Peter Hartcher dedicates his new book, Red Zone, “to Australia, a life raft of liberty in a rising tide of tyranny”.
Dedications tend to be saccharine and indulgent. But Hartcher’s teases at a broader issue that plagues an otherwise excellent, often riveting tale of the Chinese Communist Party’s mendacity in a volatile world.
A wise foreign policy head once told me that international relations is fundamentally amoral. Red Zone is eager to depict the broken relationship between Canberra and Beijing as a morality play, a battle of freedom against repression, an approach that obliterates nuance and shades of grey.
Hartcher, political and international editor of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, has had a long, storied career as a gallery journalist. This background produces some of Red Zone’s finest moments. The access is excellent — we get exclusive interviews with Scott Morrison, Malcolm Turnbull, Peter Dutton, Kevin Rudd and ASIO chief Mike Burgess.
In an early chapter, Hartcher takes us behind the scenes of the tortured decision to ban Huawei from Australia’s 5G network, made during a melodramatic week of Liberal Party leadership spills.
As a writer, he’s at his peak churning out a series of elegantly crafted, newsy vignettes designed to illustrate the rising power and ruthless ambition of Xi Jinping’s China, a nation that will stop at nothing to get the world to bend to its will.
There’s Joe Hockey being confronted by a Chinese minister who wants to buy Rio Tinto. Businessman Peter Mason’s eerie lunch with a spook. Former SMH China correspondent John Garnaut’s visit to billionaire Chau Chak Wing’s palace. Garnaut again playing hot potato with the envelopes of cash CCP officials try to bribe him with.
In one particularly illuminating sketch, Hartcher takes us to Xi’s childhood. The son of a one-time Mao confidant who fell from grace, Xi was exiled to a cave in China’s hinterland during the Cultural Revolution. The boy who would become the most powerful man in the world responded by becoming “redder than red”, giving us some insight into the psychology of Xi, a man who built a cult of personality to rival Mao, and a dictator whose ruthlessness is matched by profound anxiety and insecurity.
But the over-reliance on these vignettes can make Red Zone a sometimes disorienting read — the book lurches through time and geography without a coherent overarching narrative.
The intention is to create through a kind of journalistic Pointilism a very scary picture of modern China. It’s a country with boundless imperial ambitions, intolerant of dissent both internal and external, hell-bent on making Australia and the world kowtow and ignore its horrific human rights abuses.
But because Red Zone is a morality play, there were always going to be blindspots in the picture. One is around imperialism. Hartcher correctly identifies China’s imperial ambitions, but mystifyingly draws little comparison between the other great imperial power of the modern world, the United States of America.
Superpowers do repugnant things. The US — with CIA death squads, regime change, crippling sanctions and foreign invasions — has been particularly so. China sends swarms of fishing boats. The US drops bombs. Other than a vague reference to the US being more transparent about its economic sanctions, there’s little comparison between the two forms of aggressive empire.
None of this is whataboutery, merely an illustration that foreign policy is amoral. We stand with the US not because its actions in the international sphere are moral and good (although plenty engage in mental gymnastics to frame them as such) but because of a thicket of historical and cultural ties we share. We do not share those with China.
Hartcher’s Manichean view of the relationship also paints Australia as the plucky country, brave enough to open its eyes and stand tall against Chinese bullying. Here, the access approach helps and hinders. Morrison, Turnbull and co provide fascinating insights into how the government’s thinking evolved. They also have a vested interest in lionising their actions towards China. At one point, Hartcher even compares Turnbull with Homer’s hero Odysseus.
But Australia’s handling of the relationship has, to some, been brazen, foolish and reckless.
Labor’s foreign affairs spokeswoman Penny Wong said as much when launching Hartcher’s book this week, arguing discussion on China was often “frenzied, afraid and lacking context”, driven by Morrison’s impulsive approach to domestic politicking.
Hartcher does not engage much with calls to get smarter on China. In fact, beyond endless metaphors about Australia reasserting sovereignty and rejecting the narcotising allure of Chinese money, Red Zone offers few solutions to our current deep-freeze.
On politics, he calls for tighter donations laws and better integrity mechanisms. After 300 pages of bluster, there’s an incongruity between the relatively minor scale of such reforms and Hartcher’s dire warnings about the weakness of our democracy to a hostile Chinese takeover.
Other answers, like taking more Chinese migrants from Hong Kong instead of mainland China, and tying citizenship more closely to a “values test”, are troubling. On the economy, there is vague talk of “reform” to ease our reliance.
Therein lies the problem with the morality play. Painting China as uniquely evil, rather than a superpower doing what superpowers do, means his talk about threats to our sovereignty sometimes seems overheated. Most Australians do not feel like our democracy is slipping away.
It also leaves us with little clarity about the future. Full economic decoupling would impoverish Australia. Any military confrontation would destroy our region.
Foreign policy isn’t a morality play. The good guys don’t always win. And Australia’s future will, for better or worse, always involve dancing with the devil.
Hartcher does an excellent job at showing us what the devil looks like, giving us a microscopic view of his horns. But he cannot answer the big question, which is, to quote Lenin (as he does, liberally): “What is to be done?”
Would you buy this book? Write to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication in Crikey’s Your Say section.
How about we clean our own house? How about we start to ask ourselves what are out vital national interests? How about we acknowledge that our hands are not clean? It is really easy to point the finger at other people. How about we start by taking a good long look at ourselves before we start telling other people how they should be?
Can’t we walk and chew gum? Be concerned about what’s happening both here and overseas?
If the Chinese government would focus on cleaning its own house and not intruding on ours that’d be fine.
The same can be said of us. We love to criticise others to direct attention away from our own failings.
Some of us take a detailed interest in what’s happening in other countries, not just our own.
As do I but I will not judge other countries until we have cleaned up our act. The usual White, Western hypocrisy prevails in this country.
Yes & then sprout nonsense –mainly because thev’ve been reading propaganda.
I have been involved with China for many years, lived there and studied the language. I have become more and more apprehensive since Xi came to power, and specially since he abolished term limits. The idea that I shouldn’t express how I feel because “aboriginal deaths in custody” strikes me as frankly silly.
Actually the Term Limits were not abolished by Xi. They were abolished by the National Peoples Congress in accordance with Chinese Law. Understand where you are coming from but this change is actually supported by an awful lot of Chinese citizens. They don’t see why someone who they believe is doing a good job should have to leave after a fixed term and be replaced by someone who may not be as good. As long as China continues to rise his popularity will keep him in power. Different culture, different viewpoint.
Matthew 7:5
“Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.”
King James Version (KJV)
Two questions: does he know Chinese? What is his knowledge of Chinese dynastic history going back to about 1500? These are not rhetorical questions, but they might as well be.
A lack of fluency in a foreign language does not, fortunately, make it illegitimate to write about the relations between one’s own country and that other country.
An inability to examine primary source documents, a lack of understanding of cultural nuance, failure to talk to the subjects of his monograph in their own language – It does however call into question the maturity of analysis and reliability of data.
“Australia, a life raft of liberty in a rising tide of tyranny” I wonder if our indigenous peoples would view us that way. Another death in custody this week…
How many deaths in custody in China?
Given that we only count Aboriginal deaths in custody, that would be NIL.
Maybe Uighur deaths in custody would be a good comparison.
Not really relevant. It’s a given that Chinese prisons are hell holes, hence the ‘tyranny’ descriptor. It’s the ‘life raft of liberty’ that Australians might have issue with.
If hell hole prisons are an important characteristic of a tyranny does that include the USA – with more than 20% of the world’s prisoners?
So woopwoop, give us the numbers.
My point was, yes, western societies have failures and shortcomings, but there is an openness about them and a desire to rectify them, that seems missing in China’s more defensive and secretive attitude.
I understand your point, woopwoop.
But I wonder if you and other readers are aware that there is an alternative narrative around China in general, and Xinjiang in particular, which sees Hartcher, ASPI and the MSM as ignorant and dangerous warmongers. The alternative views are readily accessible in John Menadue’s P&I. Alternative views on what might really be happening in Xinjiang can be found at The Grayzone or Counterpunch.
Thanks Barnino. I try to keep abreast of both sides – I think there’s some truth in both. I like Supchina as a source.
If that’s the case, you might be interested in this:
https://transnational.live/2021/05/19/%F0%9F%9F%A5-breaking-the-xinjiang-genocide-determination-as-agenda/
Openness? The first step to resolving any problem is to first admit here is one. Our admissions only come after Royal Commissions into just about anything. These Royal Commissions also only occur after, sometimes, years of pressure via the media and, even then, most recommendations aren’t put in place.
The Chinese don’t believe in airing their dirty laundry in public is all. They just quietly go about introducing gradual change to societal problems.
We know the number of aboriginal deaths in custody. We don’t know the number of anybody in custody at all in China. I prefer openness.
What about total deaths in custody (not just Aboriginal)? What has our Government done about any of them? SFA is the answer. We are not open, we just think we are is all. This is what I object to. We think we are morally superior when we are not.
Indeed, it’s a valid point that there are proportionately more non-aboriginal deaths. But you seem to confuse being open about admitting something with doing something about it. Admittedly, both would be better, but how can a government be held to account if it is not open about what’s happening?
Again, we are not as open as we think. How do we hold our Government accountable in reality? We don’t is the answer. Chinese citizens are well aware of what issues exist in their Society and they do actually hold their Government to account (its not the “Draconian empire” that it’s made out to be – Its just reported that way in the West). There is an awful lot on Weibo but as most Westerners don’t read or speak Chinese they ignore it. At least the Chinese Government responds and fixes the problems (whatever they are). They are the closest to a real Meritocracy that I have seen (so far anyway).
Citizens can complain about the Chinese Government (despite what you read) and there is a formal process in place for Complaints. Basically, you complain to your Local Member who raises the issue with the appropriate level of Government (Municipal, Provincial or Federal). If enough people complain they take it seriously and fix it. People who have spent time in China understand the process.
You should read the link I posted earlier too.
Whether were open about it or not, isn’t the main topic here whether Australia is a ‘life raft of liberty’. I would say the amount of deaths in custody and the treatment of our indigenous peoples in general, not to mention the latest Australians’ return from India debacle, doesn’t give us the right to have that moniker.
Really ? –I think your reply is BS. Openness –Ha Ha. Desire to fix – triple ha ha ha
What is your problem James 1? You’re not on the Ltd News commentary site, where your kind of reply is common. Very common! Try to string a few sentences together in a cohesive argument or just go away…
Openness? I’m sure Bernard Collaery would be in complete agreement with you.
“Australia, a life raft of liberty in a rising tide of tyranny” … a leaking life raft, constantly being punctured by various (mostly LNP) authoritarians in our governments – who, while seeing China as a threat, also admire it for its vice-like grip on its citizens
Vice-like grip? I really don’t understand this. I feel safe and quite free whenever I am in China. The police are focused on keeping the peace rather than issuing fines or arresting people for minor matters and focus on catching real criminals. Unlike us, people can leave China and return without approval. The Government barely intrudes in anyone’s daily lives in reality and is focused on improving and delivering better services, improving infrastructure and encouraging business.
Despite popular belief in the West, you can criticise the Government and, unlike here (Sans an approaching election of course), if enough people complain about something the Government actually does something about whatever the issue is. M440 people vaccinated (M15 in one day) with people happily lining up at Vaccination Centre’s.
The Government in China is in power for one reason and one reason only, they do a good job overall and the vast majority of Chinese citizens support them. They don’t see the need to replace them.
Western visitors were saying this sort of thing about China in the 1970s. Now the Chinese themselves admit there was a lot of really bad stuff going on then.
A bit like Vietnam eh?
The efficiency and popularity of China’s government is not the core of Mr Hartcher’s book.
It’s about the long-term future of the relationship between China and Australia.
Australia has no ambitions concerning Chinese territory and no invasive commercial ambitions in Chinese markets, property or resources and nor does it seek to exert political influence covertly. The Australian embassy in China does not behave in that country in the same way China’s embassy behaves in Australia.
Australians have every reason to be concerned about China’s ambition for Australia if the pattern of the past ten years can be extrapolated into the next ten. Hartcher is doing what he can to enable Australians to make informed decisions and plans today that will benefit Australia into the future,
You have clearly spent too much time on Sky After Dark and no time actually in China.
Invasive commercial ambitions? China is doing nothing more than all Western countries have done for centuries and continue to do. You may care to check who the major foreign powers that invest in Australia are. There is no difference.
Political influence? Australia most certainly does try to influence other nations to favour Australia, and China, like all nations, does exactly the same. There is a big difference between influence and Interference. The West loves to interfere with other nations as both the US and the UK have been recently caught out doing in Belarus. If you think that Australian Consulate in China is as pure as the driven snow then you need to think again. That further shows that you have never spent any time there.
China has no ambitions on Australian territory whatsoever and that is supported by their history. Hartcher is nothing more than a Hack jumping on the racist Right Wing LNP/Murdoch Anti-China bandwagon at the behest of the US.
The current situation between China and Australia is entirely of Morriscum’s making at the behest of the US. Tip: Megaphone Diplomacy never works and it certainly hasn’t worked now against China. China is not our enemy but they will become one if we keep on the current “all the way with the USA” White 1950’s approach.
“But Australia’s handling of the relationship has, to some, been brazen, foolish and reckless.”
To anyone with a thought process it was totally stupid to poo on our major trade partner & no blame to China for hitting back with trade sanctions. It was well deserved. Interstingly the country our idiots were sucking up to (USA) have become the beneficiaries of our lost trade ! Read about it & other China news in this article.
https://tinyurl.com/cse83vdc Sitrep: Here Comes China: Space, Trade, Encirclement and Tibet
Hartcher has been disappointingly over beating-up on China for quite some time now. It IS important to talk about positive solutions to the challenges.