Last week, a friend asked if I was worried about Chinese “nuclear threats".

I asked where he had heard that.

He showed me his phone.

“WE OPPOSE: CHINA ISSUES NUKE WARNING AFTER AUSTRALIA-US DEAL.”

Courtesy of News Corp. This time, the story was that China issued a “nuke warning” – because Anthony Albanese smiled a little too warmly at Donald Trump. Armageddon, apparently, was just around the corner.

But read past the ads and celebrity gossip, and you’ll find the real source: a bland Chinese statement reiterating opposition to nuclear proliferation. No missiles. No threats. Not even a spicy meme. Yet somehow, all those upper case letters make it feel like Canberra was about to get a call from the Pentagon.

We’ve seen the formula: take a dry statement, insert the word “warning”, sprinkle in “nuclear”, then hit caps lock.

News Corp knows exactly what it’s doing: junk-food storytelling, always ready to serve – fast, addictive, hollow. You know the menu: spy ships “lurking”, balloons “probing”, apps “harvesting”, EVs “spying”, Chinese Australians “betraying”.

It’s all fear, all the time. Because fear sells. Complexity? That’s bad for business.

And when fear becomes the background hum, every policy sounds like a threat. Every trade hiccup looks like sabotage. A handshake in the Pacific sparks strategic panic. Statecraft collapses into pantomime.

You’d hope the ABC — our most trusted national broadcaster — might rise above that. Act as the adult in the room. But, it delivered its own performance:

“China’s economic slowdown has become its diplomatic weapon in the Pacific.”

A clever headline – and classic Cold War theatre.

The argument? That China, facing domestic headwinds, is exporting overcapacity – not through job losses or capital flight, but via bridges and ports. Infrastructure as aggression. Punctuality as provocation. The Belt and Road, not as development, but disguise.

“China moves faster, demands less,” the piece warns – as if that’s suspicious in itself.

What’s next – on-time delivery as a threat to national security?

Build a port? Power play. Deliver a tunnel borer? Supply-chain trap. Hire local workers? Political rehearsal.

And to cap it off, we are told China offers “deliverables”, while the West brings “values”. A noble contrast – if you ignore the red tape, the PowerPoints, and the 24-month timeline to approval. Meanwhile, Pacific nations still need hospitals and bridges.

Which leads to the glaring omission: their voices. No proper quote from Pacific ministers. No local communities. No development experts. Just one long monologue. No inquiry. No dialogue.

And that’s the heart of the problem: two megaphones, no ears. One shouting for headlines. One preaching virtue. Both locked on the same assumption – that China is the whole story and everyone else just background noise.

Here’s where it gets absurd: our most trusted public broadcaster and our biggest media empire have both reduced the biggest geopolitical shift of our time into a B-grade thriller.

The costs aren’t just editorial. They’re strategic. The public gets jumpy. Diplomacy shrinks. Trade and aid start looking like zero-sum contests. Our neighbours begin to wonder whether we’re here to collaborate – or just to scold.

When Vanuatu’s internal affairs minister publicly told Australia to “respect” its policing deal with China last month, the subtext was clear: we’d become the hectoring voice they tune out.

Meanwhile, after months of careful negotiations with Beijing and Pacific capitals, our diplomats risk sounding like the loudest guy at the table – lecturing everyone on etiquette while knocking over the wine.

And the deeper danger? We lose the ability to operate in ambiguity – the murky, uncomfortable space where real diplomacy actually happens. Where interests clash, deals get struck and influence is built.

Beijing isn’t outplaying us. We’re tripping over our own feet.

And the fix isn’t more volume – it’s better vision. You don’t sharpen national preparedness by performing toughness on the news. You do it by actually understanding your rival. Balanced reporting isn’t a luxury. It’s how you defend sovereignty without beating your chest.

This is where the ABC should lead – not with the China hawks’ script or right-wing media’s hysteria, but with the questions that matter:

What does China want? What do we want? Where do those interests align – and where don’t they?

These aren’t hard questions. Yet no one can answer them properly when you are too busy shouting.

So let’s turn off the megaphones and turn on our ears.

Australians and our Pacific friends are watching – and some of them are already changing the channel.

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