We need to talk about how we talk about ‘China’

Last week my 10-year old niece overheard me making some critical remarks about China, and looked at me in horror. “But one of my best friends is Chinese!” she cried. “Likewise,” I replied, before explaining that I was criticising the Chinese government, not Chinese people per se.

I’m not sure that she really grasped the distinction, but I made a mental note to use words like ‘China’ and ‘Chinese’ with more care.

As China Matters founding director Linda Jakobson noted recently, when we talk about ‘China’ are we talking about 5000 years of continuous civilisation and the cultural heritage of which the 1.3 billion citizens of China and the 50 million strong overseas Chinese diaspora are justly proud? Or are we referring to the People’s Republic of China (PRC), founded in 1949, and single-party rule under the Chinese Community Party?

With the Australian parliament now considering new laws on foreign interference in light of recent revelations about Chinese Communist Party (CCP) efforts to exert undue influence on the political system and local Chinese communities, the above questions go beyond semantics.

There is a potential risk of an anti-China backlash if some Australians conflate criticism of the CCP with the one million or so people of Chinese descent living in this country, some of whom may also be critical of the Party but still proud of what China has achieved under its rule.

At the same time, critical voices should not immediately be denounced as ‘xenophobic’ or even ‘Sinophobic’.

Clive Hamilton — whose book exposing Party influence in Australia has been dropped for fear of possible retaliation from Beijing — says that he isn’t fazed by accusations of xenophobia. He dubs this fear ‘xenophobiaphobia’ and warns that it ‘blinds some progressives to the threat posed by the CCP to our sovereignty’.

Perversely, such ‘phobiaphobia’ is only likely to lead to the dead end of Section 18C.