Story and reactions

One of the highlights of the Tokyo Olympic Games during the lockdown was the 14-year-old girl Chinese diver Quan Hongchan’s flawless platform dive. At the time, news.com.au published a story about this teenage Chinese diver who ‘has not cracked a smile despite her impeccable performance’. According to the story, Quan was ‘poker faced’ and ‘looked devastated after being given a perfect score’. Citing a few tweets, the story concludes that ‘viewers were shocked at Quan’s reaction.’

Response from people on my WeChat circle was visceral. ‘Why on earth is this a news story?’, ‘what the hell is this story about?’ ‘I’m disgusted’. ‘It makes me want to puke’. People fumed while they incredulously reposted to fellow WeChat users.

The reactions among people who are not Chinese Australians were also unfavourable. I asked a dozen of my in-laws to tell me their gut responses to the story. Their responses converged on a sense of bemusement as to why the lack of smile on the diver’s face was newsworthy.

Interestingly, the men I talked to seem to understand why Quan didn’t initially smile. One of them, a former athlete and Olympic hopeful, said, ‘I get why there were no smiles during the event because the job was not done’. Another said, ‘she was not smiling because she was focusing on what’s ahead of her’.

The women I talked to reacted to the story in a gender-specific way. ‘Why are young women always expected to smile?’ ‘I don’t see anyone writing about men not smiling’. One posed this question, ‘would they write a story if an American athlete was not smiling?”

A ‘media incident’

By now, you may say that ‘come on; it’s just a story, and there is no need to read too much into it’. Well, Chinese state media read a lot into it. China’s nationalist paper the Global Times went so far as to publish an editorial in response. ‘The article sparked anger among some Chinese netizens…who criticised this Australian media outlet for slandering Chinese athletes with misinformation and bias’.

The Global Times also connects this story to a report a week earlier in the New York Times, which calls Chinese athletes ‘sports machine[s]’, and ‘China’s sports assembly line’ produces athletes whose single goal was to win gold at any cost.

Being singled out by the Global Times as baddies may be taken as evidence that the story is on to something worth reporting. After all, as Eric Jensen, the founding editor of Saturday Paper said, journalism is the ‘the only industry in the world where being told you were wrong is taken as proof that you’re right’.

What’s remarkable is that this story has turned into a minor ‘media incident’. A couple of days later, South China Morning Post published a piece reporting on Global Times’ response, saying the latter called ‘Australian website’s coverage ‘weird and offensive’ that ‘defamed the teenage diver’.

I don’t think that the Global Times editorial’s charge of ‘defamation’ has legs, but there does seem to be something ‘weird’ about the news.com.au story, so in what way is it weird?

Calling Edward Said

Trivial as this story is, I believe it inadvertently raises a key journalistic question: how to report the achievement of a country that is frequently portrayed in the media as the enemy in the era of a looming Cold War, even if it’s just a sporting achievement? Or should we report them at all, if we can’t find a ‘suitable’ way to frame it?

What interests me as a media academic is what motivated the decision to write and print this story in the first place: what kind of latent memory, image and sentiment about China or the Chinese did the story need to activate in order for the story to have meaning?

Note that this is a Murdoch-owned website, and assuming that the outlet caters to a particular segment of the readership, what is the website’s projected view about what its readers want to read about China and Chinese people? It seems that an entire range of orientalist ideas and images of Chinese people were being called into service here.

In orientalist thinking, the West does the civilising and the Orient needs to be civilised. The West decides what it wants and needs, and the Orient is available, submissive, deferential, accommodating, and yes, smiling. The union between the Oriental female and the Western masculine is acceptable but always tinged with fear and desire. Think Madame Butterfly and Miss Saigon.

In the past, it’s opera, literature, Hollywood and visual arts that did the heavy lifting in constructing orientalism. Now media and social media have taken up the baton.

The news.com.au piece observes that despite Quan’s perfect dive, her face “told a different story”, but it stops short of telling us what that story is. Instead, it leaves it to the imagination of its intended readers: what could be so sinister or unimaginably bad behind that absence of smile? Child abuse in sports training? Inscrutable Orientals? Despotic coaches and a cruel training regime? Sports machine devoid of human feelings? Athletes produced out of assembly line? Take your pick.

None of these was explicitly said, but the news.com.au story would not make much sense unless it was decoded within this orientalist framework.

The post How to report on your enemy’s success: Why is smiling a big deal for China’s Olympic diver? appeared first on The China Story.

In February 2021, a New York Times (NYT) published a controversial article titled “On WHO Trip, China Refused to Hand Over Important Data”. The story, citing expert investigators who went to Wuhan, claims that ‘Chinese scientists refused to share raw data that might bring the world closer to understanding the origins of the coronavirus pandemic’. In response, Peter Daszak and Thea Kølsen Fischer, two members of the WHO expert team, lamented that the article intentionally misquoted or twisted their words.

The two experts’ repudiation of the article gave timely ammunition to the Global Times, China’s nationalistic state media outlet, which published an op-ed entitled: ‘WHO experts slam NYT for twisting, misquoting their words on virus origins probe’. In the article, Global Times quotes a Chinese professor, who says, ‘Throughout the WHO expert team’s trip in Wuhan, Western media’s goal had been to push their theories that China is guilty of causing the COVID-19 pandemic and hiding information’.

Media coverage of COVID-19 in China

The COVID-19 outbreak first started in January 2020 in China, a country ruled by the Chinese Communist Party. China exists in the imagination of the global West as diametrically different from ‘us’ in terms of ideology, political system, social and cultural practices, and cultural sensibility. The NYT controversy begs the question of whether there is indeed a pre-existing narrative framework in Western media’s coverage of COVID-19 related issues in China, and how prevalent this framework is.

To address these questions, I conducted a critical discourse analysis of major news stories, documentaries, opinions, and analyses published in Australia’s most influential media outlets between 1 January and 31 March 2020. I used three criteria to determine the suitability of material to be chosen for analysis: they must be (1) key media programs that are widely considered to be authoritative and trustworthy; (2) media stories written by journalists who enjoy the highest level of professional recognition in the field of journalism; or (3) media narratives that elicit the strongest responses from China, the Chinese-Australian community, and the English-speaking public in Australia.

In other words, rather than conducting a quantitative content analysis to gauge the accuracy of reporting, I wanted to identify the key themes, perspectives, and angles in these reports to understand the likely role that opinion leaders, high-impact media programs, news stories, and journalistic practices play in shaping public opinion of China and its handling of COVID-19. What I found is that the Australian media’s reporting on China’s COVID-19 experience says more about Australia’s own fears and anxieties and their political, ideological, and cultural positions than about the reality of how the Chinese government managed, and the Chinese people experienced, COVID-19.

Political climate and media landscape

Australia has had to reckon with the fact that its economic prosperity relies on China, a country that is not a liberal democracy. Australia does business with China but partners with the US on national security. In the past few years, there has been growing fear in Australia about China’s political and economic influence, paralleled by a noticeable shift in the media towards what I called ‘adversarial journalism’ in the coverage of China. An anti-Chinese public discourse in the ‘China influence’ narrative, which predated COVID-19, configures China as an external threat and a strategic enemy.

Australia has a bifurcated media landscape, featuring both a strong public broadcasting sector such as the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and a competitive commercial sector. The ABC’s flagship programs include influential programs such as the weekly Four Corners, described by the ABC as ‘Australia’s premier investigative journalism program’ and Q+A, a high-profile panel discussion program that features politicians and opinion leaders. The commercial sector is much more complex, with some media outlets seeking to offer quality journalism on one end, and tabloid press offering less edifying content on the other.

Using the criteria outlined above, I sampled the entire array of Australian media, including both television and radio programs from the ABC, commercial media outlets such as Murdoch’s The Australian newspaper and Nine Entertainment’s The Sydney Morning Herald, and several tabloid papers (also backed by Murdoch).

Key Findings

One of my key findings is that there was a high level of unfavourable reporting about China in relation to COVID-19, regardless of whether it was the public or commercial media, liberal or conservative media. China’s success in controlling the virus was often simply left out. Despite the effectiveness of China’s strategy in reducing numbers of infections and deaths, the Australian media looked elsewhere — such as South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan — for lessons.

Notwithstanding the overall unfavourable tone of reporting on China, there were some differences between the media outlets. For instance, the ABC, informed by a liberal framework, focused on criticizing China’s lack of transparency and government control, and selected stories from the perspective of censorship, propaganda, and draconian public health measures.

The respectable end of the commercial press, such as Sydney Morning Herald, focused its reporting on the Chinese Australians’ two-way efforts in sourcing masks and medical supplies. In doing so, it continued its China influence narrative by framing Chinese Australians as objects of suspicion with questionable loyalty to Australia.

Meanwhile, the tabloid press and shock-jock radio consistently fanned anti-Chinese hatred, further fuelling the fear of the ‘yellow peril’, anxiety about ‘reds under the bed’, and the racist idea of the Chinese as an alien and repugnant people who eat bats.

The most significant finding was a conflation of political authoritarianism with normal public health measures — a key feature of the ABC’s reporting of China and COVID-19.

Of course, it could be argued that aspects of China’s authoritarian politics in some ways contributed to or exacerbated the pandemic. This view seems to be implicit in criticisms of the Hubei government’s failure to inform Beijing promptly, and its attempts to suppress individuals wanting to blow the whistle. The mistakes made by Hubei’s government were mostly framed as manifestations of China’s authoritarianism. This may indeed be the case. Yet in contrast, when similar mistakes were made in Australia at both federal and state government levels, they have typically been reported as bureaucratic bungles or administrative mishandlings.

When an entire range of coercive measures were put in place by the Australian governments — such as compulsory social distancing, mandatory quarantine, and hefty fines for refusal to wear masks — they were justified as extraordinary but necessary public health measures. But similar measures used in China were taken as evidence of China’s infringement of human rights, disrespect for civil liberty, and abuse of power typical of an authoritarian regime.

Despite the goal of producing ‘objective’ or ‘balanced’ media content, the frames, perspectives, and discursive positions that are adopted in such reporting are often pre-determined. The virus may know no boundaries, but media reporting on virus-related issues is profoundly bound up with ideology, politics, and the cultural identity of a nation.

The post Infected with Fear and Anxiety: The Australian Media’s Reporting on China and COVID-19 appeared first on The China Story.

Our discussion did not produce any answers; we left these questions dangling. More than a year later, it seems that we have clear answers to at least some of them.

In the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee’s inquiry into issues facing diaspora communities in Australia, Senator Eric Abetz asked each of three witnesses of Chinese heritage to tell him “whether they are willing to unconditionally condemn the Chinese Communist Party dictatorship.” All three were attending the hearing voluntarily at the invitation of the committee, to clarify and elaborate on their written submissions.

Apparently not happy with their answers, Senator Abetz went further:

There’s a difference between not supporting something and actively condemning a regime that engages in forced organ harvesting and having a million Uighers in concentration camps — the list goes on, and all we have is this limp statement that we don’t support it.

In the eyes of some, these three witnesses, with their different cultural backgrounds — one Australian-born (Osmond Chiu), one Hong Kong-born but raised in Australia (Wesa Chau), and one China-born but raised in Australia (Yun Jiang) — may have failed a loyalty test, and were found wanting as Australian citizens. Worse still, their inability to answer this question to Senator Abetz’s satisfaction could be taken as further evidence of their questionable allegiance to Australia.

The impression that this was a loyalty test seems hard to avoid, although it should be noted that Senator Abetz has since put out a statement denying that he was demanding proof of loyalty. Regardless of his intentions, the consequences have nevertheless been unfortunate.

Senator Abetz is certainly entitled to his views on China and his assumptions about Chinese Australians. But in his role as a committee member of a public senate hearing, he enters problematic territory when his personal views influence the committee’s line of inquiry.

All of a sudden, these three Chinese Australian witnesses came to suspect that this inquiry had, as former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd put it, “no interest in listening to [their] insights about the challenges faced by ethnic minorities in our country.” Instead, they were there as targets of investigation. Small wonder that Yun Jiang felt that the experience was “less like a public inquiry and more like a public witch-hunt.” The witness has become a suspect. Hearing has become inquisition.

I had also made a written submission to the inquiry because, as an academic in a public institution, I believe I have a duty to present evidence-based research to inform public policy-making. As a result of that submission, I too received an invitation to appear before the committee — my appearance was due towards the end of October. I initially accepted the invitation. While I didn’t expect the committee members necessarily to like or agree with the points I raised in my submission, I was nevertheless hoping that appearing before them would give me a chance to clarify, elaborate on, and further discuss these findings and the evidence on which they were based.

However, after reading about the experience of these three, it now seems there is little point to my appearing before the committee. The terms and conditions of the inquiry seem to have been changed. Is a public hearing still a public hearing if committee members don’t want to listen? And why should I subject myself to interrogation, since, as a migrant who came to Australia from the People’s Republic of China as a young adult, I would by default most likely score even fewer loyalty points than the other three, and be subject to an even more “rigorous” line of questioning and probing? Knowing how these other three were treated, I now have no intention of putting myself on trial in this way.

News of “the unfortunate three” has been met with much anguish, anger, and a disturbing level of sadness by those Chinese Australians I talk to on social media. Among many people in my WeChat groups, most of whom are first-generation migrants from mainland China, one question that keeps being asked is this: “Our Prime Minister and Foreign Minister do not openly condemn the Chinese Communist Party for fear of jeopardising Australia’s trade relationship with China. Why should we ordinary Australians be expected to do so, at the risk of our own personal safety?”

These WeChat users also question the motives behind this line of inquiry. What purpose does Senator Abetz’s questioning of Chinese Australians serve, other than to make them feel that they will never belong, no matter how long they have lived here or how hard they have tried?

Quite a few older Chinese Australians who lived through the 1960s and 1970s have reported feeling a chill down their spine at the news of Abetz’s questioning. Some commented that this “feels eerily similar to China’s Cultural Revolution.” During that era of political purges, people were demanded to denounce “enemies of the state” — even though those “enemies” may have been their own friends and family. Those refusing to “draw a clear line” were automatically put in the category of the politically untrustworthy.

I raised a number of issues in my written submission — including anti-Chinese racism, the demonisation of the Chinese community, suspicion of Chinese Australians’ political loyalties, and the lack of civic and citizenship education for new migrants. But now that I see some of these same issues being reproduced in Senator Abetz’s line of questioning, it makes me doubt whether this senate inquiry represents a genuine attempt to address them.

Why I will not appear before the inquiry

I have several reasons for reversing my original decision to speak to the committee. First, although I am impressed with how the other three responded to this line of inquiry with dignity and eloquence, I fear that I may become too emotional and lose my cool, given the high likelihood that I too would be confronted with a similar level of aggressiveness. I would find it difficult to “front up” to the inquiry, knowing full well that, as one Australian colleague not of Chinese background warned me, “they will come for you.” As a result, I believe that it would take a toll on my mental health.

Second, my appearance is most likely useless. Since the hearing is clearly not a hearing, it seems that my original wish to help shed light on a very misunderstood diaspora community, in the hope of injecting some nuance and complexity into the debate, now seems rather quixotic.

Third, I have to think about the potential repercussions. What should I say if I’m asked to condemn the Chinese government unconditionally, as the other three were? If I do as asked, I may satisfy Senator Abetz, but I may thereby put myself and my family in China at risk. But if I refuse to do as he asks, my refusal may be interpreted as evidence that my allegiances lie with China rather than with Australia. This may also leave me open to public abuse and trolling, or to misreporting by hawkish journalists keen to flush out “Commie sympathisers.” So I would be damned if I do, and damned if I don’t.

My fourth reason is based as much on strategy as it is on principle. I believe that by withdrawing from the process, I may send a stronger and more effective public message than I would by appearing. I also see withdrawing as a more potent way of standing in solidarity with Osmond Chiu, Yun Jiang, and Wesa Chau. Were I to appear, my contribution would quickly be absorbed into the mass of other submissions, most of which will likely end up being ignored by the committee, the parliament, and the media. By making a point of not appearing, some of the concerns I’ve expressed in my submission may stand a better chance of being heard.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, it seems that the implementation of this senate inquiry has been politicised — perhaps not along party lines, but politicised nonetheless. As a result, I suspect that its outcomes are already more or less predetermined.

There’s an ancient Chinese saying that goes, “When a scholar meets a soldier, the scholar with an argument to make doesn’t stand a chance.” At this moment, I also feel I don’t stand a chance of getting my message across in front of those politicians who come to the inquiry with closed minds and blocked ears, and with a bagful of preconceptions and assumptions that they freely — but perhaps unconsciously — reveal in the questions they ask and the answers they refuse to accept.

What’s more, based on the experience of the three Chinese Australians who went before me, it’s most likely that, in the eyes of Senator Abetz, my Chinese background would trump my scholarly credentials, as a result of which I probably wouldn’t be treated as a credible researcher capable of producing independent research in the first place. Worse still, he may think that my ethnic Chinese background itself would preclude me from any claim to independence and credibility. Without wanting to grandstand, I now see no reason, as a self-respecting academic researcher, for wanting to be associated with such an exercise.

Wanning Sun is Professor of Media and Communication at the University of Technology Sydney.

This article first appeared on ABC Religion & Ethics on 21 October 2020.

The post “When a scholar meets a soldier …”: Why I’ve decided not to speak to the senate inquiry on diaspora communities in Australia appeared first on The China Story.