<
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/oct/02/china-media-portrayal-australia-relationship-war>
"Yun Jiang doesn’t mince her words when reflecting on how the recent decline in
Australia’s relationship with China has affected Chinese Australians.
“It’s almost as if we’re already at war,” the scholar and former government
policy adviser says. “During times of war, we are kind of forced to choose.”
Australian government rhetoric on China may have cooled since Labor came to
office, but Chinese Australian communities are still dealing with the
consequences of “drums of war” fears stoked over the past few years.
Some say the media’s negative portrayal of China, and of the two countries’
relationship as a zero-sum game, has made them feel forced to choose between
their Chinese and Australian identities and fuelled suspicious attitudes
towards them.
“Chinese Australians are often seen by some in the national security community
as just collateral damage,” says Jiang, the China Matters fellow at the
Australian Institute of International Affairs. “And the racism and the
suspicion that’s targeted at them? Well, they’re just unintended consequences.”
Jiang says the rise in hostility can be traced back to 2018, when the Coalition
government passed foreign interference and espionage laws that then prime
minister Malcolm Turnbull said were partly driven by media reports that “the
Chinese Communist party has been working to covertly interfere with our media,
our universities and even the decisions of elected representatives right here
in this building”.
Jiang, who was then working as a public servant, says it became harder after
that for Chinese Australians to obtain security clearance for sensitive roles."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
