One of the most enduring habits of public discourse is to divide the world into polar opposites, of which one pole is seen to be good and the other is seen to be bad. This can be done to religions, to political systems, or to nations. Contemporary public culture, with an antagonistic political style and the vicious use of social media, favours the making of polar opposites. It is evident in current discussion of China.
Those who see relationships through the lens of polarisation usually describe themselves and their allies as virtuous and their rivals as wicked. Their nation is a shining, peaceable democracy; their rivals are aggressive totalitarian states. They are prosperous and rational; their rivals are impoverished and slaves of ideology. The fear that feeds on polarisation then urges the cutting of ties and the building of walls.
Australian attitudes to China have always flirted with this kind of polarisation. After a period in which commentators emphasised the contribution a close relationship to China could make to Australian prosperity, in the last year the condemnation of China has become strident.
To demonstrate its totalitarian character, critics of China dwell on its baleful intentions towards Hong Kong and Taiwan, its incarceration of a million Uighurs and its electronic surveillance of its citizens. They also emphasise Chinese attempts to project its power beyond its borders through territorial claims, its economic assistance to small nations in return for access to ports and other resources, and through the use of spies and of overseas Chinese to further its interests and to project a favourable image in Australia.
Taken together these actions are represented as the actions of a hostile totalitarian, perhaps Marxist, power intent on taking over our democratic institutions and those of our neighbours in order to make us subservient to its interests. They urge control, disengagement and strong alliance with democratic powers with similar ideals and cultural background as ourselves, such as the United States. These lead logically to the cutting of ties with a nation that is seen as culturally alien and politically hostile, to a new cold war.
This polarisation should be resisted, even while the evidence urging it is taken seriously.
Certainly much behaviour by the Chinese government should be recognised as unacceptable. Its lack of respect for the human rights of groups of its citizens should be deplored. Other behaviour such as buying influence in the Pacific, spying and expecting Chinese residents in Australia to serve China's interests should be monitored and countered appropriately. We should expect the Chinese government to pursue its own interests in its relationships to Australia in ways that will sometimes conflict with Australia's interests. China is not our best friend.
"In all nations there are gaps between the values they profess and the way in which they act, and the relations between them need to recognise that shared inconsistency."
We should, however, resist the polarising assumption that there is a gulf between how we and our allies act and how China acts. There is a more significant gap in all nations, including our own, between what they profess and what they do. In the ways in which we relate to one another we must give full weight to the presence of that gap both in Australia and in China
If China spies upon Australia, Australia spied on East Timor without apology. If as a matter of public policy China detains Uighurs in harsh conditions, so has Australia detained people in brutal and demeaning conditions on Manus Island. If China lays out money to nations on our region to secure its national interests, so does Australia, most notably to Nauru and PNG.
Critics of China who portray its values and conduct as polar opposites to the rule-based and respectful behaviour of Australian allies such as the United States, too, would need to explain how those values are consistent with unilaterally breaking international contracts, detaining Latin American children and using sanctions to serve national interests.
This is not to justify the actions of the Chinese government by saying that other nations do the same, or to claim that the bad behaviour of different nations is equivalent in its gravity. The point is rather that in all nations there are gaps between the values they profess and the way in which they act, and that the relations between them need to recognise that shared inconsistency.
Nations cannot be set against one another as good against evil and should not be spoken of in that way. It is right for them to call out one another's hypocrisies and inconsistencies, and to be vigilant in defending their own interests. But they should also seek common ground, encourage friendship between one another's citizens, and work together when it is for their common benefit.
In personal and national relations fear is not a good counsellor. Nor do exclusion, demonisation and cutting ties make a good policy.
Andrew Hamilton is consulting editor of Eureka Street.
Main image: Posters of Xi Jinping seen during a rally to support two imprisoned Uyghur professors and the Hong Kong anti extradition bill movement, at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in September 2019. (Photo by Billy H.C. Kwok/Getty Images)