The first rule of dealing with internet trolls is to never get mad. Getting mad is a sign you’ve been owned. And in the brave new world of “shitpost diplomacy”, Australia has been comprehensively owned.
As Crikey has previously explained, a shitpost generally refers to a kind of irony-dense, often edgy tongue-in-cheek tweet or meme designed to inspire a knowing chuckle, or howls of outrage, especially among those who aren’t “extremely online”.
Shitposting was exactly what Zhao Lijian, a Chinese foreign ministry apparatchik, was doing with his tweet that gloated over the Brereton report and showed a Digger cutting an Afghan child’s throat.
The post had plenty of irony — China having a crack at the Special Air Service’s behaviour in Afghanistan in spite of its own appalling human rights record. It also contained a kernel of truth — lest we forget, amid all the sabre-rattling, our troops are in fact accused of slitting the throats of Afghan children — it’s all there on page 120 of the Brereton report.
But what puts this squarely in the realm of shitposting was how it was so obviously designed to piss off Canberra. And it worked, drawing a full-blown display of defensive Team Australia hyperventilating from both sides of politics and the press gallery (they’re largely a United Front when it comes to China).
Prime Minister Scott Morrison called the tweet “repugnant”, demanded an apology from Beijing, and called for Twitter to take down the post (a company spokesperson said the image had been marked as “sensitive media”).
Foreign Minister Marise Payne said it was “the most egregious misinformation” she’d ever seen during her time in parliament. Reminder: the meme, while tasteless, reflected allegations spelled out in the Brereton report.
Over in the Nine papers, columnist Peter Hartcher saying the tweet was “ISIS-level stuff”. The Oz reckons diplomatic relations with China are at a 50-year low. Over a tweet.
Shitposting is real
Perhaps a reason Australia’s political establishment lost its collective mind yesterday was because this seems to be such a rogue development in China’s diplomatic arsenal. But we shouldn’t be shocked.
In fact, the walls between internet low culture and the highest reaches of international politics have already been smashed — think of the Russian troll armies that pumped enough memes and disinformation into the veins of US political discourse to help turn an election.
What’s different this time is that the shitpost comes from a verified account with a cushy position in China’s foreign ministry. But even that isn’t so novel. In fact Zhao has a long history pulling these kind of stunts. BuzzFeed News called him the “combative, bombastic, frankly Trumpy voice” of China on Twitter. He’s frequently tweeted about America’s human rights abuses in the Middle East and racial segregation when the issue of China’s own internment of the Uyghurs comes up, for example.
And we should expect a lot more of this too. In that BuzzFeed profile, Zhao clearly articulates his goal — use social media to push back against what he sees as false narratives about China, and point out the hypocrisy of its critics.
Shitpost diplomacy, it seems, is here to say.
Why China got what it wanted
So, given the tweet only widened the diplomatic rift between Australia and China, what’s the end game here?
Well, Zhao and China got what they wanted from the tweet, but not in a way that’s easy to quantify — this kind of shitpost, with its bad-faith whatabouttery, aims to muddy the waters and mangle the debate.
It’s like when MAGA-heads and the alt-right post about Joe Biden’s support for mass incarceration in the 1990s, or Obama’s drone strikes. It’s not because they necessarily care about racial justice or human rights (otherwise they wouldn’t support Trump!), it’s because by weaponising their opponents’ perceived hypocrisy, they can create a narrative where everyone is so awful that their own side’s awfulness no longer matters.
China doesn’t really care about human rights (otherwise it wouldn’t put Uyghurs in concentration camps!) but it does care about baiting Australia right now — diplomatic barbs have ratcheted up all year.
We love rightly pointing out how thin-skinned Beijing is about its human rights record. So when a random bureaucrat made an off-colour meme about our own humanitarian failings, we threw a tantrum and acted like those alleged war crimes weren’t as bad as the tweet about the war crimes.
By drawing such a hysterical, defensive response, it makes it harder for Australia to maintain the moral high-ground on this stuff. It doesn’t matter that China’s behaviour is so much worse, because the tweet is about debasing the discourse, sowing moral confusion and furnishing a narrative where we’re both thin-skinned human rights abusers.
Strap in. There will be many more posts like this to come. The next cold wars are already being fought on the battlefields of Twitter and TikTok.
How do we win? Don’t be mad.
Great analysis, well worth reading.
Scotty from marketing could not resist a burst of righteous indignation. Once again he should have shut up and let a junior minister deliver a pithy one liner.
If indeed so much as that; or at least make a joke about the post. In a nutshell, Morrison’s problem is that he thinks that he is competing with those as uninformed AND as emotional as the Australian electorate.
It is actually quite spooky to have someone so untutored making significant foreign policy decisions.
Is that a child overboard in the water I see??
Indeed, of course- no more no less.
And we are debating it because it makes us insecure. Amen
Get real everyone!
How many times has China been publicly rebuked from Canberra or other places in Australia? Why do we think that we are allowed to call out others on matters when we disagree with but China must remain silent when Australia is at fault.
Australia is not so pure.
Australia still fails to acknowledge the wisdom of the indigenous and treats them with contempt though they have understandings that would benefit us all.
Australia treats refugees as criminals and locks them up with no avenue of release though they have done nothing wrong.
Australia locks up whistleblowers who say our forces are out of line. ADF/SAS have done these things so don’t cry because a picture was posted!
Take responsibility, accept we are all human good and bad is everywhere. We need to focus on the problem that will spare none of us.
Global Warming does not discriminate between white asian indigenous tree fish bird …
TIT FOR TAT CHILDISH RESPONSES
ARE WASTING TIME!
Australia today isn’t the country I was born into, the only real improvement in OZ is we now know how many peadifiles exist here. But the Australian mate ship we once had has mainly gone.
I made the point yesterday that the optimal decision by Morrison would have been to sit above the goading. It took a good while to get my head around Chinese management practices (and I certainly don’t claim to know it all) but I can say that the senior members of the CCP ARE pissing themselves with laughter over the PM’s puerile reaction.
The entire point of the goading was to illustrate to the world just what an amateur Morrison is.
I have no doubt that the expertise within DEFAT would have argued for a contrary response – if any response at all.
We are agreeing on one thing, Kishor, and that is this game is going to be very long but given that neither ScoMo’s front bench or the writers at Cky can not see beyond their noses the likelihood that Australia will take one trick is near zero.
2nd item on the Vladvision noos last night, and the whole war crimes show has been prominent almost every night.
China are not flying alone on this.
Next? The UN Security Council, possibly?
I doubt it David. The PRC does not give a f. about the UN even with its permanent seat on the Security Council. The result over HK attests.
It is a grave blunder to think of this show as a single issue. Asians, unlike Westerners, tend not to bog down on single issues but tend to view related issues as a whole. From what I have seen, there is not the capacity of the House of Reps to take this general issue on.
There is one reason why the Chinamen might just take this to the UNSC, and it goes to your reference to Asians ‘viewing related issues as a whole’.
Some of the barking about the Chinamen’s khaki killer meme made reference to, or implied, this war crimes’ bizo has nothing to do with them, not their business.
Thing is, it is very much their business, given Afghanistan borders China at Xinjiang Province, and it was that border that was one of the 2 main reasons for the Yanks getting involved in Afghanistan, in the first place (the other being the USSR, and the long run desire to balkanise Russia).
Raise the issue at the UNSC, and that brings in the UNSC Resolution on the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, and their long run association with AQ AND the Taliban.
Do that, and you (they) table the Uighurs at the UNSC.
That might just ‘force’ some of the 24 ‘foreign’ media outlets who went to Xinjiang a coupla of years back (invited by the Chinamen), but refused to report any of what they did or didn’t see.
Now, why wouldn’t the likes of Reuters report that trip? Might it have made it a little tougher for joints like this to scream about ‘Uighurs’?
Plausible David – I will go that far.
As for Xinjiang I’m the only Cky subscriber (to the best of my knowledge) that has set foot in the place. Yeah, I have a few mates that haven’t been out of their State (their armchair come to that) in over a decade but, with the aid of their pre-programmed remote control, will give me the MSN line (or similar) without blinking.
Try the tube facility (and, beyond), and look for Jerry Grey, the Brit-Australian ‘veteran cyclist’. He’s peddled his way to and around Xinjiang 5 times..
Aug 20th this year, tube titled;
“Xinjiang: From the eyes of an Australian British who cycled across China”
Not full of himself, or ‘it’, Jerry.
Yes I am aware of this guy and I am able to say that I agree with his descriptions. He refers to multi-language road signage among many other things. If one went along with (eg) CBS everything would be Han Mandarin.
Interesting (kinda) to see the down-voters down-vote facts. ho hum.
China will ignore anything that any other country, or the UN, says about HK. HK is an internal matter from their perspective. The “Letter of Concerns” from the UN Special Rapporteur mainly focused on the ICCPR (China has not ratified same so doesnt have to comply). I was there during the Riots and the actions of the Rioters were inexcusable. In effect, they made their own bed via their actions. They were never going to succeed.
Agreed; in the main. I was there (on an off from August to January also. I’m told that I’m on TV applying first aid to a student. The students had amazing medical gear. The med bags had somewhere between US$500 and $1,500 worth of stuff in them.
The matter began with a Taiwanese clown who killed his wife in a HK hotel. Then it wafted to all manner of stuff. Some of the complaints were legitimate but someone (big) was also paying for the medical kits, transport, food etc.
After that the objection (one of many) was over the preference of Shenzhen to HK. At this point I ask for an estimate between HK and London property prices. I think you get the drift.
As an aside, I lived in Shenzhen for four years and I was in Hangzhou prior to that. I have been, literally, all over the PRC.
The PRC has three main objectives for this decade. Anyone standing in the way can expect a blood nose.
thank you for your input you have an interesting and a unique perspective.
I also have friends at both ends of the piece of string and I think I can see both sides. The coverage by the various writers for Cky was disappointing to say the least; far too “American”. My comments there are a matter of record.
Agree. Love Hangzhou BTW. I have family in China and (used to anyway) travel there often. I have access to Weibo and other news sources as well.