The recent China panic stories raging across the Murdoch media, the Nine newspapers, the ABC and even the usually steadier Guardian are remarkable.

Remarkable not for what they report, but for what they reveal. The anti-China phobia appears to be a sad regression from Australia’s sensible regional outlook to the old simpering, sniping Anglosphere insecurity.

Sarah Ferguson, that ever-eager trier who hosts the ABC’s 7.30 show, ignited my umbrage with Aunty’s coverage last Wednesday. Interviewing the venerable former foreign minister Bob Carr, she doggedly tried to drag him into an admission that he was tainted by sharing the company of “dictators” (he wasn’t) and somehow present for the unholy military parade put on by the Chinese Communist Party (he wasn’t). Carr tried several times to explain to a determined Ferguson (determined not to listen), that he was in China to exchange ideas on peace and security with our Asian and New Zealand neighbours. He said he was pleased to celebrate the achievements of the Chinese people in overcoming their horrific suffering at the hands of Imperial Japan in 1945. He reminded the audience of the horrendous Japanese war crime known as the Nanjing Massacre.

Not satisfied with Carr’s explanation, Ferguson acidly corrected him by explaining to ABC viewers that it was the Kuomintang government of Chiang Kai-shek that had achieved that victory – not the nasty communists who won power in the revolution of 1949.

Ferguson should learn the history and apologise to her audience. In fact, Mao Zedong’s Communist Party army fought against the Japanese during the Second Sino-Japanese War from 1937-1945. For a time, both the Communists and the Nationalist Kuomintang government put aside their civil war to form a united front to fight the common enemy, the Japanese invaders. Mao’s forces employed guerrilla and conventional military tactics to weaken the Japanese and build popular support, while the Nationalist army led by Chiang Kai-shek also engaged the Japanese. In short, the collective efforts of the Chinese people overcame Japanese aggression. The Chinese Communist Party, in government today, had every right to celebrate that struggle and a great World War II victory, as Carr described.

Ferguson’s shabby attempt at a ‘gotcha’ interview was a precursor to the avalanche of hate media directed the next day at former Victorian premier Dan Andrews and, by extension, at the axis of evil dictators, Xi, Putin and Kim. The contempt brigade didn’t break stride — even when Donald Trump declared that he had watched the “very impressive” Chinese military parade — and reminded us all that he has a “very good relationship” with all three dictators. How quickly Australian media hounds have erased the vision of Trump literally rolling out the red carpet for “alleged war criminal” Putin on US soil. Just last month, the wanna-be American dictator warmly received Putin in Alaska. The two “good friends” were surrounded by US Air Force F-22 jets and overflown by B-2 stealth bombers recently back from their “obliteration” mission against Iran. Breathtaking amnesia.

When Trump holds a ragged military parade to show off US military power, the Western media reaction is strangely muted — not because it’s an outrageous display of our closest ally’s much heralded warrior culture — but because it looked so lame. None of those US army soldiers looked like they wanted to march in Trump’s self-aggrandising birthday parade. Compare that to the burning desire on the faces of Chinese soldiers eager to display their country’s military prowess and their determination never again to be subject to foreign aggression. We should all know the history by now.

The anti-China narrative was a one-way street, a collective media pile-on to try to demean and devalue the real pride many Chinese Australians feel about the achievements of their homeland. If the media hysteria is in any way reflective of the attitudes of ordinary Australians, we are in trouble. I’m more than sure it doesn’t reflect the attitudes of 1.4 million Chinese Australians – no matter their politics or their personal views about President Xi. To my mind, the pile-on is more a reflection of the envy and fear many Australians are encouraged to have about the rise of Chinese power in the Asia-Pacific region. Trump’s crypto-fascist administration in Washington escapes scrutiny and media odium for its domestic shredding of the rule of law in America. Still, we send ministers to tug their forelocks to Trump’s minions – all while they direct the rise of militarism and extend the US Government’s willing support for the war crimes of the Israeli state. Some Australians feel confused and uneasy about the apparent indifference of our “great ally” towards us. Who will ultimately protect us against the menace of rising Chinese power?

How about we try flipping the narrative and dealing with the world as it is? China is not a threat to Australia – unless we are stupid enough to be drawn into a conflict over Taiwan or the brutish US trade war with Beijing. Let’s try standing on our own feet and cast aside the great Australian security cringe. We don’t need AUKUS, we don’t need Mother England or the endless wars and conflicts America embroils us in. We need the prosperity, stability and social progress that trade with China brings us in abundance. And we need to learn that we can forge goodwill in Asia and use diplomacy and statecraft to make our security in peace with the region we live in. We don’t have to kowtow to China – but we should respect what they have achieved for themselves. 

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