It’s a big week for headlines – and an even bigger week for fear. With Prime Minister Albanese landing in China, our media wasted no time rounding up their usual suspects.

From weaponised exports to whisper campaigns about e-scooters and the diaspora, we’re reminded once more: when it comes to China, suspicion is the frame. Facts come later – if they show up at all.

Trading fear

A recent AFR column, We’re letting Xi Jinping weaponise our economy all over again suggests that doing business with China is basically a national security risk.

Exports? Dangerous.

Imports? Equally suspect.

Even diplomatic visits raise eyebrows.

It’s a strange position. There’s no clear line between acceptable engagement and strategic failure. If we trade too much, we’re in trouble. If we trade at all, same story.

The piece also throws in China’s “dual circulation” strategy, making it sound like some covert blueprint for world domination. In reality, it’s an internal policy designed to boost local demand while staying connected to global markets. Australia has something similar under the “supply chain resilience” banner.

Apparently, when we pursue domestic resilience, it’s economic foresight. When China does it, it’s part of a master plan.

Then there’s the advice to follow Japan and South Korea’s lead. A bit awkward, considering both countries continue to trade heavily with China. South Korea sends a lot of its chips there. Japan’s industrial exports keep flowing. If either has pulled back, it’s usually because of pressure from Washington, not because they’ve suddenly grown wary of trade with Beijing.

There’s a lot of hand-waving, but very little in the way of real alternatives. The piece never explains how we replace a $325 billion trade relationship. We’re told to “diversify,” but not what that looks like in practice.

Suspect by association

Over at Sky News, the concern shifts from trade to the Chinese-Australian community.

Under the headline Beijing weaponises expatriates, the article warns that some members of the diaspora may be helping the Chinese Government interfere in elections. It doesn’t name anyone. No campaigns, no organisations. Just vague warnings and a whole lot of insinuation.

The main voice is Dr John Lee, presented as a neutral expert. What readers don’t get is the rest of the story. Lee is a long-time China hawk, senior fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute, and author of a 2007 book predicting China’s collapse. He even released a second edition in 2009, just in case the first prophecy was a bit early. Later, he co-authored a 2014 report claiming China would never become Asia’s dominant power. Spoiler: none of his predictions have panned out, and that probably explains his current anxiety.

Lee, who once served as a senior adviser on Asia to the former Coalition Government, claimed Labor may have benefitted from foreign interference – but warned it poses “problematic structural problems for social cohesion in Australian society and politics".

Fun fact: this is the same Coalition that lost two elections in a row – partly because it treated Chinese-Australians as a security risk and ran on fear. That’s how many in the community saw it: a party fuelling suspicion and trying to push them out of politics. Now Lee is blaming Labor for the very divisions his side helped create. You couldn’t script it better.

All the above context was not explained in the article. But his warning — that China is using “enormous efforts” to manipulate domestic politics via the diaspora — is printed without challenge. What begins as “insight” ends up smearing an entire community.

This kind of framing doesn’t encourage vigilance by any means. It encourages paranoia and simply tears at the social fabric, turning every Chinese Australian into a possible suspect.

It implies civic participation is only safe when stripped of any cultural or linguistic ties to China – which, for 1.5 million Australians, sounds less like guidance and more like a disqualification.

Listening devices on two wheels

Even scooters aren’t safe from the great China panic. A Canberra Times article recently reported that Ario, a Melbourne-based e-scooter company bidding for a city contract, was accused of operating “Chinese listening devices”.

The source was anonymous. No evidence was presented. But the story still made the rounds.

Ario’s parent company is based in Singapore and runs operations in over 150 countries. Its scooters use cameras for parking and rider safety – standard features in shared mobility. The company says it follows Australian privacy law, but that hasn’t done much to stop the whispers.

What makes this episode even stranger is the timing. The accusation dropped right in the middle of a public tender. Regulators hadn’t raised concerns. But the coverage still managed to cast suspicion on one bidder, while the incumbent company remained comfortably silent.

In this case, simply having a connection to China — direct or not — was treated as a potential red flag. No data breaches, no actual wrongdoing, just the suggestion that someone, somewhere, should be worried.

The irony is that this would be funny if it weren’t so dangerous. In trying to protect Australia from foreign influence, our media is adopting the very tactics that make authoritarian systems so effective: anonymous accusations, guilt by association and the assumption that entire communities are suspect until proven otherwise.

We’re not protecting anything. We’re tearing apart our own social cohesion, questioning our own institutions and teaching ourselves to see enemies in our neighbours. We’re doing the damage to ourselves – no foreign power required.

If this is what winning looks like, we might want to reconsider our strategy.

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.