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A photo that says 1000 words. When I worked in Beijing I was once asked if I could help a private entrepreneur get into a group photo with Chinese President Xi Jinping – “doesn’t matter how far back”. I said I couldn’t help.
Former Victorian premier Dan Andrews, top far right, joins a group photo with Xi Jinping (centre front) and world leaders including Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un, before the military parade.Credit: AP
Much easier if you’re a former Australian state premier at a time of China needing Western endorsement.
Or maybe that was the set-up; Dan Andrews cops flak from the media back home but gets financial reward from his business plus a pat on the back from “big business”, while the Labor government enjoys the fruits of ambivalence. Because to the Chinese, of course, his attendance was tacitly approved by our leadership.
Officials are seen very differently in China compared to the West. Ours are public servants. There, the public serves them. Photo ops with Xi are worth 1000 times more than snaps with Albo.
“Lives and careers have been ruined over the spelling on a leader’s welcome banner”, I was once told by a Chinese state-owned company executive, stressing about the exact protocol of a major meeting.
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Given the way officials are feted and benefits accrue in China compared to the way our bureaucrats are treated – like ordinary people – post-politics China gigs are attractive.
Dan Andrews is not the only former politician monetising China connections made during office, he’s just the most blatant one. As Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan prepares to take a group of MPs to China later this month, perhaps the question is: how do we China-proof our leaders?
The CCP disappears even its own top officials, Liu Jianchao and Qin Gang are two recent examples. Former president Liu Shaoqi died in jail. Maybe we should snap them out of amnesia.
When politicians are soothed by talk of Australia-China friendship, maybe we should remind them of the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, when China used propaganda to drive public opinion in favour of closer relations with Japan, the US and Australia respectively, only to change course later on.
While diplomatic relations are manipulated to achieve the CCP’s goals, even more so are the masses. This week’s military parade was a hit of dopamine and adrenaline for China’s have-nots. The parade, at huge cost, is intended to grow pride, gung-ho nationalism and, more alarmingly, feelings of superiority and legitimacy in aggression. There is a cutting analogy on Zhihu, China’s version of Quora, of pigs outside an abattoir celebrating the arrival of new equipment.
Military personnel take part in a military parade to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the end of WWII. Credit: AP
Less visible is the reaction from China’s haves, the better educated. On discussion platforms people called out the irony of cozying up to Russia, which has taken more land from China than any other country. People criticised the parade’s expense and the military growth given how “peace-loving” China claims to be. People mocked China for being in bed with robbers and rapists.
This military parade is a clear announcement of who you stand with and get behind. Xi loves playing the role of a feudal emperor from the time when China was named “the central kingdom”, accepting tributes from surrounding small nations and granting them gifts.
Symbolism matters. Andrews’ presence and that of other former politicians says China can win support from the West. China’s parade of advanced weaponry is impressive, but more alarming is its covert arsenal – charm offensives, narrative warfare and transnational influence.
It’s become fashionable to praise China because of the US’s lapses in global responsibility, but you can criticise both, and you should use equal standards to judge. China’s opaque system, the gulf of language and the constant quashing of dissent mean we are only privy to the sanitised image.
The reality is that to even show a message denouncing the CCP is complicated, costly and dangerous. A brave man, Qi Hong, remotely operated a projector that beamed anti-CCP messages on a building in south-west China. He set up the operation and then escaped to the UK with his family, but now his extended relatives are being harassed.
Compare that to our former state premier who braved ridicule for personal gain. Where will Dan Andrews or others like him be when missiles fly and tanks roll?
Cheng Lei is a China-born Australian journalist. She is the author of Cheng Lei: A Memoir of Freedom.
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