China is currying favour with numerous Pacific Island nations through bribery, infrastructure investment and diplomatic engagement.”

On 21 May 2019, Trump held an unprecedented Oval Office meeting with the then presidents of the three freely associated states: Palau’s Tommy Remengesau Jr, the Marshall Islands’ Hilda Heine and the Federated States of Micronesia’s David Panuelo.

Later that year, US secretary of state Mike Pompeo visited Australia and Micronesia, including a first-ever visit to the Federated States of Micronesia by a secretary of state on 5 August. The same month, US interior secretary David Bernhardt led an interagency delegation to the Pacific Islands Forum in Tuvalu. Bernhardt stressed US action on climate change and oceans management — a sharp contrast with his predecessor Ryan Zinke, a former Navy SEAL who hectored the 2018 Forum meeting in Nauru about the strategic threat from China and the blood shed by US marines across Micronesia during the second world war.

The new White House engagement was also reflected in Congress. In 2019, congressman Ed Case of Hawaii co-founded the bipartisan Congressional Pacific Islands Caucus to raise awareness about the region in the US Capitol. In short order, the caucus introduced the Boosting Long-term US Engagement in the Pacific, or BLUE Pacific, bill, which proposed a comprehensive, long-term US islands strategy, an expanded diplomatic presence, greater US security and law enforcement cooperation, diversified trade and strengthened people-to-people relationships.

Then, in September 2019, the Trump administration announced a “Pacific pledge” of US$100 million in additional aid, an increased security presence in some countries, Peace Corps deployments, and revived USAID programs and staffing in Fiji, Papua New Guinea, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands and Palau. As an alternative to China’s infrastructure programs, the United States also made an initial grant to the Asian Development Bank’s Pacific Region Infrastructure Facility, including US$23 million to a joint Papua New Guinea Electrification Partnership with Australia, Japan and New Zealand.

For all this, the administration’s overtures to Pacific nations were undercut by Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris agreement and stop payments to the Green Climate Fund. In November 2019, Pacific Islands Forum chair Kausea Natano stressed that withdrawal from global climate action undermined the United States’ credibility in the Pacific: “Statements of friendship, expanded aid programs and high-level visits,” he said, “must be better backed by domestic policies and action to reduce emissions, as outlined in the Paris agreement, in order to avert a climate catastrophe.”

Wolf-warrior diplomacy by Pence and Pompeo also reinforced scepticism about Washington’s real interest in island affairs. “The United States and Australia are neighbours, united rather than divided by the vast emptiness of Pacific waters,” Pompeo declared in Canberra during an August 2019 visit, erasing the history, heritage and identity of the Pacific islanders who inhabit that “vast emptiness.” As Pacific Islands Forum secretary-general Dame Meg Taylor remarked at the time, Pompeo’s comment “stands in stark contrast to histories of Pacific people and the Blue Pacific,” a regional effort to resituate the Pacific in international affairs.

To counter the perceived challenge posed by the Chinese military, Mike Pence’s bombastic APEC speech in 2018 proposed more US military deployments, war games and bases in the region. “We’re forging new and renewed security partnerships, as shown by our recent trilateral naval exercises with India and Japan,” he said. “Today, it’s my privilege to announce that the United States will partner with Papua New Guinea and Australia on their joint initiative at Lombrum Naval Base on Manus Island. We will work with these nations to protect sovereignty and maritime rights of the Pacific islands as well.”

The US Pacific Command has long held responsibility for military operations across the Indian and Pacific Oceans, but the point was underlined when it was renamed “the Indo-Pacific Command” in June 2018. It now seeks to upgrade the US base network spanning the northern Pacific from Pearl Harbor, Hawaii to Naval Base Guam, which dates back to the late nineteenth century. Under Joint Region Marianas, a navy-led joint command, the Pentagon also operates Andersen Air Force Base on Guam and military facilities on Tinian and Saipan in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. The US base network in the northern Pacific is complemented by new marine and air force rotations through northern Australia.

In the Republic of the Marshall Islands, a Military Use and Operating Rights Agreement guarantees separate funding outside the US-RMI compact of free association. Kwajalein Atoll hosts the US Air Force Space Fence program and the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site.

Despite US aircraft carriers becoming vectors for the spread of the coronavirus, US military forces have ramped up deployments and war games across the region, including RIMPAC 2020 and Cope North 2021. Even as the United States and Australia agreed to upgrade Papua New Guinea’s Lombrum naval facilities, Palau has begun discussions with Washington about hosting US forces. “Palau’s request to the US military remains simple: build joint-use facilities, then come and use them regularly,” then president Tommy Remengesau said last September.

While welcoming US and Australian investment in wharfs and facilities, most island leaders have long sought to redirect resources to tackling more pressing security concerns, including the existential challenge of climate change. Steven McGann, former US ambassador to Fiji, Nauru, Kiribati, Tuvalu and the Kingdom of Tonga, highlighted this tension during a recent webinar on Pacific regionalism. “The United States is always searching for mechanisms in which all of its interests can be combined and also meet the growing needs of Indo-PACOM” —  Indo-Pacific Command — “which has to figure out how to pursue the national security objectives of the United States with the human security concerns of Pacific islanders.”

Against this background, the three freely associated states — the Federated States of Micronesia, Palau and the Marshall Islands — have been negotiating the terms of an extension of their compacts of free association with the United States, due to expire in 2023. A recent RAND Corporation study of Chinese influence in the islands notes the strategic importance of the three states, arguing that they are “tantamount to a power projection superhighway, running through the heart of the North Pacific into Asia. It effectively connects US military forces in Hawaii to those in theatre, particularly to forward operating positions on the US territory of Guam.”

Despite his diplomatic postings across the southwest Pacific, Steven McGann acknowledges that US security interests are focused in the Micronesian states. “It’s clear that the United States has an overriding interest in the north Pacific,” he said. “But as it renegotiates the compacts of free association it also needs to investigate how it strengthens the existing treaties with Kiribati.” The compacts of free association forbid the island states from allowing foreign military forces to enter their territory without US permission. “Taken together, the security and defence provisions of the compacts form an essential foundation for US national security interests in the region,” says the RAND study.

The strategic importance of these northern Pacific island nations came to a head in February during an online summit of the Pacific Islands Forum. After their joint candidate for the post of Forum secretary-general was rejected, Nauru, Kiribati and the three freely associated states — all members of the Micronesian Presidents’ Summit — announced they would withdraw from the regional organisation. Although the five Micronesian countries have diverse colonial histories and contemporary partnerships, they are united by cultural connections, shared memories of Japanese invasion and US nuclear testing, and the economic interests created by their vast ocean territories.

US officials often see this crisis through the prism of US–China competition and conflict between Beijing and Taiwan. (Last month, Palau’s new president, Surangel Whipps Jr, made a state visit to Taiwan, accompanied by the US ambassador to Palau.) As Alex Gray wrote in February, the United States, Australia and New Zealand should watch with “grave concern” the “unfolding dismantlement” of the Pacific Islands Forum. “Not only does a diminished PIF mean a diminished voice for the Pacific islands on the world stage, it also means the central multilateral institution in this critical region will lose the very voices most sceptical of Beijing’s malign activity and open to US and allied leadership. A PIF without Micronesian voices is likely to be one far less interested in US priorities and perspectives.”

In the past, budget cuts in Canberra and Wellington have downgraded programs in the freely associated states and American territories like Guam. Despite new diplomatic postings under Australia’s “step-up” and New Zealand’s “reset,” the ANZUS allies still perceive the northern Pacific as America’s turf, a reality acknowledged by Surangel Whipps: “As we know, it’s always been the position of Australia and New Zealand that the north Pacific is ‘Oh, you’re with the United States, you’re kind [of] over there, we stick together in the south.’ It wasn’t about the Pacific brotherhood, let’s bring the Pacific together. It was about ‘We are going to protect our region.’”

Three months into its term, the Biden administration is promising to continue Trump’s engagement, though with more diplomacy, multilateralism and alliance building. Recognising China’s increased profile in the region, Ambassador McGann suggested that Australia and New Zealand needed support. “The United States is moving away from an ‘I’ll hold your coat’ position to much more active engagement,” he said, “largely because there are national security reasons for doing so.”

The Biden administration has yet to prepare a full national security strategy to guide its foreign policy. It has, however, issued an “Interim National Security Strategic Guidance,” which, among many global priorities, pledges to recognise “the ties of shared history and sacrifice,” to “reinforce our partnership with Pacific Island states.”

A fundamental difference between this administration and its predecessor is climate policy. “We will move swiftly to earn back our position of leadership in international institutions,” says the interim guidance, “joining with the international community to tackle the climate crisis and other shared challenges. We have already re-entered the Paris Climate Accord and appointed a Presidential Special Envoy for climate, the first steps toward restoring our leadership.”

Biden’s choice of Deb Haaland as secretary of the interior is significant, given her department is responsible for liaison with the freely associated states in the Pacific as well as America’s First Nations tribes. (This is the first time a First Nations woman has held a US cabinet post, and stands in sharp contrast to her Trump-era predecessors, including Ryan Zinke, a Montana businessman who resigned in the midst of justice department investigations of his conduct in office).

The congressional BLUE Pacific bill lapsed after the 2020 presidential elections, but congressman Ed Case continues this work under the Biden administration. Once the bill has been improved in consultation with congressional figures and the White House, he says, it will be reintroduced “on a bicameral, bipartisan basis.”

The key official driving Asia-Pacific policy will be Kurt Campbell, the National Security Council’s new Indo-Pacific affairs coordinator. Campbell served under Barack Obama as assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs between 2009 and 2013, and was a key architect of Obama’s “Pacific pivot” strategy. “The Biden National Security Council’s Indo-Pacific team is set to be the largest in the NSC, with up to twenty officials in the directorate once it’s fully staffed,” says Foreign Policy magazine. “Personnel is policy, as the age-old Washington aphorism goes, and the new president has made clear that China is the top national security challenge for the United States.” The shift was confirmed when US secretary of state Antony Blinken described the US relationship with China as “the biggest geopolitical test of the twenty-first century” in his first major foreign policy speech on 3 March.

Meeting for the first time at leaders’ level, last month’s summit of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad, boosted ties between the United States, India, Japan and Australia. The Quad communiqué highlighted a “shared vision for the free and open Indo-Pacific” and flagged joint action on climate change, cyber security, Covid-19 recovery and vaccine distribution — adding to existing geopolitical jousting over Covid support to Pacific island states.

Ten days after the summit, on 22 March, the Biden White House announced the Small and Less Populous Island Economies Initiative, designed to strengthen US collaboration with island countries and territories in the Pacific, Caribbean and North Atlantic (despite the different demography, geography and colonial history of the three regions). The US state department has also launched a tender for a project to promote investigative journalism and anti-corruption efforts in Pacific island countries, in line with its “vision of a secure and prosperous Indo-Pacific.” (It will be interesting to see how explicitly Pacific journalists will be encouraged to look at corrupt relations between island politicians and Chinese state-owned enterprises.)

This all adds up to lots of noise, but will the initiatives be sustained? Island leaders have seen it all before: more than three decades ago, congressman Stephen Solarz led a commission on islands policy, arguing that the Pacific should remain an “American lake” in the post-Soviet era. Solarz’s May 1990 report proposed that the United States should play the role of “balancer,” providing regional order and stability through “forward deployed” US forces. Little has changed except the main strategic rival.

Later that year, as the United States began to celebrate its triumph over the crumbling Soviet Union, president George H.W. Bush met Pacific island leaders in Hawaii, pledging economic and commercial opportunities. A Joint Commercial Commission was opened with great fanfare in Hawaii. As the years wore on, however, yet another US commission revealed the JCC to be a failure, with little new US investment or trade in the islands.

Fast-forward to Barack Obama’s “pivot” to the region, and Hillary Clinton’s attendance at the Pacific Islands Forum in 2012 — a first-ever appearance by a US secretary of state. Despite her many pledges, the Obama pivot was focused on Asia rather than the islands, and the follow-through was limited.

Through the waning years of the Soviet Union, successive US administrations warned that “the Russians are coming” to the Pacific, a catchcry echoed by conservative Australian and New Zealand think tanks. Three decades later, the Chinese (unlike their Soviet predecessors) are a major trading partner for many island nations and a significant source of grants and loans. China’s state-owned enterprises are looking to the Pacific islands for timber, minerals and fisheries, even as Beijing seeks more votes at the United Nations. Given the failures of China’s own environmental regulation, “the China alternative” is worrying environmentalists and human rights activists across the Pacific. Island leaders, meanwhile, welcome the leverage provided by this “non-traditional” partner, which has seen Canberra open the purse strings at a time of historically low aid budgets.

Will the Biden administration follow through on its intentions more vigorously than its predecessors? Changes in US climate policy are winning friends, but the remilitarisation of the islands holds little attraction for countries still dealing with the radioactive legacy of US nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands and Kiribati, or the unexploded ordinance that still litters the region from the last time Washington took on a rising Asian power. •

Reporting for this article was supported by a Sean Dorney Grant for Pacific Journalism through the Walkley Public Fund.

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Challenges with China extend beyond just trade. China’s claims of a “peaceful rise” ring hollow after its militarising of the South China Sea, expansion of cyberwarfare, trampling of human rights, and threats to Taiwan. Its rhetoric of non-interference stands in stark contrast to its political donations across Asia, support for anti-democratic movements in Myanmar, and possessive language about the Chinese diaspora. Its claims of respecting global rules seem empty after its actions in Hong Kong, weaponising of trade, and disregard for international legal rulings in the South China Sea.

What’s more amazing than this rapid escalation of tensions is that many in the Chinese government believe such actions will change policies in Australia — a spectacular misunderstanding of Australian society and politics. The numbers from the Lowy Institute speak for themselves. Back in 2011, almost 60 per cent of Australians trusted China to act responsibly in the world. A decade later, the attitude has reversed: more than three-quarters of Australians have little to no trust in China to act responsibly in the world.

Australian attitudes about the US–China divide have similarly flipped. In 2016, Australians viewed the United States and China as being equally important to Australia, with China rising and the United States falling in favour. Today, the trend has reversed sharply. Even after four years of a chaotic Trump presidency, Australians regard the United States as far more important. The damage done to the Australia–China relationship is profound.

To be sure, the Chinese political system is far more complex than most commentators make out. Sweeping generalisations about the Chinese government’s strategy are often so simplistic that they add no value. Nor is the problem one-sided. On countless occasions, Australia has unnecessarily provoked China with confusing and mixed messages. Australian politicians on both sides have shown a blithe disregard for the relationship, preferring to score cheap political wins at home than foster sensible, long-term foreign policy.

The sad reality is that it will take a generation to repair the trust between China and the Australian people. And yet the current situation cannot go on. The notion that Australia could continue to have such a negative relationship with China is unrealistic.

The importance of the commercial links between Australia and China is well known. In normal times, more than 8 per cent of Australia’s economy came from merchandise exports to China alone. Some of those exports will find markets elsewhere. But the sheer scale of China means its withdrawal will cost Australian jobs, requiring the government to scale up spending, tax cuts and structural reforms to offset the loss and ease the adjustment.

And China’s significance stretches far beyond commerce. Australia is home to more than 1.2 million people with Chinese ancestry. As the Australia–China relationship deteriorates, so does our social cohesion at home. We are already seeing how a toxic relationship with China is hurting Chinese Australians, with reports of rising anti-China sentiment and racial abuse.

China is also vital to the countries that are vital to us. China’s investments in Asia — gas pipelines and deepwater ports in Myanmar, high-speed rail through Laos, to name just a few — strongly align with East Asia’s desire for regional connectivity and infrastructure investment. A toxic relationship between Australia and China will make our other relationships in Asia considerably more difficult.

So what can Australia do to repair such a damaged relationship? First, the Australian government needs to accept that its attempts to manage the China relationship bilaterally — one-on-one — have failed. A multilateral solution is required. Australia’s challenge in balancing a strategic relationship with the United States and an economic relationship with China is difficult, but not unique. The same challenge faces countless countries around Asia. Working with China alongside like-minded countries in multilateral forums — like the G20, APEC and ASEAN+6 — is the best way to iron out problems in the Australia–China relationship.

Second, the Australian government should stop trying to deal with issues on a case-by-case basis. Instead, it should work with countries in the region to revise the global rules and institutions that govern interactions between countries. Reforming the World Trade Organization and updating the global trading rules (which are currently silent on many of the tensions, including subsidies, data flows, forced technology transfer and the digital economy) are the first priority. President Biden is eager to build coalitions to manage China. Making sure those coalitions achieve productive outcomes will be critical.

Finally, the Australian government should identify practical issues that we can address alongside China, looking for solutions that are mutually beneficial for both countries, that bring in countries from around Asia, and that use multilateral bodies. Climate change and the reform of global institutions tick all boxes.

Climate change is a massive priority in China and around Asia. Even though successive Australian governments have struggled to develop coherent policies on the issue, there is plenty we can do outside the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, such as reforming global financial rules that prevent more private sector financing of green projects.

Similarly, the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the World Health Organization, the International Energy Agency and countless other institutions are in desperate need of governance reform. Reforming these institutions is a common priority across countries and is an opportunity to wrap China up in strong, up-to-date rules, reduce tensions and bring China further into a rules-based global system.

Australia is struggling to live with China, but it can’t live without it. The damage to the relationship will take a long time to fix, but the longer the relationship deteriorates, the harder it will be to repair. It’s time for the government to change its strategy. •

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Now Yang has done the same for the Cultural Revolution. The World Turned Upside Down: A History of the Chinese Cultural Revolution is just out in an English translation, having been published in Chinese in Hong Kong. Neither version is available in mainland China, which means that the people who know most about Yang’s subject, many of whom will have lived through the events he describes, won’t be able to engage with his book. Most readers in the West, on the other hand, will have either a hazy idea of what the Cultural Revolution was about, or no idea at all.

This isn’t surprising. The events that began in 1966, when Mao Zedong launched his “revolution to touch the soul,” were complex and opaque. The political elite was faced with a Trump-like insurrection unleashed by the country’s supreme leader. For some, it was a decade-long catastrophe, with violence and victimisation raining down on their heads. Many city dwellers were forced to work in the countryside. The writer Ba Jin called it a “spiritual holocaust.” But for others, like Australian-based academic Mobo Gao, who lived in rural southern China at the time, it was more akin to a period of liberation, when a whole generation was politicised and allowed to think for themselves.

Part of the outside world’s somewhat skewed view also comes from the unfortunate fact that the Chinese government, at least since the 1990s, has become less and less relaxed about people studying this period. In the 1980s and 1990s a vague consensus existed about the meaning of the Cultural Revolution (a “major mistake,” the party judged in 1981) but that has since become diluted and fragmented.

That the China-based Yang has been able to publish this book, even abroad, is a considerable achievement, and a courageous one. Accompanying the deafening silence from China over the past two decades has been a great deal of English-language work on the Cultural Revolution. Some of it, like the work of American political sociologist Andrew Walder, is based on careful documentary and field research; other authors, however, have tended simply to view the revolution as an unmitigated disaster. That only raises the puzzle of why it went on so long, and why the Chinese government has become so intolerant of criticism of the era.

Maybe the coyness among figures like Xi Jinping and his colleagues reflects the fact that they are the last of the generation with a living memory of those events who are still active in politics. Older cadres have retired; those under fifty would remember little or nothing of that time. But Xi, born in 1953, hit adolescence just as the first Red Guards started appearing in Beijing and Tsinghua universities and the first large public rallies were held in Tiananmen Square in the sweltering summer of 1966.

Some of his colleagues may even have played an active role as events unfolded, swept up in the politicised youth groups, taking advantage of the free rail travel to go around the country fomenting revolution. Maybe they had a hand in smashing some of the signs of feudalism that were presented as valid targets then — the temples, old buildings and other artefacts from the imperial past. They might even harbour darker guilt about engaging in “struggle sessions,” some of which led to the injury, or even death, of teachers, officials and those regarded as “bad elements.”

The one thing we can be sure of is that if the political elite thought there was anything remotely positive about the Cultural Revolution, they would be saying it. Mao, after all, is still lauded to the skies — witness the 120th anniversary of his birth in 2013, when Xi took a leading role in the festivities. But on the Cultural Revolution, an event Mao described as his second-most important achievement (the first was fighting the Japanese), there is a telling silence.

Xi himself rarely mentions being moved, at around sixteen, to rural Shaanxi, where he reportedly worked at least some of the time as a pig farmer. The official accounts of his life during these years simply say that he learned about conditions in the countryside. For this reason, they go on, he uniquely qualifies as a Beijinger from an elite family who has authentic experience of some of the most impoverished parts of the country during one of China’s toughest times. Let’s never claim that Chinese leaders are not adept at using even the most traumatic parts of their life to good political effect.

If the Cultural Revolution figures in contemporary political life and consciousness in China, then it does so in a shadowy way. It is the period of the great turbulence, the time when “democracy” — in the form of Rebellious Groups (the more formal name for the Red Guards) — gave at least some people the freedom to voice real opinions about political leaders. It is also the period that ended in anarchy.

One of the unstated implications is that freedom of this kind is dangerous in China. Even among people with only second-hand impressions of this time, the recollections also instil a shared sense that everything must be done to avoid its ever occurring again. During the events leading up to the fall of former commerce minister Bo Xilai in early 2011, premier Wen Jiabao ominously referred to the risk that the Cultural Revolution might return. This was probably a reference to Bo’s love of campaigns in Chongqing, the southwestern municipality he ran at the time, which were reminiscent of Red Guard events from decades before. It was Wen’s indirect but very clear denunciation — with its potent historical reference — that led to Bo’s removal.

Anyone wanting to argue for a more nuanced view of Mao’s proletarian movement isn’t likely to get very far. But that in itself is telling. If we are still trying to make sense of more restricted, singular events like the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor or the French Revolution, then how could a consensus about the decade-long Cultural Revolution, with its myriad constituent events, develop so quickly and seemingly leave so little space for further discussion?

Yang’s work at least gives us a chance to contemplate again why easy conclusions about this period are unlikely to be very satisfactory. It was perhaps the only time in Chinese history that a unified, almost religious fervour — the worship of Mao — swept the country. That in itself cries out for explanation. It was a time of passionate engagement, when politics annexed every aspect of everyday life. It was a time of savagely intense, almost cruel, idealism. It was also a time, as Ba Jin wrote later, when aspects of Chinese society — especially its deep divisions — were thrown open. All this suggests that the Cultural Revolution was a strange, anomalous event, and one that is still unexplained.

It isn’t surprising that Xi and his colleagues are keen to focus on other things. The Cultural Revolution was an unsparing mirror held up to the country, including the party that failed to protect itself against Mao. Answering questions about why it happened, and how, would involve delving into areas the party wants left alone. That is why this period remains closed off, and won’t be opening up any time soon. •

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Creating a regional anti-China coalition may be in America’s interest, and the Biden administration, like its predecessors, certainly thinks of China as America’s number one strategic competitor. But it is not necessarily in Australia’s interest. China’s continuing economic success is good for Australia; policies designed to obstruct that success are not. If America succeeds in hindering China’s technological progress, for example, one of the losers will be Australia.

This is not just because more than a third of Australia’s goods exports go to China. It is largely because China accounts for a little more than half the output of the entire East Asia and Pacific region. It is by far the largest economy in a highly integrated economic region of which Australia is a part, a region that accounts for three-quarters of Australia’s goods exports and nearly two-thirds of its goods imports. In Australian planning, China’s regional predominance should be assumed to persist and perhaps increase. It will continue to be the indispensable economic partner for most countries in the region, including Australia. This is the region in which Australia finds itself, now and forever.

In the Trump administration’s trade war, prime minister Scott Morrison declared Australia a neutral. Since the president wasn’t keenly seeking Australia’s support, that position was uncontroversial. With the new administration, neutrality is unlikely to be enough.

The best guide to the Biden administration’s approach to China was made public by its top Indo-Pacific official, Kurt Campbell, in early January. In a co-authored Foreign Affairs piece, Campbell wrote that China’s deployment of new weaponry (and the creation of weapons platforms in the South China Sea) increases the vulnerability of US aircraft carriers near China’s coasts. The US needs instead to deploy more long-range conventional missiles, unmanned aircraft, submarines and high-speed strike weapons.

In deploying these weapons, Campbell writes, the US should work with regional allies to disperse US forces around the region. This ambition fits well with Australia’s long-range submarines program and willingness to host American military facilities. At the same time, Campbell suggests, military deterrence of China should be enhanced by expanding defence arrangements between the US, Japan, Australia and India — the “Quad.”

But military arrangements will not be enough. Campbell believes the US should join or initiate China-related discussions among its friends in relation to “supply chains, investment regimes, and trade agreements.” He assumes the US will continue its “managed decoupling” from China. Tellingly, he complains of the recent EU–China investment agreement because it will “complicate a unified transatlantic approach under the Biden administration.” Separate negotiations between American allies and China will evidently be discouraged.

A “unified” approach to China by Europe and America will be complemented by a wider coalition, including Asian regional partners. Campbell favourably instances the D-10, proposed by Britain, which would include the G7 of big rich democracies plus Australia, India and South Korea. These coalitions, writes Campbell, “will be most urgent for questions of trade, technology, supply chains, and standards.” Under this proposal, Australia would be a member of a regional coalition whose members will presumably be discouraged by the Americans from making bilateral deals with China.

Australia will have no problem with joining discussions about China, sharing information or even attempting to agree a common list of complaints. But there is every problem with a joint negotiation with China, which is what Campbell appears to want. Such negotiations would inevitably be under US leadership, and pursue US priorities. Australia could find itself pressing China to open up to Alphabet, Amazon and Facebook, while at the same time complaining that these corporations pay little tax on their Australian revenues, have too much market power, and retain vast quantities of information about Australians. It could find itself pressing for a freely floating renminbi and a complete deregulation of China’s financial system, though Australian regulators may have strong reservations about both. It could find itself part of a coalition to retard China’s advanced industries, an objective directly contrary to Australian economic interests.

Other than the emphasis on coalitions instead of unilateral action, the Biden administration’s approach is similar to his predecessor’s. In a National Security Council document declassified and released as the Trump administration was leaving office, the US was determined to “maintain US strategic primacy in the Indo-Pacific region and promote a liberal economic order while preventing China from establishing new, illiberal spheres of influence and cultivating areas of cooperation to promote regional peace and prosperity.” The Biden administration would no doubt agree.

The document also asserted that China “seeks to dominate cutting-edge technologies, including artificial intelligence and bio-genetics, and harness them in the service of authoritarianism. Chinese dominance in these technologies would pose profound challenges to free societies.” Again, the Biden administration probably has the same view. Matthew Pottinger, who wrote the document when he was on staff at the National Security Council, wanted to “strengthen the capabilities and will of regional allies,” including Australia. The aim was to “align our Indo-Pacific strategy with those of Australia, India and Japan.” Campbell says much the same.

The Biden administration’s resolve to create anti-China coalitions coincides with a low point in Australia’s bilateral relationship with China. Before the pandemic, the increasing antagonism between America and China bothered Australia, though it was way beyond Australia’s capacity to influence. It threatened to change the global economy in a way we might find inimical to our interests. By contrast, the recent direct antagonism between Australia and China poses problems of much greater immediacy and severity.

These are problems only Australia and China can deal with. They are beyond spin, beyond culture wars, beyond the help of great friends. Resolving them depends almost entirely on us, and on the professionalism, skill and judgement of the Australian government and its advisers. They could well be the gravest problems the Australians involved have ever met, or are likely to meet. They may influence Australia’s destiny for decades. This is a test of the seriousness of purpose and the quality of Australia’s political leadership. Incidental to others, it is central to us.

Geoff Raby’s insightful new book is directly pertinent to these acute difficulties in Australian foreign policy. Raby, a former Australian ambassador to China, is a longstanding critic of the drift in Australian attitudes towards China. “Australia’s policy of the past four years, of joining the US in competition with China,” he announces, “has been a strategic miscalculation” damaging to Australia not only in China but also in the region. Australia “will be taken less seriously and be less respected by regional partners,” he argues, “if it is not able to manage its relations with China.”

Though his title promises to explain China’s “grand strategy” and Australia’s future in the “new global order,” Raby is too experienced, too worldly-wise, too much of a realist, to believe that China has acquired a grand strategy very different from the old, or that a “new” global order has actually emerged.

He discusses in some detail the Belt and Road Initiative, which is often supposed to be the key component in China’s program to create a new global order. He points out that its achievements so far have not contributed much to China’s security. It is certainly an expensive initiative, one taken very seriously by Beijing, one that has on the whole been helpful to the recipient countries, but it has not augmented China’s power, either soft or hard, and it has not created a new world order. Nor is it likely to.

What has changed is that brief period of American hegemony following the collapse of the Soviet Union, which ended with the disaster of the second invasion of Iraq, the concurrent rise of China, and the shattering of America’s domestic political consensus on the rocks of extreme and widening inequality. The world has become multipolar once again — with two leading powers competing for the fidelity of the rest.

In Raby’s account, China’s grand strategy is conditioned today, as ever, by neighbouring and regional powers that have sometimes been enemies and sometimes friends, all of them formidable. Russia, India and Japan are the biggest of them, and among smaller neighbours China has also been in fights with Vietnam, Taiwan and South Korea.

Another enduring element of China’s grand strategy, as Raby points out, has been sustaining its territorial unity. It has long had to deal with separatist forces in Xingjian, in the Tibetan regions of southwest China, in Hong Kong and of course in Taiwan. When these imperatives are provisioned, China has little left over for exerting force beyond its own region. Thus, says Raby, China is unlikely to become a “regional hegemon” or pose “any threat to Australia’s security.”

The Biden administration not only wants to sustain the Quad as an alliance to contain China. It also wants to expand it, presumably by adding South Korea. Raby’s chapter on the Quad group is particularly pertinent and illuminating. Its explication requires the kind of analytic skills Raby has developed in his diplomatic career — undogmatic, attuned to nuance and informed by an understanding of each party’s interests and intentions. Though presented by Canberra as a dialogue among Indo-Pacific democracies, the Quad doesn’t include South Korea and the Southeast Asian democracies. It is clearly intended — at least by Australia and the US — as a military formation directed against China. Indeed, this is the way it was described by former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo.

As Raby points out, the Quad’s military value to its participants is in fact very limited. India and Japan have distinct issues with China that often do not overlap with the interests of other members. And while the US, India and Japan are formidable military powers, Australia is not. What the Quad represents, Raby suggests, is an attempt by the US and perhaps Japan to draw India into a military understanding against China. As a nuclear weapons state with a large army and a formidable navy, India doesn’t need this understanding, and probably neither wants nor would reliably abide by it. Australia’s eager support for the Quad alienates China but gathers no redeeming security advantage.

More than three years have passed since China permitted high-level contact with Australia. Over the past year it has imposed penalties on Australian exports of barley, wine, beef, coal and wheat — penalties usually ascribed to Australia’s March 2020 advocacy of an independent inquiry into the Chinese origins of the pandemic. In fact, they are more probably related to Australia’s prominent public role in not only refusing Huawei access to Australia’s telecommunications market but also advocating that Britain, India, Europe and for that matter the United States also exclude the company.

To a realist like Raby, no simple or easy response exists to Australia’s China problem, or its companion US problem. Australia cannot and will not abandon its future in a region economically dominated by China. Nor will it abandon its long security relationship with the US. Indeed, both a strong economic relationship with China and a strong security relationship with the US suit Australia well. The same combination suits South Korea, Japan and much of Southeast Asia. The policy job is to sustain the relationships when they are in conflict.

To that end, Raby offers a series of sensible principles to guide Australia’s response. Rather than being a flag-waver for the US, Australia should work harder on coalitions with like-minded regional countries — including Japan, Korea and especially governments in Southeast Asia — to clear a path between the competing pressures of the two great powers. It should be guided by a clear-headed identification of national interest rather than traditional links or kinship with the US, or humanitarian impulses or cultural affinities. Foreign policy should be carried out with discipline and professionalism, premised on a recognition that Australia’s interests are different from those of the US and China. It is not a novel agenda and not an easy one, but of those on offer it is the one that may work. •

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Now comes this book by Tim Harper, a Cambridge historian who has also collaborated on books with Bayly. Underground Asia takes us down the burrows of resistance to the Asian empires of Britain, France and the Netherlands, and into the struggles over the carcass of the Chinese empire in the first three decades of the twentieth century.

In this earlier era of globalisation, revolutionaries made use of post, telegraph, steamship and loose border controls to advance their causes. As Harper writes, “Many of them — although not all of them and not all of the time — travelled as seamen, labourers, servants, entertainers, students and, most often, as exiles.” These revolutionaries — people like Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh, China’s Zhou Enlai and Indonesia’s Ibrahim Tan Malaka — travelled light, often under false names, “with banned literature, illicit currency or encoded messages hidden in their luggage”:

They experienced a world of connections, but also a world upside down: the underbelly of the great port cities of empire where they found they were able more freely to organise and act.

The sites of their struggles were the waterfront, the lodging house, the coffee shop, the clandestine printing press in the back alley. They made these places centres of global awareness, and their experience of a secret underworld of empire helped shape a spectrum of radical ideas — about class and national identity, the position of women, the function of art and literature, the history of the future.

Some of them hid in plain sight. “If you want to hide revolutionary connections,” as the Comintern agent Mikhail Borodin remarked, “you had better travel first class.”

The strands of revolution and resistance were diverse. Some developed out of the anarchism portrayed in Joseph Conrad’s novels. “As a doctrine, anarchism was malleable to individual needs,” writes Harper. “[It] represented freedom from the state and feudal structures and a new moral purpose.” Less a system of thought than a “utopian horizon… it was not something passively received but elaborated on locally by men and women making sense of their alienation from the old order.”

Meiji Japan was an initial beacon, especially after its victory over Russia in 1904. “The remaking of the Japanese imperial order following the Meiji Restoration of 1868 exerted a fascination on restless minds across Asia,” Harper writes. “For Indian maharajahs, Malay sultans and Thai kings, Japan was a model for monarchical revival in the face of western encroachment. For critics of royal power, Japan was also an example of successful westernisation and liberal constitutional reform.” In 1896 just thirteen Chinese students were studying in Japan; by 1905 the figure was over 8000.

As soon as Kaiser Wilhelm II learnt of Russia’s mobilisation in July 1914, imperial Germany began trying to foment revolution in opposing empires. “Rapidly, German agents took advantage of the territory of neutral powers such as Spain, Siam, the United States and its colony in the Philippines to distribute calls to Muslims to resist the British and support the Ottoman Sultan and his ally ‘Hadji Guillaume.’”

The British countered with their Arab Bureau, run out of the Savoy Hotel in Cairo, whose tentacles reached across to Asia with the help of an expanding Intelligence Bureau in India and police special branches and MI5 posts in Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai’s foreign enclave. “All of this drew the British empire deeper into an unprecedented global counter-propaganda exercise as it asserted its claim to be the world’s largest Muslim power and a defender of the faith,” Harper says.

Imperial police struggled to comprehend the enemy. Some were obsessed with “those capable both of ‘visiting addresses at which Europeans rarely call’ and of haunting the exclusive cafes and luxury hotels that only whites could enter.” The conspiracies they unravelled “conjured up an ‘underside India’ of ‘every sort of half understood thing and people,’ dark with the threat of thuggee and steeped in ‘the pathos of underworlds.’ Into this bestiary of empire was now placed the bomb-parast, the ‘worshipper of bombs.’”

The contending conspiracies could baffle even the closest observers. In 1922, Britain’s new Bureau of Political Intelligence reported activity in Malaya “in various guises, whose objects are uncertain but yet give no cause for definite suspicion, and it is difficult to prevent the feeling that more is going on under the surface than we are actually aware of.”

The imperial powers responded with brutal power and increasingly efficient security services. Conspiracy trials in India sent dozens to the gallows or the harsh panopticon prison in the Andaman Islands. Unrest after the first world war saw police and soldiers fire on crowds in Tonkin and Shanghai. In Amritsar, Brigadier Reginald Dyer had his troops open fire on a peaceful gathering of Sikhs, killing at least 379 and wounding 1200. A little-known uprising by Muslims in South Malabar saw 2339 killed by British forces, the largest casualties since 1857.

In the meantime, Japan had lost its aura for the rest of Asia. It had its own bomb-throwing anarchists, dismayed by increasing “Prussianisation” and the power of the zaibatsu industrial oligarchs. And it, too, had succumbed to imperialism. Sun Yat-sen was expelled in 1907, and then used the Penang and Hong Kong underground to overthrow the Qing dynasty in 1911. Japan joined the victorious European powers in 1919 by taking over Germany’s footholds in China.

Now the beacon was Moscow, and rebels like Nguyen Ai Quoc, later known as Ho Chi Minh, began to gather in the Soviet capital. The anarchists turned Marxist. The first Chinese translation of the full Communist Manifesto, from Japanese, came out in August 1920. A few months earlier, the Partai Komunis Indonesia, or PKI, had been the first to take the communist name in Asia, followed in 1921 by the Chinese Communist Party, the latter initially orchestrated by Comintern agent Henk Sneevliet, a Dutch former trade unionist in Java. Borodin, in Canton, oversaw the creation of the Whampoa military academy, with Japanese-trained Chiang Kai-shek as commandant and Zhou Enlai as a political commissar.

But the communists were overconfident. The Indian communist M.N. Roy failed in his effort to use Tashkent as a launching pad for agents, as had Berlin’s wartime India Committee, even though his British opposition, the “Great Gamer” Colonel Frederick Marshman Bailey, had his cover blown: “the band at the most fashionable café would break off and play ‘Tipperary’ when he and his companions entered.”

When Chiang Kai-shek took his new army north against the warlords, leftists including Zhou Enlai made an ill-judged seizure of territory near Wuhan and were forced to a long retreat to the coast. The communists kept their heads up in Shanghai when Chiang took control of its Chinese areas, allowing his Kuomintang and associated triad gangsters to massacre some 4000 members and some 20,000 others. In Java, the PKI launched an uprising in November 1926, with the Dutch waiting to crush it.

By the late 1920s, the revolutionaries were quelled. Mao Zedong took China’s communists on two long marches to mountains in the northwest. The Kuomintang had expelled the Comintern. The imperial powers worried more about global economic depression and rising Japanese power. In India, the British were facing a more sophisticated challenge than bomb-throwers: from minds trained in London’s Inns of Court, following either Gandhi’s non-violence path or, as “constitutionalists,” taking up London’s promise of “dominion” status as a step forward, even while realising India would not be embraced by London to the extent that Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa were.

Australia’s minor mentions in this book show us as willing assistants to imperial power in Asia. Sailors from HMAS Sydney helped Singapore police quell anti-Chinese protests in 1919. When prisoners escaped to Thursday Island from the Boven Digul prison camp in Dutch New Guinea, they were returned.

Eventually, of course, it was the Japanese strike into Southeast Asia that broke the imperial hold, though it imposed new forms of slavery. The British came to agree on Indian independence two years after a Japanese surrender. The French and Dutch tried to return, one power meeting its Dien Bien Phu, the other a growing international ostracism partly stirred up by the PKI prisoners it had transferred to Australia from Boven Digul in 1943.

The main strands of Harper’s story are fairly well known to readers of Asia’s national histories. His achievement is to draw them into a continuous narrative, kept alive by colourful vignettes of characters like the West Sumatran leftist Ibrahim Tan Malaka, summarily executed by an Indonesian army patrol in 1948, the Dutch communist Sneevliet, who perished in a Nazi camp, the women who took active roles in revolution, and the dozens sent to the Gulag or liquidated by Stalin.

It could look like a litany of failure, says Harper, but it helped break the imperial “hypnotism” of Asian populations. By carefully biding their time until opponents were exhausted by war, and by enlisting Soviet support, the revolutionaries did come to power in China, Vietnam and North Korea. Underground Asia is also a reminder of how subversive communities of thought were enabled across borders by the now-primitive communications of a century ago. What are social media and mass migration concealing today?

Later this year, the heirs of Mao Zedong and the small group that held its “first congress” in a Shanghai terrace house on 23 July 1921 will celebrate the Chinese Communist Party’s centenary. In 2018, when some Beijing students tried to apply Marxism and organise factory workers, they were arrested. Long after the revolutionary years, the descendants of Mao and his colleagues now rule a system locked into global capitalism. •

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That experience stood him in good stead in his previous book, The South China Sea: The Struggle for Power in Asia, which had the great merit of taking a hugely complicated subject and, using vivid characterisation, personal testimony and clear thinking, making it comprehensible. It remains one of the very few books to shed light on a theatre of conflict that — perhaps more through its core participants’ design than anything else — can all too easily deteriorate into confusing minutiae.

Hayton’s target in his latest book is far trickier. Anyone who grows familiar with the People’s Republic in the twenty-first century becomes alert, very early on, to how hard it is to define that key word, “China.” One obvious fact is that alongside the People’s Republic there exists the Republic of China, or Taiwan. Already we are talking about two places that use the same word to cover very different realities.

Then there is the puzzle of how the entity that came into existence in 1949, with its radical, revolutionary founding mission, relates to the imperial entities, and their claimed antiquity, that existed in the preceding centuries. Before we’ve looked too far, we’re overwhelmed by the number of different ways this one word is used. Terminological neatness slips rapidly away.

Some modern-day scholars have tried to tackle this problem by defining China in ways that provide scope for very different meanings. American sinologist Lucian Pye went very broad in the 1960s, talking of China as a “civilisational” power, giving it an almost generic, abstract quality unencumbered by a physical country. More recently, Canadian historian Timothy Brook has gone the other way, tracing any coherence to the practical business of government under the dynasties of the past millennium. In his view, they were the ones who constructed the bureaucratic administrative structure that lives on in today’s centralised state.

Unfortunately this huge and complex subject doesn’t lend itself particularly well to Hayton’s favoured narrative technique of focusing on key individuals — Liang Qichao and Kang Youwei in the Qing era, for instance, and Sun Yatsen in the Republican era — and investing their work with great symbolic importance and practical impact. These figures were certainly important, but they existed in a much broader context than is given here, amid developments and movements that Hayton seems unwilling, or unable, to examine closely.

He states early in the book, rightly in my view, that construction of the notion of a Chinese nation during the Qing era (1644–1912) and into the post-1949 period parallels the processes that went into making Italy and Germany, for instance, or for that matter Russia and Turkey. But after tantalising the reader with the thought that China’s path was also exceptional in important ways, he doesn’t show with any real conviction why and how that might be the case. His assumption is that its path to national consciousness has been different and problematic in ways everyone implicitly understands — a point he doesn’t state as cogently as Prasenjit Duara does in Rescuing History from the Nation: Questioning Narratives of Modern China, a key work that he seems not to have drawn on.

Also undeveloped is Hayton’s important assertion that modern China is more the result of foreign ideas, impulses and influences than of its own intellectual traditions. China as the passive target of the outside world is a familiar trope, but one to be wary of.

For Hayton, the external world influenced China in three ways. One was its introduction of the concept of sovereignty, a notion that he argues cut across the fluid, almost boundaryless idea of “All Under Heaven” that prevailed in imperial times. Sovereignty somehow infiltrated into Qing-era China via its 1882 treaty with Korea, which undermined notions of Qing special influence over the Chosen Korean court in ways that privileged the European notion of the autonomous nation-state. The second was the spread of social Darwinism, which Hayton links to the rise of the Han ethnic category and its increasing dominance of national discourse in modern times. And the third was the arrival of the notion that possession of physical space, including maritime territory, is intrinsically linked to what a country is.

Foreign thinking of this kind undoubtedly had an impact among key groups in the nineteenth century and subsequently. But Hayton, at the start and end of the book, makes the overly strong claim that in many ways it played the key role in inventing the entity we see before us today. This denial of agency, and privileging of Europeans comes across as an act of intellectual colonisation.

The potential cultural and intellectual hubris brings with it a sense that neat and straightforward stories were needed to achieve the underlying aim of the book, which is as much about the present as the past. What happened before is presented as being neatly linked to and entwined with the present. Xi Jinping’s country keeps coming into view, coming into focus for a second and then dissipating.

What Hayton really has in his sights is the nationalistic tone and pushiness of contemporary China, and it becomes clear that he is undertaking an act of deconstruction — an attempt to undermine and weaken a Frankenstein’s monster cooked up in the intellectual West but thriving in the alien environment of Asia. If we can undermine the foundations, his premise seems to be, then we have a shot at toppling the thing we see standing in all its problematic glory before us. We created this beast: we can bring it down.

This is not to say that Hayton doesn’t alight on interesting and striking phenomena. For the Han-dominated leadership of modern China, the uncomfortable fact is, as he discusses, that the great Qing era was ruled by Manchus, a different ethnic group. And his treatment of Beijing’s fulminating against “historical nihilism” in accounts that dwell too much on recent years (which could have taken up more space than the few pages allocated here) — as evidenced by recent attacks on foreign scholars who have shown how different the Manchu rulers were and how contested their rule throughout the 260 years plus of their dynasty —indicates something important and meaningful about how the party shapes history. The chapter on maritime territory is also successful and coherent.

But the nagging sensation remains that The Invention of China is guided by a fierce resistance to an inconvenient fact: that “China,” as the Middle Kingdom, has proved to be potent and enduring, and has ultimately transcended the boundaries of the Western-originated notions that provided some of the scaffolding for its original construction. Even if it is an invented notion, and even if Xi and his colleagues stand accused of manipulating and reinforcing it, the simple fact remains that they have chosen something that has deep appeal to the complex population that lives in the country today, and seems to speak to them in ways that go far beyond party propaganda.

How this notion arose and developed is an interesting question, and Hayton’s efforts to analyse it aren’t wasted. But the far more interesting question is why “China” as a spiritual, almost abstract entity — as a place with physical boundaries that also exists powerfully and convincingly as an emotional reality, while often defying neat characterisation — has proved so successful. It has emerged slowly, but overwhelmingly, as history has unfolded. Linked to cultural, historical, ethnographic, social and mythical factors, and despite all the energy invested by so many in wishing or explaining it away, it constitutes one of the most successful symbolic achievements of the modern world. Explain that! •

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The problem was still unresolved when Scott Morrison flew into Tokyo on Tuesday, on his first foreign prime ministerial excursion since the coronavirus lockdown, to meet his Japanese counterpart, Yoshihide Suga. Nonetheless, the two went on to declare their commitment, “in principle,” to a “reciprocal access agreement” governing their armed forces training in or operating from each other’s territory.

The banal title belies the significance, highly symbolic at least, of Japan’s entering the first such agreement to allow foreign troops to operate on its soil in sixty years. That 1960 treaty with the United States allowed American forces to hold on to the scores of military bases they had occupied since Japan’s defeat in 1945.

With this “landmark” defence treaty, said Morrison, “our special strategic partnership became even stronger.” And, indeed, it represents a historic shift from the future presaged in the early postwar era, when Australia helped disarm Japan and then, in 1951, gained its own US protection — partly against a resurgent post-occupation Japan — through the ANZUS treaty.

After the culture shock when Japan replaced Western countries as Australia’s leading trade partner, a significant investor and a major source of tourists, the relationship settled into a cosy familiarity, with thousands of young people using the working holiday visa scheme started by the two countries in 1980, a first for Japan.

But the strategic setting is far from cosy now. China eclipsed Japan as the world’s second-biggest economy some years back, and by some estimates has already taken the top position from the United States. It is contesting US hegemony in the Western Pacific, and has a particular historical bone to pick with Japan over the Senkaku Islands.

Canberra is also alarmed, and wants to join with Japan and other regional powers to push back against Beijing — though not to the extent of severing economic ties, since China is the top trading partner for Australia and most of these other countries. Starting with an agreement signed by John Howard’s government in 2007, Australia has moved steadily towards this week’s deal.

Alongside that push, the Australian Secret Intelligence Service has been helping Japan set up its own MI6-style external espionage service, and the then Japanese defence minister recently floated the idea of Tokyo’s being admitted to the “Five Eyes” intelligence-sharing arrangement between anglophone powers.

The basis of the new cooperation is “shared values,” and this week Suga repeated the mantra that Australia and Japan were mutually committed to democracy and the rule of law, and would “cooperate to realise a free and open Indo-Pacific.” It wasn’t necessary to state that both countries were backed by the power and values of the United States.

But something has changed to bring these members of separate US alliances together in an alliance of their own. “Historically Australian diplomacy has attached primacy to exchanging views with the United States on Asia,” John McCarthy, a former ambassador to Washington and Tokyo, wrote this week. “Since the lack of follow-through on President Obama’s pivot to Asia, and latterly the quixotic behaviour of the Trump regime, it has made equal — and arguably more — sense to talk to the Asians about the United States. Our most important interlocutor is Japan.”

Morrison and Suga would have spent much of their time swapping notes on what incoming US president Joe Biden might do in the region, and what damage Donald Trump might do on his way out. While signals from Biden’s camp showed determination to keep standing up for US interests, they also indicated a “much more structured” policy approach than Trump’s, and readiness to cooperate with China in areas like health, nuclear nonproliferation and climate.

“If this sort of thinking develops into policy, it makes sense to encourage Biden towards receptivity to indications, should they come, of a Chinese desire to wind back tensions,” McCarthy wrote. “Here, Japanese thinking is almost certainly more nuanced than our own. While rigorous on adherence to the security relationship with the United States, there is more two-way flexibility in Japan’s dealings with China.”

Instead of Canberra concentrating on naval power by promoting tighter integration among the “quadrilateral” of the United States, Japan, Australia and India, McCarthy suggested that a deeper and broader engagement by America and Japan in Southeast Asia would be more effective. Getting the Americans to focus on that region might require patience, though, given that the pandemic, economic recovery and restoring North Atlantic alliances will be immediate priorities for Biden.

As well as the China relationship, Biden’s administration will have to formulate a new approach to Korea, following Trump’s theatrics with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un. Under current president Moon Jae-in, South Korea has declared itself uninterested in joining the Quad, especially as a junior to Japan.

The capital punishment question, meanwhile, was left hanging, as it were. Reporters were briefed that it will be tackled on a “case by case” basis — a reminder that not all values are shared in the Quad. Australia is the only member to ban capital punishment, and the other three have, if anything, stepped up their execution rates.

As the Australian National University’s eminent Northeast Asia historian Gavan McCormack points out, Suga has been at the forefront of efforts by Japan’s “Shintoists” to return their country to something like the state the United States, Australia and British India opposed before 1945 by restoring the emperor as the source of sovereignty and centre of a cult of cultural uniqueness.

“What committed Shintoists such as Abe and Suga seemed to find most offensive about the postwar Japanese state was its democratic, citizen-based, anti-militarist qualities and its admission of responsibility for war and crimes of war by the pre-war and wartime state,” writes McCormack. Referring to this week’s agreement, he adds that Suga proceeded under laws that the government’s own constitutional experts unanimously declared to be in violation of the postwar Japanese constitution’s famous Article 9, which restricts military action to self-defence. “The new ‘quasi alliance’ Tokyo–Canberra link seems to commit Australia to a view in support of Japan’s government and in opposition to its civil society on this most sensitive of issues,” says McCormack.

A similarly retrograde trend is seen in India too, where Narendra Modi’s ruling Hindu nationalist party is trying to impose majoritarian religious supremacism, often with sanctioned mob violence. And the last four years has even shaken the trust of many Australians in their country’s “shared values” with America.

If inclined, Morrison would have had much to reflect on during his nine-hour flight back to quarantine at the Lodge, unbroken by an abandoned stop-off in Port Moresby to meet Papua New Guinea’s James Marape, who is defending his leadership against a sudden defection of his ministers and MPs to the opposition — a reminder that domestic politics can trump diplomacy anytime. •

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Mitter is fundamentally interested in the Chinese government’s efforts to integrate the history of China’s war with Japan into the world history of the second world war. As he indicates, success in these efforts would mean a China-centred history in which China replaced the Pacific as the significant theatre in the east and the Chinese rivalled the Americans in importance in combatting the Japanese.

The book is overtly aimed at showing (to quote the subtitle) “how World War II is shaping a new nationalism,” though the nationalist character of China’s project is mainly left implicit. Statist aims seem more obvious. In chapters on formal historical scholarship, TV drama, film and other forms of popular history, sites of historical memory, and historical debates, Mitter shows that remembering the war, and reminding the rest of the world about it, is helping China to burnish its “claim to ownership” of the post-1945 world, “deny Japan any significant role in the region” and “add moral weight to China’s presence in the region and the world.”

China had a long war with Japan: just over eight years counting from the attack on Beijing in July 1937 to the Japanese surrender in September 1945. These days, as Mitter tells us, children in China are taught about a fourteen-year war that begins with the Manchurian crisis of 1931 and the Japanese occupation of northeast China. The September 18th Historical Museum in Shenyang, built to commemorate this starting point, was formally opened in 1999, but Mitter dates the new orthodoxy to a 2015 statement by Xi Jinping. In 2017, the education ministry decreed that the iconic “eight-year war” was henceforth to be called the “fourteen-year war” in all textbooks. Historians in China have greeted this new development with a mixture of irritation and resignation.

Early sign: the September 18th Historical Museum in Shenyang. Antonia Finnane

Mitter’s own view is that China did not regard itself as being at war with Japan during the six years before 1937 (which were admittedly marked by extreme tensions and even outbreaks of armed conflict between China and Japan). His introductory chapter provides an outline history of the war, and it is for the most part the eight-year war. As he goes on to show, research and publishing on war history in recent years have also mainly been concerned with events that took place in those years.

Prior to the 1980s, Chinese research on the war years was largely directed at party history rather than war history. The result, not surprisingly, was a body of work that contrasted a positive interpretation of the Communists with a “very hostile analysis of the record of the Nationalists.” (Even Western historians held a negative view of the wartime Nationalist government.) When China entered a period of relative openness in 1980, discussion about the war widened. In this newly established field of research, moves were made to rehabilitate the Nationalists’ role in the war. As it turned out, they had done most of the fighting.

The treatment of the Nanjing Massacre of 1937 epitomises historiographical change in the 1980s. A much-studied topic in Japanese and English as well as Chinese-language works, the massacre doesn’t dominate Mitter’s book but he frequently returns to it. Research on the massacre carried out at Nanjing University in the 1960s had been suppressed during the Mao years but was finally allowed to see the light of day in the eighties. A museum commemorating the massacre was built in 1985 and redeveloped in stages in subsequent decades.  Partly inspired by the Holocaust Museum in Washington, it is a standing reminder of Japanese wartime atrocities in China. Later, in the early 2000s, a number of documentary and feature films about the massacre were released, some to international acclaim.

In a historical landscape dominated by Beijing, attention to the massacre signified a new acknowledgement of local history, significant not least because Nanjing had been the Nationalist capital and also the capital of a collaborationist regime during the war. A comparable process of recovering local history has been undertaken for the wartime capital of Chongqing, another topic explored by Mitter.

The recovery of these local histories has been accompanied by a fever of interest in the Republican era, causing some concerns in Beijing. An effort to “own” the histories is the obvious strategic response. On 13 December 2014 (although Mitter doesn’t mention this) Xi Jinping presided over a ceremony at the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Museum on the occasion of the first National Day of Mourning. The nation came to a standstill as air sirens sounded. In retrospect (since 2014 is a fairly random year in commemorative terms), that event seems to have laid the groundwork for the great victory parade of 2015, which marked the seventieth anniversary of the Japanese surrender.

Mitter was in Beijing for that parade — an event designed, he writes, “both for domestic political purposes and also to send signals to the outside world about China’s international role.” He uses it to highlight the significance of the second world war in the Chinese government’s repackaging of itself in a changing world order. If the war was remembered primarily as an anti-Japanese war in the 1980s, by 2018 it had become “the main Eastern battlefield for the global war against fascism.” In other words — in history, as at the present time — China was to be perceived as a world player, not merely a regional one.

An important point of reference in the new war history is the 1943 Cairo Conference, at which president Chiang Kai-shek joined Churchill and Roosevelt to discuss postwar arrangements in Asia. In an absorbing discussion of the conference, Mitter shows that the point of the Chinese Communist Party’s present-day (re)writing of war history is to show not only that China fought the “good war” too. Even more importantly, it also participated in postwar planning.  In other words, China was “present at the re-creation” of the postwar world.

The pace of change in Chinese historiography has been rapid, and the politics of the changes rather transparent. Mitter is far from the only observer interested in the relationship between the two. As a call for a greater awareness of history as ideology in China, his book is part of a growing chorus: Zheng Wang’s Never Forget Humiliation (2012), Huaiyin Li’s Reinventing Modern China (2013) and Bill Hayton’s The Invention of China (2020) all riff on similar themes. In similar vein, James Millward, historian of Xinjiang, has called on historians of modern China to be less lazily compliant with the revised standard version that passes muster as history in China.

All of this prompts consideration of what, if anything, students in Australia are learning about Chinese history. Sure enough, guidelines for the Chinese Revolution unit for the Year 12 Victorian Certificate of Education reveal a series of sub-topics that might well be taught from a critical perspective but nonetheless follow a path that could have been laid by the Chinese education ministry.

If teachers are asked any time soon to bone up on the 1943 Cairo Declaration, they could do worse than read Mitter on the subject. He writes a plain, uncluttered history that informs and explains in equal parts. In China’s Good War, he shows that the history of wartime China has been largely shaped by just one of its outcomes: the ascendancy of the Chinese Communist Party and the creation of a state that depends heavily on a certain sort of history for its legitimacy. •

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“If the US doesn’t come to the defence of Taiwan then that will mark the end of the US alliance system in the Asia-Pacific region,” says the Australian National University’s Paul Dibb, who developed the groundbreaking “defence of Australia” doctrine as deputy secretary of the defence department in the 1980s. “Japan and South Korea would be likely to reconsider the option of acquiring their own nuclear weapons.” But if the United States defends Taiwan and Australia refuses to join in, adds Dibb, “that may well threaten the raison d’être for the ANZUS treaty.”

A Chinese victory would end American hegemony in the Western Pacific, breaking the “First Island Chain” from Japan through the Philippines to Indonesia, a series of channels wired by the United States to detect Chinese submarines heading into the Pacific. For Japan, it would bring Chinese power right up against the Okinawa Islands, a tributary state that played off Japan and China until it was annexed by a modernising Japan in the nineteenth century.

A defeat for Beijing, on the other hand, would have unpredictable consequences for China itself, shaking Xi Jinping’s leadership and the Communist Party’s mystique, and creating domestic (as well as global) economic shockwaves — so much so that Beijing could even resort to nuclear weapons to stave off the possibility, a scenario some hawkish Chinese colonels paint in supposedly unofficial writings.

Speculation about the possible scenarios has been feverish in strategic policy circles, where analysts have noted the rising urgency of Xi’s calls for “reunification” of the island, a goal he says can no longer be passed “from generation to generation.” The qualification “peaceful” has been dropped, and Xi has ordered the People’s Liberation Army to be ready for war.

In the United States, meanwhile, next Tuesday’s vote won’t necessarily end the political distraction. As Gideon Rachman wrote last week in the Financial Times, “Beijing’s window of opportunity could look even more tempting after the US has voted on November 3 — particularly if the election result is disputed and the country is plunged into a political and constitutional crisis.”

Despite the risks, it almost seems as if Donald Trump has been trying to provoke Beijing into a military gambit. An “October surprise” of this kind might have provided a pretext to claw back his voting base with a show of arms. The recent official visits to Taiwan by his health secretary and a State Department under-secretary were the highest-level — and most provocative — engagements in decades, and this month Washington announced the sale to Taiwan of US$1.8 billion in precision missiles capable of hitting targets on the mainland side of the Taiwan Strait.

So far, a week out from the US vote, Xi has not risen to that bait. Nor do reports suggest a mobilisation of People’s Liberation Army troops of the size necessary to launch an invasion across the 120 kilometre–wide Taiwan Strait. But that doesn’t preclude other more symbolic shows of force against the small islands held by Taiwan along the mainland coast or in the South China Sea, or naval and air probes to wear down Taipei’s forces.

Is defending Taiwan worth the risks? In the early 1980s — a decade after Richard Nixon met Chinese premier Mao Zedong as part of the American president’s grand play against the Soviet Union, and a few years after Washington moved its embassy from Taipei to Beijing — it didn’t seem so. A moribund dictatorship of the Kuomintang, or Chinese Nationalist Party, ruled the island, having regrouped there in 1949 after defeat by the communists on the mainland. Its secret police and underworld friends murdered dissidents at home and overseas.

Mao’s death in 1976 and the rise to power of the pragmatic Deng Xiaoping had begun opening up China. Hu Yaobang, Zhang Zemin and other younger leaders began experimenting with free enterprise. Neither side of the strait was politically liberal or democratic, but the economies, at least, were converging. And hadn’t Taiwan been part of China since 1683?

But then the Taiwanese president Chiang Ching-Kuo began easing the government’s tight grip. He appointed Taiwan-born, US-educated Lee Teng-hui as his vice-president, allowed the opposition Democratic Progressive Party to form in 1986, and lifted martial law, after thirty-eight years, in 1987.

When Chiang died in 1988, Lee became president and pursued political reforms, kicking the members purporting to represent mainland electorates out of the legislature and filling it with Taiwan-elected members. In 1996, when Lee became the first directly elected president in Chinese history, Beijing fired missiles into the Taiwan Strait to express its disapproval. The Democratic Progressive Party and the Kuomintang have alternated in power since Lee retired in 2000.

Mainland China, by contrast, ended the 1980s with the crushing of hopes of political evolution in Tiananmen Square. Since then, it has pursued its version of mixed capitalism under rigid party control with a resolve that has only intensified since Xi took power at the end of 2012. Where Taiwan’s president is limited to two four-year terms, Xi has removed the Communist Party’s previously unwritten limit of two five-year terms.

Any hope of Beijing’s winning over Taiwan’s people with a “one country, two systems” formula has foundered with the clampdown on Hong Kong over the past two years, along with the frequent threats of last-resort military force if Taiwan tries to formalise its de facto independence. Resistance to this pressure helped the Democratic Progressive Party’s Tsai Ing-wen win a second term as president in January this year with a record margin of the vote. As well as electing its first female leader, Taiwan showed its social liberalisation by legalising same-sex marriage last year, a first in Asia.

Tsai presides over advanced living standards and a semiconductor and computer industry at the commanding heights of technology. Her country is also one of the largest outside investors in the People’s Republic of China, which is also its biggest trading partner.

Taiwanese authorities detected the seriousness of January’s Covid-19 outbreak in Wuhan before Beijing did. Its public health measures limited its own case numbers to 571 and deaths to seven. Well-targeted support for domestic consumption is forecast to yield 1.6 per cent economic growth this year, making it one of only two major economies not to contract because of the pandemic (the other being mainland China).

Taiwan, in short, has transformed itself over the last four decades. And certainly as long as Xi Jinping is in charge in Beijing, it is only going to move further away from identifying as primarily Chinese.

America’s ambiguous attitude to Taiwan is evident in the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979. Strong enough to deter any Chinese military moves — not that Beijing had much power-projection capability back then — it isn’t so strong as to make Taiwan think the United States will let it get away with a move as drastic as declaring independence.

Australia’s attitude is more explicit. Having transferred its embassy to Beijing in 1973, Canberra has long hoped that economic and political reform on the mainland will win over popular opinion in Taiwan and smooth the way for reunification. While it kept open a trade office in Taipei, it has taken the view that the island belonged ultimately to China.

During a period of cross-strait tension in 2004, I asked foreign minister Alexander Downer if the ANZUS treaty would oblige Australia to support US forces in a conflict over Taiwan. The treaty applied only to an attack on one or the other treaty partner, he replied, and was only an obligation to consult. His prime minister, John Howard, side-stepped the same question by declaring the issue “hypothetical.” The curtain of ambiguity came down again.

But some American figures made it clear that Australia would be expected to step up in the event of an armed clash. Much to Howard’s alarm, former deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage frequently said that Australians should be “fighting and dying” alongside Americans. When I spoke to academics close to the US Pacific Command in Hawaii after questioning Downer, they said that the Americans would expect both Japan and Australia to lend support, though in a back-up role more than at the forefront of any conflict.

It will be harder for Canberra to hide in the background if conflict erupts now. Australia’s armed forces have been equipped and configured to integrate with the Americans and operate in high-intensity conflicts. Australian officers are embedded in US command structures in the Pacific. Ships, submarines and aircraft are increasingly networked to US commanders. Our room for manoeuvre is sharply diminished.

The same is true for Japan. Its defence forces are also increasingly networked with the Americans, and its recent “reinterpretation” of its constitution allows Japanese forces to join collective security operations outside its own waters. Taiwan, which Japan took from China in the 1895 Sino-Japanese war and ruled until 1945, also has nostalgic appeal among Japanese conservatives. Japan’s new defence minister, Nobuo Kishi, is close to Taiwan, and attended the recent funeral of the former president Lee Teng-hui along with other MPs from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. Like recently resigned prime minister Shinzo Abe, he is a grandson of wartime armaments minister and postwar prime minister Nobusuke Kishi.

A win by Joe Biden next week would not lessen American appreciation of Taiwan. “We’re a Pacific power, and we’ll stand with friends and allies to advance our shared prosperity, security, and values in the Asia-Pacific region,” Biden wrote last week in World Journal, the largest Chinese-language newspaper in the United States. “That includes deepening our ties with Taiwan,” he added, “a leading democracy, major economy, technology powerhouse — and a shining example of how an open society can effectively contain Covid-19.”

In Australia, only those retired from office are taking forthright positions. Tony Abbott wrote in the Australian in July that it was hard to see Australia standing aside from helping a “fellow liberal democracy.” On the other side, figures such as former Labor foreign minister Bob Carr tend to see Taiwan’s situation in the context of drawing back from Washington. In academia, the strategic “realists” accept as inevitable that China will get the Americans to back off, and don’t dwell on the likely consequences of a Taiwan conquered by the People’s Liberation Army: the purges of “traitors,” the mass “re-education” of millions of others, and the torrent of refugees to Okinawa and the Philippines.

But one analyst who doesn’t accept that inevitability is Paul Dibb. “It is in our interests to stand up for the defence of a successful democracy of twenty-four million people living on an island,” he argued recently. “Does that geography sound familiar to you? If Taiwan is not worth defending, why would anyone come to Australia’s defence?”

While in office, though, our politicians keep behind a thinning smokescreen of ambiguity, as Chinese military capability grows and America tires of foreign wars. •

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China accounts for a whopping 8 per cent of Australia’s GDP based on merchandise exports alone, more than our entire construction sector. It accounts for 40 per cent of our merchandise exports and 28 per cent of our imports. It is our largest source of tourists and international students, and is of growing importance in services trade and investment.

But all is not well. Toxic Australia–China relations threaten to kill the golden goose, dragging down countless Australian businesses and households in the process. Repairing such an important relationship and working through our differences should be parliament’s top priority. But federal MPs seem oblivious to the problem, with the recent attack on Chinese Australians at a Senate hearing just the latest example of a parliament that appears determined to keep the Australia–China relationship weak, if not to weaken it further.

Why would politicians pursue such a strategy? One reason is that there is an increasingly popular belief that Australia could scale back its relationship with China without suffering a substantial economic cost. How? The argument can be summarised in single word: diversification. By shifting its trade and investment away from China towards other countries, Australia could kill two birds with one stone: not only would we be less reliant on a troublesome China, we could do so without the cost to the economy.

It’s an argument that gets repeated almost daily by journalists, commentators and security experts — there’s even a joint parliamentary committee exploring the issue as we speak. But despite the argument’s popularity, it’s not credible.

The first problem is scale. At least sixteen of Australia’s export industries get more demand from China than from the rest of the world combined. To put it another way: for the rest of the world to replace the demand coming from China in those industries, every country in the world that buys from Australia would need to double their Australian imports for us to merely break even from the loss of China.

These aren’t insignificant industries, either. One of them is Australia’s iron ore mining industry. The only way demand from the rest of the world could fill a gap as large as 83 per cent (for iron ore) or 79 per cent (for wool) would be if prices collapsed catastrophically, sending Australian producers into bankruptcy and Australian workers to JobSeeker. For these industries, diversification is synonymous with liquidation.

The argument that the rest of the world could fill the China gap forgets to ask another important question: does the rest of the world want what we are selling?

Korea, Indonesia and Japan are regularly touted as alternatives to China. But does Japan want 800 million tonnes of iron ore each year? It’s easy to ignore those countries’ industrial structures and domestic demands, which drive the comparative advantages that make trade happen. To be a substitute, they need to want what we are selling, and want it at the same scale as China.

Location is similarly ignored. Claims that Australia should focus its economic relationships on intelligence-sharing countries like Canada and Britain ignore not only the fact that these countries generally don’t want what we sell, but they also that they are inconveniently located on the other side of the planet. Much of trade is dictated by geography. Australia’s cost advantages don’t tend to survive 15,000 kilometre journeys.

Even if it was good idea, how would we achieve more diversification? Advocates usually wave their hand and mention signing more trade agreements. But Australia has countless free-trade agreements around the world, particularly in Asia, along with regional and global agreements through the World Trade Organization. On average, most-favoured-nation tariffs have been reduced by more than two-thirds among Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation countries since 1990. There’s always more to be done, but if international demand for Australia’s exports exceeded China’s demand then it would have revealed itself by now.

The final retort in the diversification argument is that Australia is simply making the wrong things. Australia should stop making what China wants and start making what the rest of the world wants. This is a recipe for a much poorer Australia. Australia’s businesses and households made China our major trading partner. They did so because that’s where the money and the demand is for the things they make. Using subsidies, tariffs or any other measure to make Australian businesses and households switch their production in favour of the products preferred by politicians and bureaucrats would be economically catastrophic.

No matter how you cut it, diversifying away from China is far from costless, and suggesting otherwise is dishonest. When so many Australian jobs, businesses and livelihoods are on the line, Australians deserve better. •

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I had made a written submission to the inquiry in July, focusing on Australia’s foreign interference laws and the under-representation of Chinese Australians in policymaking roles. I imagined the hearing would be an opportunity to tell senators more about how the foreign interference debate is affecting diaspora communities, and about how interference can be countered without eroding Australia’s democratic values and putting undue suspicion on Chinese Australians.

My opening statement, which highlighted the toxic environment faced by Chinese Australians who engage in public debates, had been circulated to the senators beforehand. One particular reason why some Chinese Australians are choosing to remain silent, I said, is that they don’t want their loyalty to be questioned constantly in the public arena. “It is not fair that their loyalties are questioned for having a certain political view,” I concluded. “And it is not fair to force them to take positions or political actions, such as critiquing Beijing, when similar requests are not made to other Australians.”

This made senator Eric Abetz’s subsequent behaviour all the more shocking. He proceeded to interrogate each of the three Chinese-Australian witnesses about whether we would “unconditionally condemn the Chinese Communist Party dictatorship.” It later emerged that he only subjected Chinese-Australian witnesses to this treatment during hearings that examined diaspora communities in general.

Let’s be clear, the issue is not about whether or not the Chinese Communist Party should be condemned. In a democracy, we are all free to make up our minds and express our opinions. No one should be forced to condemn anyone or any political organisation simply to be accepted. No Australian, regardless of ethnicity, should be subject to political loyalty tests. We are all Australians first and foremost.

In the few days since that ugly encounter, I have often wondered why I was invited to appear at the hearing in the first place. My views on countering foreign interference and on Chinese-Australian participation in public life appeared less important to the senators than my views about the Chinese Communist Party.

Members of the committee certainly made a clear political point, one that I’m sure many Chinese Australians would have noted. Some are already reluctant to speak out publicly — having already been accused of questionable loyalties, suspected of being an agent of foreign influence and dismissed as brainwashed. It seems we must pass a test of loyalty before our views can be heard or taken seriously, and that test is often whether we are sufficiently critical of Beijing. Other Australians are not asked questions of this kind. They have the luxury of not having to justify their participation in political life by condemning foreign governments.

Before I was subjected to this line of questioning, I had already spoken extensively at the hearing about China’s human rights records, at one point noting that “China is one of the top violators of human rights in the world.” I have also talked about the intimidation and harassment experienced by individuals and their families for criticising the party.

Evidently this was not enough. The cynic in me thinks that what I say or do will only be enough for some people when I accept the role assigned to me. It doesn’t matter that I have served in the Australian public service for eight years across three departments, working on a range of domestic and international policy issues to advance the national interest. It doesn’t matter that I regularly critique the Chinese government over its foreign and domestic policies. It doesn’t matter that I might have endangered my family in China by speaking publicly about these issues, including at the public hearing. For some, it seems anything short of a full-throated public condemnation of Beijing will not satisfy them.

A part of me thinks that in today’s environment, the loyalty of Chinese Australians will be questioned no matter what our achievements or records. And any “acceptability” we do achieve could be taken away and suspicion reinstated if we state the “wrong” political view. No Australians should be subject to this.

If I had still been working in the Australian public service and I had appeared at the public hearing in my official capacity, I could have answered Senator Abetz’s question by saying that “the Australia–China bilateral relationship is based on strong economic and trade complementarities, and covers a wide range of mutual interests. In 2014, the Australian prime minister and Chinese president agreed to describe the relationship as a comprehensive strategic partnership.” But imagine the reaction if I had trotted out the official line at the inquiry last week.

Have the prime minister, his cabinet colleagues and the secretaries of their departments also been asked to unconditionally condemn the Chinese Communist Party dictatorship?

Senator Abetz said that members of the Chinese-Australian community had privately described their reluctance to speak out “because of reprisals within their community and the possibility of family members back home being targeted by the Chinese Communist Party dictatorship,” a point I also made in my opening statement. But that makes the senator’s line of questioning even more disturbing. If he truly cared about the safety of members of the Chinese Australian community, he wouldn’t have persisted in asking them to publicly denounce the Chinese government.

Interestingly, the behaviour at the hearing mirrored what the Chinese Communist Party does in its numerous political campaigns, including, most famously, the Cultural Revolution. During these campaigns, the Chinese people are forced to declare their positions publicly. They are not even afforded the dignity of having the right to stay silent. Forcing everyone to declare a public view is a tool of authoritarianism.

Unfortunately, Senator Abetz is not the only one holding these views. I was also disappointed that the committee chair, Labor senator Kimberley Kitching, didn’t intervene to stop this show trial. In their eagerness to counter threats and challenges posed by Beijing, they appeared to have forgotten what democracy and pluralist society is all about.

“The very serious function of racism is distraction,” the American writer Toni Morrison once said. “It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being.” In a better world, I would not need to write this article. I could have spent my time differently.

Indeed, amid the controversy, issues that actually are important are left unaddressed. How can we counter the threats and challenges posed by China while not erecting barriers that stop Chinese Australians from participating in politics and policy debates? This is what I had hoped to speak about at the public hearing. I especially wanted to warn the committee about the risk that we may, in our effort to counter China, go down an illiberal road and end up becoming more like China.

I don’t see this issue going away any time soon. As bilateral relations continue to deteriorate with no change of direction in sight, Chinese Australians will come under even more pressure and undue suspicion. •

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For some years now Beijing has been telling Canberra that Australia has got the relationship wrong. Australians engaged in business, government, community, media, think tanks and universities have been debating what went awry and what can be done to set things right.

Emerging from this debate, I believe, is a widespread recognition that it is China that has changed and not Australia. Adjusting our policies to meet a changing China does not mean rejecting trade or engagement on other fronts, but it does mean rethinking relations with that country from the bottom up.

This year we have an additional complicating factor, Covid-19, which has thrown travel, business and public trust into disarray. Alan Dupont is not alone in arguing that the virus “has exposed the fragility of just-in-time supply chains and the folly of relying on a single country for critical goods and infrastructure. Some economic separation is unavoidable and necessary.”

For the past four years a further complicating factor has been president Donald Trump. Making sense of the Trump factor in Australia–China relations is no simple matter.

For Australia, the big-picture challenge is this. We are partly dependent on China for our prosperity and largely dependent on the United States for our military security. But we are more dependent than either of them on the norms and institutions of a stable international order for managing our trade, international relations and security. Neither China under Xi Jinping nor the United States under Donald Trump is committed to upholding the old order. Where does this leave Australia?

This question could lead in many directions, but here I propose to answer by isolating the Trump factor in trilateral relations along three separate bilateral vectors — Australia–China relations, US–China relations and Australia–US relations — and to say a little about a changing China under president Xi Jinping, and where we might go from here.

What went wrong, and when: Australia–China relations

Since the last US presidential election, a number of prominent public figures in Australia have maintained that relations with China have been skewed by Canberra’s efforts to appease Donald Trump. In 2017, the year President Trump took office, eminent economist Peter Drysdale and business leader John Denton wrote in the Australian Financial Review that the Australian government and media were “demonising China” out of anxiety about the US alliance under Trump. Around the same time, former NSW premier Bob Carr made similar claims here and in China. “Some silly people have got it into their heads that Australia impresses Washington by beating up on the Chinese,” he told TV audiences in China. Prime minister Malcolm Turnbull was simply “trying to impress Donald Trump’s America.”

China’s state media and diplomats have come to echo these claims by charging that Australia is a “loyal US attack dog” barking away at China, in the colourful language of the Global Times, or “dancing to the tune of a certain country,” in the more cautious phrasing of China’s foreign ministry.

If we want to isolate the Trump factor in Australia–China relations we need to ask whether Australia’s problems with China arise from excessive toadying to President Trump, as some claim, or spring from other sources. This question can be approached historically, by asking when relations turned sour, and forensically, by asking what appears to have curdled the relationship. Let’s take each approach in turn.

In trying to plot a plausible timeline for souring relations between Australia and China it becomes clear that the later people came to the problem, the more recently they tend to identify the trigger, attribute the cause and lay the blame. This year we’ve heard local radio commentators in Melbourne tracing problems in the relationship to foreign minister Marise Payne’s call five months ago for an international inquiry into the origins of the pandemic. Last year we were told it was because Australia banned Huawei from the national 5G build. In 2018 it seemed the problem stemmed from legislation introduced to underpin the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme in 2017.

Back further, in 2015 and 2016, deteriorating relations were attributed to a “China panic” in the media over political donations and other shenanigans involving the NSW Labor right. Before that again, in 2014, the chill in relations was attributed to the Abbott government’s expression of concern over China’s declaration of an Air Defence Identification Zone in the East China Sea. It is worth remembering that in December 2013 Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi publicly humiliated foreign minister Julie Bishop on this issue, declaring that Canberra’s position on China’s declaration jeopardised mutual trust. A senior Australian foreign affairs official candidly characterised Wang Yi’s public comments as the rudest public rebuke of an Australian minister he had encountered in thirty years of foreign service. That was 2013.

Between times, we have been told the chill turned to freeze when Canberra spoke out about Beijing’s rejection of the international arbitral decision on China’s claims over the South China Sea in 2016. Australia’s public position on the claims led to speculation in China that Australia was growing increasingly “anti-China” — even racist — and to a strident call in Chinese media for Beijing to exact “revenge.” Something was clearly amiss in bilateral relations before Trump took office in January 2017.

Clarifying this timeline helps us to identify not just when relations turned sour but also what exactly went wrong and why. In my assessment, formal relations started to deteriorate when China declared the Air Defence Identification Zone in 2013 and then progressively occupied and militarised contested islands in the South China Sea and laid claim to waters within its fabulous “nine-dash line.”

It is worth recalling that Beijing’s attempts to infiltrate Australia’s political system and communities were initially directed to the same purpose, supporting its actions in the South China Sea. It was a news conference on that issue that tripped up senator Sam Dastyari. Similarly, disgraced businessman Huang Xiangmo’s threat to withhold a major political donation to Labor hinged on whether Labor changed its public pitch on China’s conduct in the South China Sea. And some of the earliest public alerts over the party’s clandestine United Front operations in Australian community organisations were raised when community associations linked to China’s consulates began pressuring the prime minister, ministers and local politicians over the same issue, and coordinated street protests in support of China’s occupation of the maritime territories.

Some in the media and in independent community organisations raised their concerns. So did the Australian government. This was enough to trigger accusations from Beijing that Canberra was undermining the relationship. The rest arguably flowed from there — public debates in the media, the foreign interference legislation and Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme, the Huawei decision, China’s threatened trade retaliations, and the precipitous decline in Australian popular trust in China revealed in successive Lowy Institute and Pew Research Center surveys. Events cascaded one onto the other, flowing from China’s initial territorial intrusions and its efforts to interfere in Australian domestic politics and silence community and government concern.

From Australia’s perspective, this was textbook independent foreign policy. Most of the apparent triggers for deteriorating relations over the past six or seven years have involved Australian governments acting without external prompting in defence of international order, social cohesion and national sovereignty. Leaving the Covid-19 pandemic aside — an important outlier — each of these initiatives was generated in Australia, by Australians, to deal with a domestic or regional issue affecting Australia’s regional position, domestic security or social cohesion.

Foreign affairs and trade department secretary Frances Adamson explains it this way: “We’ve seen China seeking to assert itself in this region, in the Indo-Pacific and globally, in ways that suit its interests but don’t suit the interests of countries like Australia. We want a peaceful, stable, prosperous region… but when influence builds into interference, that is something we don’t want to see, our government won’t tolerate [it] and I think most Australians are broadly supportive of that.”

In sum, the relationship was heading into troubled waters years before Donald Trump took office because Canberra’s defence of Australian interests and sovereignty in response to Beijing’s assertive behaviour was not welcomed in Beijing.

A proliferation of flashpoints: US–China relations

During President Trump’s term, relations between China and the United States have moved from great-power competition to great-power rivalry and possibly confrontation. This move possibly reflects a long-term shift in the balance of power, but it undoubtedly reflects a new consensus in Washington — reaching well beyond the Trump White House to business, think tanks, universities and media — that the days of partnership and engagement with China are over. In the words of senior Obama administration official Kurt Campbell and co-author Jake Sullivan, “While Washington remains bitterly divided on most issues, there is a growing consensus that the era of engagement with China has come to an unceremonious close. The debate now is over what comes next.”

Significant differences are emerging in this debate. Team Trump is calling for strategic competition. On 20 May, President Trump signed a new document on China policy, “United States Strategic Approach to the People’s Republic of China,” signalling “all-out strategic competition.”

In July, Trump’s executive team spelled out what this means in a series of coordinated speeches on relations with China. These involved major statements by secretary of state Mike Pompeo, attorney-general Bill Barr, defence secretary Mark Esper, FBI director Christopher Wray and national security adviser Robert O’Brien. Following this “full-court press,” China and the world were left in little doubt that the Trump administration regarded China as a strategic and ideological rival.

On the Democratic side we hear a different line of argument emerging, less ideological and more finely attuned to discrete aspects of US–China relations. Samantha Power, a Security Council member in the first Obama administration, told a Lowy Institute seminar in August that a Biden administration could pursue China policy on a number of distinct tracks, with confrontation on one track (over intellectual property, cyber security, the South China Sea and so on), competition on another (around competing national economic interests and leadership of international organisations), and cooperation on a third (on climate change, global health and nuclear non-proliferation). This approach, combining elements of competition and cooperation, marks an emerging consensus on the Democratic side of politics over the past year.

Beyond Washington debating circles, the real-world US–China relationship is not improving. In the judgement of American political scientist Jude Blanchette, the deterioration in US–China relations is more than incremental and amounts to a new paradigm “defined by the proliferation of flashpoints, the downward spiral of hostility, the rise in zero-sum thinking, and the breakdown of mediating and mitigating institutions.”

Managed differences: Australia–US relations

Many Australians appear to have been surprised on reading foreign minister Marise Payne’s blunt remarks, following the AUSMIN bilateral meeting in Washington in July this year, clearly distancing Australia from the United States on relations with China. Minister Payne declined to endorse Secretary Pompeo’s frankly ideological position and distinguished clearly between Australian and US interests and perspectives on China. “The Secretary’s speeches are his own,” she said. “Australia’s positions are our own.” We do share values, she continued, “but most importantly from our perspective, we make our own decisions, our own judgements in the Australian national interest and about upholding our security, our prosperity, and our values… [W]e deal with China in the same way.”

There should have been little cause for surprise. Canberra has been distancing itself from Washington on a range of issues over the term of the Trump presidency. Canberra’s differences with Washington are not just about China policy. They arise from the systemic problem of Australia’s standing as a middle power dependent on international trade and predictable rules. Middle powers fear disruption, and Donald Trump is a disrupter.

Maintaining a rules-based order is recognised as one of the three foreign policy imperatives that all governments assume when they take responsibility for Australia’s international relations. In Allan Gyngell’s account, these are sustaining and developing an international, rules-based order; allying with a strong global partner; and finding a constructive place in the neighbourhood.

With the arrival of Trump the Disrupter, Australia finds itself thrown into a particle accelerator in which these three fundamental principles are colliding with each other — here maintaining a close alliance partnership, there pushing back against disruption to global trade and international organisations, and, back in the neighbourhood, trying to find a welcoming place in a region in which China and America are competing fiercely for influence. Australia is not alone in this tangle. Singaporean prime minister Lee Hsien Loong put the problem succinctly: “The troubled US–Chinese relationship raises profound questions about Asia’s future and the shape of the emerging international order.”

For President Trump the big game is to Make America Great Again. In practice this has come to involve open hostility towards international organisations (the World Health Organization and the World Trade Organization most obviously), indifference towards multilateral frameworks for trade or conflict resolution (including the Trans Pacific Partnership), a disheartening lack of commitment to longstanding alliance partners (including Japan and South Korea in our region and NATO generally), and a propensity to impose tariffs and other arbitrary measures without regard to existing understandings or long-established partnerships.

The Australian government has made its differences with the United States clear on each of these issues. Marise Payne was doing no more than that.

Alliance politics is another matter again. To deal with President Trump, Australian officials have developed a diplomacy suited to his personal style, tailored to avoid an open clash with a petulant president without giving too much away. This is what Australian editor-at-large Paul Kelly calls the new diplomacy that nobody really wants to talk about. It involves pulling all available levers to secure the support of the Trump administration, as an alliance partner, while distancing Canberra from Washington on important issues over which the two sides disagree.

In an interview on his retirement, Australia’s ambassador in Washington, Joe Hockey, offered a few insights into how this new diplomacy works. First, he said, government-to-government relations need to be personalised. Forget about values, principles and institutions. To get through to the president, call Greg Norman.

A second feature of the new diplomacy has been a consistent focus on the two countries’ longstanding military ties with a view to distinguishing Australia from the rest of the pack. The embassy devised a public relations campaign around the theme “100 Years of Mateship” that underscored Australia’s record in military combat alongside US forces in every major war since the Battle of Hamel a century earlier. “The more we spoke with the president and the White House,” Hockey told his interviewer, “the more they realised that Australia was different.”

The new bilateral diplomacy carries a number of risks, including the risk of focusing exclusively on alliance politics when relations are far broader than that. If defence agreements are not supported by public respect in Australia for the United States, its leadership and its people, they will turn out to be worth very little.

Where to from here?

During Donald Trump’s term as president Australia has managed to retain close defence and security ties with the United States while distancing itself from Washington on important issues ranging from multilateral trade to climate change and the role of the WTO, the WHO and other international institutions. This balancing act has involved highlighting the similarities that bind us in order to press home the many policy differences that separate us. Marise Payne made this clear at the 2020 AUSMIN meeting when she said we should be able to articulate “in a mature and sensible way” the points on which we disagree in order to “advance our interests and our values.”

Australia’s actions tend to bring to the surface the differences that divide us from China and then leave us scrambling to find points of similarity. The differences are not trivial and go beyond policy gulfs to values, systems of government, understandings of the rule of law, and cultural differences such as Beijing’s extraordinary sensitivity to public criticism of its foreign and security policies. While the similarities are less obvious, we do have many interests in common and we could, at times, have articulated our differences in a more sensitive way. But relations are unlikely to improve so long as Beijing fails to acknowledge that the source of disagreements lies not in Canberra’s choice of words but in China’s policies of maritime territorial expansion and its covert interference in Australian domestic affairs.

Despite substantial policy differences between Australia and the United States, and despite Australia’s making these differences clear, relations with China appear to be deteriorating at roughly the same pace as US–China relations. Perhaps encouraged by distinguished public figures in Australia who attribute everything to Canberra’s determination to please Trump, authorities in China interpret Australian government conduct as a pale reflection of US government intentions. This is a misunderstanding.

Australian governments do not see Australia as engaged in strategic competition with China. There was a time, before Xi Jinping, when both sides even imagined there was scope for strategic alignment. As recently as 2014, Australia and China agreed to move the relationship forward towards a “comprehensive strategic partnership” that would include an annual leaders’ meeting between the prime minister and the Chinese premier. Existing dialogues were brought together under the new comprehensive strategic partnership.

This was on the cusp of Xi Jinping’s announcing the arrival of his “New Era of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics.” He has since shown what his vision for the New Era holds for China and the world, and Australian governments and communities want little part of it. Ambitious bilateral programs designed to bring the two together in an earlier era are not suited to the present one. In light of these changes in China, former foreign affairs and trade department head Peter Varghese now advises Australia to “quietly abandon the notion that we can have a comprehensive strategic partnership with China for as long as it remains a one-party authoritarian state.”

Still, we would do well to preserve some of those earlier dialogues that were brought under the bilateral umbrella, including dialogues on trade, international security, law enforcement, development cooperation, and climate change. As flashpoints in the relationship proliferate, the two countries will need to maintain a number of mediating talks and institutions to sustain a mutually beneficial relationship.

Whether China’s authorities recognise the value of these high-level dialogues is difficult to gauge. Seen from Beijing, Australia has been a constant irritant since Xi Jinping took office and, judging on past experience, Canberra is likely to continue pushing back on matters affecting its values and interests. Irritating as this may be for Beijing, Australia has never said no to building a mutually beneficial relationship based on a realistic understanding of common interests and differences. Australia is not proposing to follow Trump’s America and engage in all-round strategic competition.

Where does this leave Australia? Early in 2019 Macquarie University’s Bates Gill put forward a new approach to the relationship that he termed “bounded engagement.” This approach assumes that the challenges China presents to Australia’s values and interests are real and pressing, but concedes that Australia has every reason to continue engaging closely with China on many fronts. Almost all areas of Australia–China interaction would become more constrained but not all would be constrained to the same degree.

In September last year a researcher at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Charlie Lyons Jones, put forward a similar model for broader application among liberal democracies. He suggested they should approach China not in cold war fashion — as a stark adversary — nor in the style of the past three decades — as a strategic partner in security and development — but rather through a combination of approaches (as adversary, as competitor and as partner) in discrete areas of engagement.

This idea has since gained currency in North America. China specialist Paul Evans, a foremost proponent of Canada’s earlier engagement strategy, wrote in the ANU’s East Asia Forum in July this year that Canada’s engagement with China is now teetering to the point of toppling. Ottawa needs “to come forward with an approach that frames Xi Jinping’s China as some combination of adversary, rival, competitor and partner.” As noted earlier, similar ideas have taken hold this year in Democratic Party circles in the United States. If this emerges as a growing liberal consensus for managing relations with an increasingly authoritarian China, I would like to think that Australian analysts were among the first to come up with the idea — and with Australia in mind rather than Ottawa or Washington. •

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In diplomacy, the regime has adopted a “wolf warrior” style, responding aggressively to any hint of criticism by threatening to disrupt international trade. Xi’s much-touted Belt and Road Initiative has funded the worst kinds of boondoggles in developing countries, leaving them heavily indebted for worthless projects.

Climate policy has been going much the same way. Having previously tried to stop the proliferation of coal-fired power stations — most of them developed by crony-capitalist provincial governments — the central government took off the brakes last year. China’s pandemic recovery policies, like Australia’s, have been entirely backward-looking, trying to juice up construction and heavy infrastructure projects.

In these circumstances, what should we make of Xi Jinping’s new pledge that China will be carbon neutral by 2060? The European Union has already committed to a 2050 target, and most member nations have made individual commitments consistent with that goal. If China delivers on its latest commitment and a Biden administration puts the United States on a path to net zero emissions, the prospects for stabilising the global climate will be transformed.

It may not be sufficient to hold warming below 2°C, but it should be enough to shift the world from its current catastrophic path towards 3°C or 4°C.

China’s announcement isn’t entirely about climate. It reflects two broader issues: a recognition in Beijing that Xi has bitten off more than he can chew in terms of international disputes, and an acknowledgement that backsliding on climate creates enemies everywhere. Making sure provincial governments reduce the construction of coal-fired power stations won’t be easy, but it’s probably the least-cost way of generating international goodwill. Xi is surely aware that coal-fired power is uneconomic and hugely destructive in terms of human health, even without considering the implications for the climate.

The move also anticipates the likely change of administration in the United States. While Joe Biden would wind back Trump’s attacks on trade in general, he has indicated he will apply a carbon-adjustment fee to countries that are failing to meet their climate and environmental obligations. While this policy is applicable to any country without a plan to decarbonise, it is clearly directed at China.

What does this mean for Australia? National commitments at the Paris climate talks included not only emissions targets for 2030 but also policies to hold warming well below 2°C beyond that date. Instead, the Australian government has treated its unambitious 2030 target — to be achieved (if at all) using statistical trickery — as its only goal, followed by emissions growth stretching indefinitely into the future.

Dragging the chain on our Paris commitments already looks like costing us a trade deal with the European Union, which is demanding a commitment to decarbonisation. Yet pro-coal commentators here seem to imagine that simply labelling a commitment to save the planet as “protectionism” will make the problem go away.

More than any other government in the world (with the exception of Benjamin Netanyahu’s in Israel), the Morrison government has bet its future, and ours, on the belief that Trump will score another win against the odds, just as Morrison did last year.

Taking the lead on investigating Chinese responsibility for the Covid-19 pandemic curried favour with Trump and earned fresh hostility from the Chinese government. But it didn’t win any friends on the Democratic side of US politics, where the “Chinese virus” is correctly seen as an excuse for Trump’s mismanagement. More generally, national leaders in the developed world correctly see Morrison as one of Trump’s few allies.

In a month’s time, we could find ourselves internationally friendless to an extent that we have never before experienced, still at loggerheads with China and tied to a Trump administration that seems likely to be not just defeated but also disgraced.

Having used the prospect of growing Chinese demand for coal as an excuse for continuing to mine, we have been left in the lurch by Xi Jinping. By getting in early with a commitment to decarbonisation, Xi shows that he has read the warning signs. It’s time for Scott Morrison to exhibit his well-known pragmatism and follow suit. •

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Tibet’s turmoil attracted global attention before the 2008 Olympics, and Xinjiang captured wide coverage when its own protests erupted a year later. But an outbreak of dissent in Inner Mongolia in 2011, sparked by the local police’s treatment of a herdsman’s death, attracted much less coverage. Small-scale as it was, the flare-up was a reminder that the region had many of the underlying problems of its better-known counterparts — grievances over local ethnic minority rights, tensions with the Han majority, and anger at iniquities reaching further back into history.

Cities I remembered as bereft of modern buildings, their streets potholed and their ancient residential areas crumbling, had become gleaming monuments to modernity.

Inner Mongolia was, after all, one of the places that suffered bitterly in the Cultural Revolution. During the period of “rectification” in the early 1980s, the central government acknowledged that 22,000 people had died in the region during the upheaval of 1966–76 — almost certainly a huge underestimate, but a rare admission by a regime that seldom admits culpability.

Student protests broke out in 1981, in 1986 and again in June 1989, in the latter case associated with the student unrest in Beijing. In 1995 a small group agitating for greater autonomy and more cultural rights was taken in by the police. One of them, Hada, who had run a bookshop in a town I visited when I first arrived, was to spend the next decade and a half in jail. Each of these incidents was a reminder that bad feelings persisted despite the central government’s investments in the region.

But the most striking thing about Inner Mongolia is the economic boom it has experienced over the past two decades. Visiting again around 2006, I remember a local official telling me that Hohhot’s economy had grown by 36 per cent in a single year — the highest rate in China. Fuelling this growth was coal, which the region supplied to the great metropolis of Beijing and the rest of coastal China. Local businesspeople in this sector became multimillionaires almost overnight.

The physical changes were remarkable. Cities I remembered as bereft of modern buildings, their streets potholed and their ancient residential areas crumbling, had become gleaming monuments to modernity. Hohhot’s Old City had become that most typical of recent Chinese phenomena — a sort of “new” old. On another visit, around 2015, I was able to stay in the plush Shangri-La Hotel and gaze around, slightly disorientated, at a landscape I could barely recognise.

A lot of the wealth has trickled out to the grasslands, for sure. But the changes there have not been so dramatic or deep.

These days, Mongolians constitute around 15 to 20 per cent of the autonomous region’s population. They have been a minority since the late Qing era, which ended in 1912, their numbers diluted by the widespread Han migration into the area that accelerated after the communist takeover in 1949.

Many of the older people I knew in Hohhot in the 1990s had moved there as part of the Mao-era resettlement campaign. And while plenty of ethnic Mongolians still lived there, those who spoke the language and lived what would be regarded as a culturally Mongolian lifestyle were out in villages on the massive grasslands that stretched in all directions around the central city. For many of them, tradition was more than just an add-on.

In those areas, you needed at least a smattering of Mongolian language to get by. People spoke Chinese, but often with a heavy accent. Younger Mongolians were more likely to be bilingual, but even the most sinified of them regarded the language of their own group as carrying huge symbolic importance.

I can understand why language is now even more significant. The march of standardisation means that signage, media and almost everything else is in Mandarin Chinese using Chinese characters. In this context, using at least some of the old-style Mongolian script carries particular importance.

Even in independent Mongolia across the norther border, the years of Soviet Union influence led to the wide adoption of Cyrillic script. Inner Mongolians have often been berated by their northern neighbours for having become wholly Chinese, but at least they could point to the fact that they had maintained the traditional written language.

But a Mongolian living in an urban area today needs to work harder than ever to maintain any kind of language ability that isn’t Chinese. And once that is taken out of the picture, in terms of lifestyle, identity and cultural self-expression, what is left? As one scholar noted in the early 2000s, the only way individuals could declare their Mongolian ethnicity was to dress in traditional clothes and engage in what passed as traditional dances. These seemed pallid ways of expressing one’s intimate sense of self-identity.

These developments help explain the angry backlash against Beijing’s recent demand that education take place in standard Mandarin — rather than Mongolian, as previously permitted — with new, centrally imposed textbooks in key subjects. Since late August, large numbers of Mongolians affected by the demand have been protesting and many students have stopped going to school. For Inner Mongolia, this is revolutionary.

No doubt the central government’s stance rests on the argument that students without a decent understanding of the national language won’t be able to get into university or find a good job. After all, similar changes have been imposed across the country, regardless of local dialect or even, in some places, a completely different language. The Xi era is one of standardising, creating predictability, making everything fit into one template. The national government can argue that it is simply making sure that no one is left out of the opportunities opened up by speaking the national lingua franca.

Nor is it likely that Beijing will back down. The government has shown itself to be unyielding in the face of far fiercer pushback, as evidenced by its inflexible handling of Hong Kong and its massive repression in Xinjiang. Even so, Inner Mongolia is worth paying attention to. It shows the perils of going too far with a dogmatic and overly centralising policy.

Because of the wealth that has swished through the area, Inner Mongolia has seemed largely unproblematic in recent years, but its modern history is not a reassuring one. The turbulence that occurred there during the Cultural Revolution was built on deep, historical divisions, many of them along ethnic lines, exacerbated by Beijing’s antagonising policies. Today, ominously, it looks like history is being repeated. At some point, Beijing must begin to wonder whether, by fuelling simmering resentments and anger on its norther border, its western borders and now in Hong Kong, it is creating a rod for its own back.

Under Xi Jinping, China certainly seems to be willing to tell other countries that they can either accept it or leave it alone. But that’s not a message that’s likely to be accepted by the people who live there. And fighting against not just external opponents but also those inside should be unsettling even for a leader like Xi.

Beijing needs to rethink what it is doing in Inner Mongolia. But the question now is not whether it will, but whether it can. And that, on its own, is worrying. •

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This calculated shift leverages Victoria’s apparent success in curbing a Covid-19 upsurge that had peaked on 7 August at nearly 7000 active cases. That experience has been an object lesson in the dynamics of this epidemic — undetected transmissions getting out of hand within days and, once established, requiring massively curtailed movement and the tracking down of everyone to whom the virus has spread.

Other states are crossing their fingers they won’t experience anything on that scale. But avoiding outbreaks altogether is almost certainly a vain hope. Resurgent epidemics across Europe and in South Korea, and even the reappearance of cases in New Zealand after 102 “Covid-free” days, show the virus will relentlessly exploit uninfected populations. With 23.5 million reported cases globally and the real number of infections running at ten times that, attempts at elimination are futile. SARS-CoV-2 has established itself as a permanent part of the human condition.

Still an open question, though, is how much Covid-19 will contribute to the total human burden of disease, and here there is everything to play for. Hence the prime minister’s pivot to vaccine optimism.

Back in March and April, prognostications about a Covid-19 vaccine were cautious. No one wanted to repeat the mistake made with AIDS, for which a vaccine was promised “within months” back in 1984. Even today, despite a massive scientific effort, that vaccine remains elusive. But the mood around a Covid-19 vaccine began to change midyear, and by the end of July was buoyantly optimistic. At least four of the leading candidates had by then announced results of phase I and II trials that showed safe and well-tolerated products producing strong immune reactions.

But with success on the horizon, things began to get murky. First came a rush to lock in vaccine pre-orders, riding roughshod over the World Health Organization’s attempt to secure agreement on equitable and orderly distribution, as part of a plan to cooperatively accelerate and scale up every step from discovery to access. Leading the scramble for primacy was the United States, forcing other countries to place orders or establish special relationships with vaccine developers before future supplies were fully committed.

Vaccine nationalism also infected the race for vaccine discovery, with the tone again set by the United States. When he launched the US vaccine development effort Operation Warp Speed in May, Donald Trump spent more time talking up the American military than he did vaccines. It may have escaped attention that Operation Warp Speed is jointly run by the US Department of Health and the Department of Defense, with army general Gustave Perna as its chief operating officer. US vaccine partnerships are a mirror of its military stance: having failed back in March to buy up German vaccine company CureVac and move it to the United States, the Americans are having to spend a lot of money securing alliances with European and British vaccine developers.

Meanwhile, in a reversion to cold war tropes, Russia has named its Covid-19 vaccine Sputnik V. But an even greater risk to global cooperation in this new cold war is Trump’s refusal to contemplate any cooperation with Chinese vaccine development, a stance he may soon come to rue. At least three of the Chinese candidates are among the most advanced.

The biggest threat now to Covid-19 vaccine development is that the science of proving vaccine effectiveness will be subordinated to politico-military considerations.

On Sunday, on the eve of the Republican National Convention, Trump announced emergency-use authorisation of blood plasma as a Covid-19 treatment. Given that large-scale trials were already under way, this move smacked of desperation. Australia’s CSL boss Paul Perreault participated in a White House roundtable on using plasma back in July, and upwards of 30,000 patients are already being treated under the trials, which is probably around the maximum capacity for the therapy. Trump’s announcement offered no material advantage, though something will be lost if the plasma treatment is prescribed as standard care rather than as part of a carefully evaluated trial.

The emergency-use authorisation is itself a product of a militarisation of the health response. Introduced by the Project BioShield Act of 2004, it goes beyond the US Food and Drug Administration’s earlier processes for speedy authorisation of drugs under investigation, which had been much accelerated under pressure from AIDS activists at the end of the 1980s.

Amid the concerns about biological warfare during the “war on terror,” the United States felt the need for a drug or vaccine authorisation process more attuned to the scale of an attack. The current procedure was first used in 2005 after notorious security hawk Paul Wolfowitz, then deputy defense secretary, sought authority to deploy an anthrax vaccine against the imminent threat of an anthrax attack. Trump’s use of the authorisation for blood plasma is clearly a rehearsal for its use to authorise a Covid-19 vaccine on the eve of the US election.

When McKinsey and Company reviewed the increasingly optimistic vaccine landscape at the end of July, it noted that six vaccine developers had already signalled their intention to use some form of emergency authorisation for their products towards the end of 2020. The earliest candidate was from Oxford–AstraZeneca, signalling a September–October time frame for emergency use, followed by Pfizer–BioNTech in October, Moderna in the last quarter of 2020, and two of the candidates from Chinese developer Sinopharm in December.

The orthodox account of vaccine or drug development is that, having established safety and proof-of-concept efficacy in phases I and II, the effectiveness of the treatment is demonstrated in a phase I trial. Treatments are meant to move to regulatory approval only if they pass the effectiveness threshold in phase III.

The national and geopolitical pressures on a Covid-19 vaccine are blurring these lines. To shorten the time in which a vaccine can prove its effectiveness, the numbers enrolled in some of the phase III trials have already become massive — 60,000 for a Johnson & Johnson trial beginning in September, 30,000 each for Moderna’s and Pfizer’s.

Russia seems to have approved use of the vaccine developed by the Gamaleya Institute in advance of formal phase III trials, which are only just beginning. Meanwhile, China’s National Health Commission reported on 24 August that Covid-19 vaccines developed by Chinese companies had been authorised for emergency use back in July.

Last week’s vaccine optimism from Scott Morrison was accompanied by an avuncular promise of Australian largesse to extend vaccine access to the “Pacific family.” The PM may find that announcement is too little too late, given that three of the six vaccines already in phase III trials are from Australia’s rival in the Pacific, China, with two more, equally promising, Chinese products following closely behind.

As the vaccine scramble intensifies, so too will the challenge of sorting good data from bad. A pandemic vaccine ought to be the ultimate global public good, but when a powerful state not only uses its purchasing power to try to corner the market but also compromises the integrity of the scientific discovery process in the service of a political timetable, it turns the vaccine into a global public bad.

It may not be too late to rescue good science. Vaccine candidates need to be held to transparent and rigorously applied standards of proof against established criteria. A massive effort will be needed to hold to this core of truth while the inevitable emergency authorisations, and commercial and geopolitical brand-positioning are swirling around. Ultimately, though, this is the only strategy that will stand the test of time.

Australia’s accomplishment in keeping the number of Covid-19 infections low will give it the luxury of rolling out vaccination carefully. Priorities can be set according to need, and emerging hotspots dealt with by combining targeted vaccination with existing techniques of testing, contact tracing and isolation.

Importantly, flicking the switch to hope should not end the national conversations that Covid-19 has started. We have had a glimpse of what a better system of income support might look like, free of the impulse to punish the unemployed so they accept their status as a reserve army of labour. The shortcomings of a care economy grounded in underpayment (it was, after all, women’s work) have been laid bare and can now perhaps be repaired. These are opportunities to build back better, not snap back to worse. •

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In a recent article, Zeihan contends that China’s recent “spasming belligerency” — its “torching” of its diplomatic relationships — is a sign “not of confidence and strength” but rather of “insecurity and weakness”; that its leadership knows “full well” that China’s growth model is “unsustainable” and “past its use-by date”; and that “everyone in the top ranks of the Chinese Communist Party” knows that “the day is coming” when “China’s entire economic structure and strategic position crumbles.”

Zeihan is hardly the first person to say these sorts of things — William Overholt made similar points in Inside Story earlier this year — and I suspect he won’t be the last person to be wrong about them, at least in the near term.

That’s not to say that his article doesn’t draw on undisputable facts. There’s no denying that China has been extraordinarily profligate in its use of capital, and has become progressively more so over the last two decades. Paul Krugman famously made the same point in 1994 about the smaller East Asian economies, which were growing rapidly a few years before the Asian financial crisis; his article, “The Myth of Asia’s Miracle,” was wrong in some important respects but is still worth a read if you ask yourself whether what he said about the “Asian tigers” back then applies to China today.

Nor is there any denying that China has an enormous amount of debt (relative to its GDP), especially for what is still in many ways a developing economy.

Source: Bank for International Settlements, Credit to the Non-Financial Sector, June 2020.

But — and this is an important “but” — most of that debt is owed by state-owned enterprises to state-owned banks, and can be thought of as two entries on opposing sides of the same balance sheet, that of the People’s Republic of China. If a lot of that debt were to turn bad, which is by no means impossible, then the ensuing crisis could be solved by writing it off and then recapitalising the state-owned banks by drawing down on the foreign exchange reserves of the People’s Bank of China, the country’s central bank.

In fact, China has done this twice before, in the late 1990s as part of the state-owned enterprise reforms pushed through by then-premier Zhu Rongji, and again between 2003 and 2005, when the big four state-owned banks were cleaned up ahead of their (very) partial privatisation and listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The banks’ bad assets were transferred into an entity called Central Huijin, which became the nucleus of China’s sovereign wealth fund, the CIC.

What we don’t know is whether the People’s Bank’s foreign exchange reserves would be sufficient for what could be a much larger task this time round. The People’s Bank lost a quarter of its reserves (almost US$1 trillion) defending China’s currency, the renminbi, between June 2014 and December 2016 — after which it imposed the very strict controls on capital outflows that have remained in force ever since then. These controls are more easily maintained by an authoritarian regime that knows how to deploy modern technology for surveillance purposes than by other governments, such as Argentina’s, that have also tried to use them.

Since the end of 2016, the ubiquitous “Chinese authorities,” as they’re always referred to by Western economists, have been acutely aware of the risks to financial stability posed by the growth of “shadow banks” and their opaque “wealth management products.” They also know that Chinese banks have become more dependent on wholesale funding and less on deposits by account-holders for the liabilities side of their balance sheets — just as US and European banks did, to a much greater extent, in the years leading up to the global financial crisis.

That’s partly why China’s growth rate has been steadily slowing over the course of the past decade, from an average of 11.3 per cent in the five years to 2009, to 8.5 per cent in the five years to 2014 and 6.6 per cent in the five years to 2019 (see Chart 2). Another important reason, of course, is that China’s working-age population peaked in 2014 and has since shrunk by almost 1.5 per cent.

Source: China National Bureau of Statistics.

It also helps explain why the People’s Bank hasn’t done nearly as much monetary stimulus as it did during and after the global financial crisis or in 2015–16. Credit growth has not accelerated significantly in recent months (Chart 3), and nor has there been a surge in property development activity or property prices, as there would have been if the People’s Bank had unleashed another spurt of credit growth (Chart 4).

Source: People’s Bank of China, Depository Corporations Survey, June 1990.

Sources: China National Bureau of Statistics; China Index Academy.

The Chinese authorities do seem to be doing more fiscal stimulus than they did twelve years ago, although it is taking a very different form from the construction-intensive programs that they implemented then.

As economist Jonathan Anderson has shown, the most worrying potential development — albeit not during the next year or so — is the one depicted in Chart 5, which shows a marked divergence between the level of foreign exchange reserves and the rate of growth in domestic credit since the mini-crisis of 2015–16.

Note: Domestic credit converted from yuan to US dollars using month-average market exchange rates. Sources: People’s Bank of China; Jonathan Anderson (2020); author’s calculations.

For a fixed exchange rate system to be sustainable, foreign reserves and domestic credit ordinarily need to maintain a fairly close and stable relationship, which they do under a “currency board” system like the one Hong Kong has had since 1984 (or that the Baltic states had before joining the euro, or that Bulgaria still has). In such a system the monetary authority is explicitly precluded from issuing currency unless it is backed by foreign reserves (or, in Hong Kong’s case, foreign reserves plus the Land Fund).

That’s why the collapse of fixed exchange rate regimes (such as Thailand’s in 1997, or Argentina’s in 2001) is usually precipitated by a surge in capital outflows, and a sharp decline in foreign reserves.

China’s foreign exchange regime is no longer completely fixed, of course; it is carefully managed around a peg to a trade-weighted index (as the Australian dollar was between 1976 and the currency float in 1983). But the People’s Bank’s capacity to maintain that peg is dependent on the credibility of its implicit promise to buy or sell renminbi in whatever quantity is required to keep the currency close to the peg.

Obviously it can sell the renminbi in whatever quantities it likes. The People’s Bank is its ultimate source, and that means it can always prevent the currency from appreciating too much (as can any country prepared to accept the potentially inflationary consequences of a sudden large increase in the domestic money supply).

But the Chinese don’t own or operate a US dollar factory, so they can only prevent a big depreciation (if one were to be in the offing) for as long as they have sufficient foreign reserves to satisfy everyone who wants to convert renminbi into dollars (or some other foreign currency). That’s why capital controls are so important at the moment: because they limit the demand for foreign currencies, meaning that the level of foreign reserves is more than adequate, and widely regarded as such.

If some occurrence caused a tsunami of capital outflows and the Chinese authorities didn’t have any other ways of stopping it (such as confiscating the assets of, or imprisoning or executing, people who tried to get their money out of the country, something I’m sure they wouldn’t baulk at), then there would be a currency crisis; the renminbi would fall a lot; and the weakness in the domestic financial system (resulting from the accumulation of so much bad debt) would be fully exposed.

But how likely is that to happen in the foreseeable future? I can’t really see any reason to answer that question with anything other than “not very.”

It’s worth remembering that the lesson the Chinese Communist Party drew from the collapse of the Soviet empire is that once brutal authoritarian regimes have clearly failed to deliver ongoing improvements in people’s well-being, which they promise in return for the surrender of individual freedoms, they can only survive as long as they are willing to kill their own people in sufficient numbers pour encourager les autres, or someone else is willing and able to do it for them.

Thus the communist regimes of Eastern Europe, most of which had been demonstrably willing to shoot their own people (or allow the Soviets to do it for them) at various times in the 1950s, 1960s and early 1980s, collapsed when they lost the will to shoot their own people, and the Soviets under Gorbachev lost the will to do it for them.

And the Soviet Union itself collapsed in 1991 when neither Gorbachev, nor the cabal of drunken fools who briefly tried to overthrow him in August of that year, were willing to shoot their own people.

It’s worth noting in passing that Vladimir Putin has repeatedly demonstrated that he has no such scruples about killing his own people —  whether they are ordinary Russians in high-rise apartments around Moscow, middle-class Muscovites attending the theatre, schoolchildren and their parents in Beslan, troublesome journalists, former KGB agents living in the UK, lawyers for aggrieved hedge fund managers, or prominent opposition figures.

By contrast with their contemporaries in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, Deng Xiaoping and Li Peng demonstrated that they were perfectly relaxed about the idea of killing large numbers of their own people in order to ensure that they remained in power — and even better than Josef Stalin at airbrushing those events out of the collective memory. And I suspect nothing has changed, at least in that regard, since then.

Indeed Xi Jinping has repeatedly shown that he’s prepared to do whatever is required to entrench the party as the source of all power in China, to sideline potential rivals and to remain in office for as long as he is capable of drawing breath (not least because he’s smart enough to know that he’s made a lot of enemies, and that they would take their revenge on him and his family and supporters as soon as he was out of power – as Putin did to Boris Yeltsin’s wealthy supporters).

Far from feeling weak and insecure, I think China feels strong and emboldened — not only by its apparent success in stopping the spread of Covid-19, admittedly after a number of initial serious missteps, but also by the manifest incompetence of the US administration in dealing with the virus, and its almost complete abdication of its traditional global leadership role (something that, to be fair, didn’t start under Trump).

That’s why Xi has explicitly discarded Deng Xiaoping’s dictum that China should “hide your capacities and bide your time” — much as Woodrow Wilson and, more forcefully, Franklin D. Roosevelt and his successors all the way to George W. Bush were prepared to discard George Washington’s advice, in his 1796 farewell address (which was actually written by Alexander Hamilton) to “avoid foreign entanglements.”

Xi (and, as far as one can tell, most of the Chinese population) think that now is China’s time — that’s what he means by phrases like “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” and “the Chinese dream.” And of course China’s economy, notwithstanding its burden of debt, is much stronger than the Soviet Union’s ever was.

Note: Comparison between the Soviet Union and the United States is based on estimates of GDP in 1990 US dollars at purchasing power parities, or PPPs; comparison between China and the US is based on official estimates of GDP in 2019 US dollars at PPPs. Sources: The Conference Board, Total Economy Database ^TM, September 2015 and July 2020; author’s calculations.

The closest the Soviet Union’s economy ever got to matching that of the United States was 44 per cent of US GDP between 1974 and 1976; by the time Gorbachev took office in 1985 it was down to 38 per cent, and in 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed, it was only 32 per cent.

By contrast, China’s economy — measured in US dollars converted at purchasing power parities — surpassed the United States’s in 2017, and this year is likely to be at least 10 per cent bigger. (Of course, measured in US dollars at current exchange rates rather than at “purchasing power parities,” the Chinese economy is still only about two-thirds of the size of the US economy, but that’s a lot closer than the Soviet Union ever got.)

It’s perhaps also worth noting, apropos of something that Peter Zeihan over-emphasises, that China isn’t really all that dependent on exports any more. In 2019, exports accounted for only 18.4 per cent of China’s GDP (according to World Bank data), down from a peak of 36 per cent in 2006, and less than in any year since 1991. Big economies, like China’s now is, tend to be relatively closed: thus, exports only represent 12 per cent of US GDP and 18.5 per cent of Japan’s (compared with Australia’s 24 per cent, for example).

So, to summarise, I don’t really agree with Zeihan’s proposition. Of course, in the long run (when, as Keynes famously wrote, we’re all dead), he may turn out to be right. But it’s not something I’m going to wake up any morning soon expecting to hear about. •

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