I am one of those Australians who tends to go into hibernation during election campaigns. So where better to be last week than in China. No democracy here, no electoral lather to worry about.
On arrival, the pollution knocks you over and building cranes span every urban horizon — the opportunity to view some of the results of Australia's iron exports and to breathe the byproducts of Australia's massive coal exports. A lingering cough is a constant reminder of the damage our global commitment to economic development is doing to the planet.
Visits to the terracotta warriors (pictured) and to the Xian Museum housing over 4000 ancient calligraphy stones provide the opportunity to see the Chinese relishing their history and distinctiveness. The 6000 terracotta warriors were entombed in Emperor Qin's mausoleum in 210BC. Mr Yang, one of the farmers who discovered the warriors when digging a well in 1974, is on hand to sign my copy of The Qin Dynasty Terracotta Army of Dreams. He never knew how to write before President Bill Clinton asked for his signature on the 1998 presidential family visit.
One of the calligraphy stones dating from the Tang Dynasty in 781AD tells the story of the arrival of Christian Nestorians in China in 635AD. This helps explain the remark of the late Bishop Aloysius Jin SJ from Shanghai — that he did not want there to be the need for a fourth beginning to Christianity in China, following upon the Nestorians, then the Jesuits, then the evangelisation following the Opium Wars and Unequal Treaties in the 1830s.
These historical backdrops help the foreigner to understand something of China's isolation and sense of identity.
It's seven years since I last visited China. The urban growth has been phenomenal. While Australian politicians in election mode talk yet again about the idea of one very fast train and amorphous ideas for future growth, I catch the regular train service from Shijiazhuang to Beijing traveling at over 300kmh, across land every inch of which is dedicated to agriculture, industry or urban development. Without democracy, you can get a lot done.
Over an outdoor meal with church members and local party officials (each part of both!) in a small village outside Xian, a local asks after Lù Kèwén (Kevin Rudd). He had heard that Mr Murdoch was being very tough on him! This unsurprisingly is the only mention of Australian politics the whole week. But they were surprised to learn that yet again Australia was likely to lose its only Mandarin speaking PM. They have no idea of the alternatives.
Given their history, their numbers and their phenomenal growth of recent years, it is little wonder the Chinese see themselves and their place in the world as special. Chinese Catholics often feel besieged and misunderstood by both Rome and Beijing. 'We are not second class citizens; we are last class citizens,' one priest said to me.
Pope Benedict's 2007 letter to Chinese Catholics in which he joined issue with the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association is sometimes seen as too Eurocentric. Benedict said any Chinese attempt to implement 'the principles of independence and autonomy, self-management and democratic administration of the Church is incompatible with Catholic doctrine, which ... professes the Church to be one, holy, Catholic and apostolic'.
Given the problems besieging the Church in the west and attempts in Australia to set up a more lay controlled Truth Justice and Healing Council, I am left wondering why Rome cannot be more trusting of locals wanting to adapt to their own social and political realities. In China I have met Catholics, including priests and a bishop, who are passionate about the distinctive Chinese lay contribution to the life and identity of the Church. One bishop tells me the churches are full of the old and the young but what's missing is the middle generation.
In a strange way, Chinese citizens feel much like Australians during an election campaign such as the one we have been enduring. We wonder if any real dialogue is possible; where the real choices based on fundamental national values are; and whether it is simply a matter for the power elites to craft messages and choices bearing no relationship to the community values base.
For me, this has been most apparent with the Australian asylum policy during this 2013 campaign. At the outset, Labor decided to neutralise the issue as far as possible by meeting the Coalition at what seemed like the base of the precipice. The Coalition went one step further down. Both sides want to stop the boats for the sake of votes in western Sydney. They're prepared to use punitive rhetoric beyond the limits of utility, just to get themselves across the line. The Greens are left appearing to be the only party prepared to put ethical considerations first.
If there is a need and a political imperative to stop the boats, there ought be the possibility of agitating how this might most ethically be done. It might be possible to put an ethical case for stopping the boats, given the increase in arrivals, the increase in deaths at sea and the development of the people smuggling business model.
But even in the robust Australian democracy, such public discussion is on hold until an election is out of the way. Those critical of all the major parties either remain silent or state ideals that have no prospect of implementation. Most purists on the issue, who see no case for stopping the boats, do not endorse the Greens because of policy differences over other issues. And thus a critical political question is rendered irrelevant to the electoral processes and robust discussion about what works and what's ethical has to be put on hold.
Even with democracy, there are some things we are not very good at talking about. In democratic Australia, many thinking citizens feel as disempowered on this issue as they would if they were Chinese citizens having to comply with the whim of the party.
But for our Indigenous heritage (which also has been marginal during this election campaign), Australians boast nothing like the terracotta warriors or the museum of calligraphy to mark out our distinctive history and place in the world. During this election campaign, we have accepted the assurance of our key political leaders that we are special because we, unlike the Americans and Europeans, have the geographic advantage of being able to exclude unwelcome asylum seekers. Whether or how we should are deemed unfit questions for democratic resolution.
We have also accepted that this is no time for dreams of bold development. The most we can do is talk about one fast train, while in China all you need do is buy a ticket and catch one.
I return home for the last week of the election campaign resigned to Australian democracy's present incapacity to provide the people with real policy options about contested ethical issues. Alas it has not been possible even to have the conversation about who we are as a people and how we might contribute to a better world. It's been just about us, our material needs and our isolationist fears about them, whoever they happen to be.
Thank God we are a democracy, but I could do without another election campaign for quite some time to come. In the end, this campaign has been just one protracted group selfie. We should all be ashamed of ourselves. At least, that to me is how it looks from China.
Fr Frank Brennan SJ is professor of law at Australian Catholic University, and adjunct professor at the College of Law and the National Centre for Indigenous Studies, Australian National University.