It’s been some years since the editor of China’s Global Times, Hu Xijin, took time out from his busy schedule to belittle Australia.
A few days ago, he did just that. Referring to himself under the avuncular moniker “Old Hu” he informed his Chinese-language social media followers that in recent years he has “not bothered to pay attention to Australia, not drafted a single editorial targeting the country.
“I have not even raised the matter on Weibo, video or twitter. It’s because I fear no one will bother to read what I have to say.”
But now that Australia was “prevaricating” once again on matters important to China, he went on, Old Hu had no choice but to return to this irritating subject.
“I feel [Australia] is a bit like a piece of chewed up gum stuck under China’s shoe. Sometimes you just have to find a stone and scrape it off.”
The last time Old Hu bothered to belittle Australia was during the 2018 G20 meeting in Argentina. At that time he published an editorial in Global Times insisting that Beijing should teach Australia a lesson by rejecting all friendly gestures coming out of Canberra.
Global Times is an authorised party mouthpiece that sits at the more chauvinistic or bellicose end of official opinion on international affairs within the Chinese leaderships.
Its opinion pieces often make lively reading but they are not as a rule taken seriously in Canberra or even in Beijing.
China was a country governed by principles, Old Hu wrote in 2018, and should “stick to those principles … and make Australia pay for its arrogant attitudes it has revealed towards China”.
The provocation that sparked that editorial was a statement by Julie Bishop repeating Australia’s well-known position on the South China Sea at the G20 gathering of foreign ministers. To Old Hu this was a fit of arrogance not to be tolerated.
On that occasion he prescribed a range of punishments for Australia’s arrogance reaching from indifference to slow slicing — first “leave Australia hanging for a while” by delaying ministerial visits and then cut away at Australian imports by giving preference to American wine and foodstuffs over Australian producers.
This should get the message across to Canberra that Australia had “limited strength and influence globally” and compel it to reconsider the balance between its trade policies and its alliance politics.
More than that, it would send a clear message to other countries that if they elected to follow Australia’s lead and showed a similarly “arrogant attitude” toward the “hand that feeds it” they would not be spared punishment either.
Other nations would learn from the Australian experience “that there are no benefits for any country that chooses to take provocative measures against China”.
This theme of Australian arrogance featured earlier still in a number of Global Times articles published at a time when accusations of Chinese government interference were making headlines in Australia.
Rather than consider the evidence, Global Times targeted Australia’s presumption in even imagining China would do such a thing. Australians were deluding themselves to think Beijing would deem them worth the time, effort, or trouble of trying to influence them. What in Australia could possibly be worth influencing? What could a remote, insignificant place like Australia offer a great and powerful country like China?
Old Hu fell silent until this week when China’s ambassador to Australia drew on some of his suggestions for curing Australian arrogance in an interview with the Australian Financial Review.
Ambassador Cheng Jingye predicted a consumer boycott of Australian wine and beef — and threw in education and tourism for good measure — if Canberra persisted in irritating Beijing by pressing for a public inquiry into the origins of the COVID-19.
For Old Hu this was an opportunity not to be missed and he found time to dust off his thumbs and take to social media to teach Australia another lesson.
Old Hu and Ambassador Cheng have certainly taught Australians a few lessons.
One is that the rantings of a self-opinionated media guru who was once considered an eccentric outlier in China’s foreign policy space turn out to be a fairly reliable predictor of where China is heading under Xi Jinping.
Now that China’s foreign ministry has begun incorporating threats and rants into its normal operating procedures, we may need to start taking Global Times seriously.
The second is a lesson about the hierarchical mindset that Beijing brings to international relations. Under Xi Jinping, China aspires to refashion the regional political order after its own hierarchical, authoritarian and deferential style of government.
In this order, political scientist Christopher Ford points out, political authority operates along a vertical axis of hierarchical deference to a lead actor, rather than along a horizontal axis of pluralist interaction among equal sovereign states.
All states falling under the shadow of the new order need to know and to accept their subordinate position in a framework of authority culminating in Beijing, and to abide by its norms and rules. These include deference.
Preservation of limited national sovereignty is predicated on ritual displays of respect for the regime in Beijing that sets and polices the rules. Under these rules, governments need to refrain from commentary or conduct that could possibly offend the party leadership in Beijing.
And under these rules a great power cannot be arrogant, just great. A small country cannot be great, just arrogant
Third, Old Hu’s chauvinistic style offers a window on everyday life for a Tibetan or Uighur or other non-Han minority subject to the contempt of people in power. Beijing’s emerging foreign policy style is an international extension of the authoritarian and hierarchical style of rule at home that demands deference from subjects and minorities.
It’s a reminder as well of the contempt shown towards China’s own rights lawyers and democratic activists, towards street protesters in Hong Kong, and to ordinary citizens in Taiwan living under the threat of blockade and invasion.
Australia could count itself lucky to be just a piece of chewed-up gum.
Looking forward, we can hope that Old Hu finds the time to tell us what comes next, after his great country has scraped this petty one from its boots. Australians are proving to be quick and adaptive learners. They don’t want to wait another two years.
Perhaps Crikey could have him write a few articles. It sounds like his output could easily balance up the often racist anti China rot regularly dished out in large doses here.
Really? Bread does need leavening after all.
Agree, so disappointed at the dog whistling component of Australian commentary.
Bernard Keane loves a bit of China bashing. It’s subtle and he probably will say it’s balanced . China has become the whipping boy ever since Trump was elected. The 57 page documents being circulated by the GOP in America instructs everyone and everything is to be blamed on China. When China bites back everyone froths at the mouth. Look !Look ! I told you they were arrogant imperialists waiting to attack us !
The simple truth is the fact that the west doesn’t like a strong China, the west is the ruling elite and China cannot be allowed to succeed and prosper. I live there sometimes and it infuriates me to see the racist rantings from the western media. Come on, don’t say it isn’t about race. The Americans have pedalled the line about containment for years. Australia actually passed law to stop Chinese culture and influenasce. Apparently China cannot be allowed to have a point of view different to the west. Australia can hold it’s head high about open and honest government, except for the refugees and the secret war crimes trials, the raids on journalism. Prosecuting witnesses for telling the truth. Yeah it’s a wonderful honest government here. As Shakespeare said of the assassin’s of Caeser, I do not speak ill of them because they are honorable men, all of them honorable men.
I have to wonder though, did the Australian government first approach the Chinese government to organise an inquiry, as in diplomacy, or did they just go public first to stir us all up and get the Chinese to overreact.
Or was Morrison prodded by the US?
Probably as I suspect that an original thought is a very foreign concept for Smirko.
That said, I do not think that requesting an independent inquiry into a pandemic which has cause massive unemployment and the destruction and massive loss of lives around the world, is unreasonable.
What is unreasonable is the ambassador from China threatening our trading relationship.
Australians are slow to anger and formidable when roused, probably not the smartest move to make.
A roaring mouse remains a mouse. Get real.
According to the old cliche, elephants are frightened of mice
Very cute. And irrelevant.
They are indeed Mike, not to mention the wallop an Aussie Giant Mouse can deliver, as Sylvester found out the hard way.
You still watch cartoons then?
Absolutely Al, especially the old Warner Bros. My favorite character is Yosemite Sam. He reminds me a lot of yourself, always shooting himself in the foot. The only difference between us is that I know when I’m watching cartoons whereas you aren’t aware you’ve swallowed cardboard cartoon portraits of the Great Emperors Xi and Vlad, created by his minions like Max in the Grayzone
You’ll be happy to hear I’m off the air for a while because I can’t afford to renew my monthly Crikey subscription right now. Unlike yourself (and David) I’m not cashed up to the eyeballs with money from property investments or the share market (any hot tips from Twiggy?) or writing for ‘The Boss’.
Bye Bye Ms American Pie DooDooDooDoo DooDooDooDoo DooDooDoo Doo! Doo!
Say hello to hamster. You may want to take some reading with you. Try the unz review american pravda series bolshevik revolution and its aftermath. Bit long. Perhaps too long for you. But a fascinating voyage of discovery into issues that seem of interest to you. Includes HTML access to a book you mentioned once. In English. Printed in 1903.
Our government consists of 3rd rate amateurs – especially in the diplomatic department, I would think with that in mind, there should be little wondering left.
The White Australia Policy may be dead but its stench lingers on in Asian nostrils, so what’s so surprising that they have a jaundiced view of this place? Not to mention that the subservient role this country played in the wars in Korea and Vietnam is entrenched in their cultural memory. In the 1980s, Minister Lee Kuan Yew, Prime Minister and founder of modern Singapore, famously quipped that Australia was at risk of becoming the “white trash of Asia”, so this sentiment is not new.
My own experience of spending two months in Hanoi in 1992 is noteworthy. On applications for travel permits and such I noted that this country was referred to as “Uc”. I thought for a long time that this might be a pre-colonisation name for this continent. Eventually I asked a Vietnamese lady here if that was the case. She was puzzled, and said that the word actually meant something like “the smallest child in the family”. Ouch.
Al, you’re living in the past. A lot has changed in the last 20 years and you need to bring yourself up to date. Go to Vietnam nowadays and say you’re an Aussie citizen and I guarantee you’ll be welcomed as an ally against CCP Neo-imperialism.
We all live in the past. It’s because of a facility called “memory”. If you find yourself losing yours then you are in deep doo-doos. Individuals do it, and so do nations. It just when nations do it it falls into “those who forget their history are doomed to repeat it”. And so snotty little brother Uc is again following the dictates of the Big Imperial Bully, having learned nothing. Hu Xijin is perfectly justified in his contempt.
That said let me diverge into my memories a little about Vietnam. It’s a long while since I went there but that was to the border with China on the Song Hong (Red River). There had been a limited border conflict there in 1979, but by 1993 when I was there peace had been restored and the “Friendship Bridge” connecting Hekou in China and Lao Cai in Vietnam had just been re-opened. The two countries had a checkered history over the last thousand years but neither is going anywhere and have settled for good relations instead.
Which reminds me of another of your imagined conflict zones, the Amur River between Russia and China. Perhaps you’ve heard that earlier this year a bridge was completed across the river, joining the border city of Heihe in China with the Russian city of Blagoveshchensk. Temporarily closed perhaps due to covid-19 but shows again how mature nations opt for peaceful coexistence and cooperation. Snotty-nosed little Uc has a lot of growing up to do.
Al, your comments regarding Sino-Vietnamese relations are wishful thinking. The 40th anniversary of the 1979 Chinese invasion of Vietnam was widely commemorated in Vietnam last year and the ongoing dispute over the Spratly and Paracel islands will not go away.
As for Russia, Putin’s incompetent handling of the economy has forced him into a grovelling humiliating partnership with China. With all its natural resources and a population over 5 times the size of Australia, Russia’s economy is hardly any bigger then ours. Does that make Russia a piece of chewing gum China can discard whenever it decides to?
Of course commemorated. How could they not? It’s their recent history. But rather then celebration it was a “chance to reflect on history and draw lessons to consolidate bilateral ties, not to deepen hatred.” You can read it here:
https://vietnamnews.vn/politics-laws/505461/40th-anniversary-of-vietnam-china-1979-border-war-a-chance-to-reflect.html
Your second comment is pure puffery. Ignorant. Comparing apples with gum nuts. Not to mention off-topic as usual and so not worthy of reply.
Al, your link only serves to confirm my observation that Vietnam bitterly remembers the CCP’s invasion as a shameful attack on its sovereignty.
As for Putin, did you read in the latest Moscow Times that Russia’s corona virus cases surged by 10,000 yesterday, a new one day record? It’s already overtaken China, Turkey and Iran and at this rate will soon overtake the USA. Who says Putin isn’t making Russia number 1 again?
Amazing. You have the ability to read what has not been written and to see what is not there to see. Truly amazing.
Regarding the Moscow Times, yes I’m familiar with it. Read a few copies when I was last in Moscow (long ago now, before Putin). Described as variably controlled by “investors connected to the US intelligence services; a Swiss entity owned by Mikhail Khodorkovsky; Vladimir Potanin, the Norilsk Nickel oligarch; a Dutch media conglomerate, VNU; a Finnish media group called Sanoma, together with the Murdoch media group and Pearson’s, when it owned the Financial Times of London.” You can read about it here:
http://johnhelmer.net/dutch-treat-derk-sauer-makes-a-moscow-comeback-for-the-same-old-gang/
I assume it’s permitted to continue under the principle of “keep your friends close and your enemies closer”. Like, to keep tabs on the 5th columnists.
I have already guessed it as one of your favourite sources for disinformation, along with the Guardian, in a reply I posted elsewhere but which Crikey is holding in moderation. Probably because I cut to the chase and did not hold back. So it may not be released.
Al, you need to relax a bit more before making such rash comments. May I suggest that you carefully reflect on what you write before posting it? Otherwise you will keep getting moderated. One other suggestion, if I may, is that you buy yourself a very big mirror and take a good look at yourself. You may not like what you see.
I dislike the premise of this article. How is one person’s remark supposed to represent the population of China or indeed their entire government?
That would be like taking something stupid one of our newspapers published about China and equating that with our governments policy ……oh wait! Come to think of it, our “news” media do actually regurgitate and defend stupid comments about China made by our government.
Does that mean we are communist too?