Our ignorance of China is a disgrace

By COLIN MACKERRAS

It’s a disgrace that after half a century or so of multiculturalism, it is still possible that Australian Chinese can be made to feel disloyal merely on the basis of their ethnic background. That’s exactly what happened when right-wing Senator Eric Abetz asked three Chinese-heritage Australians before a Senate committee whether they were willing unconditionally to condemn the Chinese Communist Party. [more]

The three took Abetz’s interrogation as questioning their loyalty to Australia, which it was. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has on occasion stated that he distinguishes between the Chinese Communist Party and Chinese Australians, praising the latter. However, when asked on 16 October about his attitude to Senator Abetz’s performance he refused to criticize it directly, in effect contributing to anxiety among concerned Australians that being Chinese means your loyalty is under suspicion.

There is plenty of evidence that anti-Chinese racism has increased along with the rising tensions in Australia-China relations. One survey with results published in the Sydney Morning Herald (7 June 2020) “documented 386 racist incidents, including abuse, physical intimidation and spitting” against Chinese in Australia and the situation has probably worsened since then. Chinese authorities used this racism to argue against sending Chinese to Australia. It’s all very well to sneer at this attitude, as many have done. However, it is reasonable if you look at the situation from China’s point of view.

Surveys tell us that images of China have worsened greatly. A recent Pew Research Center poll found 81 per cent of Australians viewed China unfavourably, a 24 per cent increase in a year. And the Lowy Institute poll of 2020 found trust in China (23 per cent) at the lowest in history.

I’m not denying that the situation in China itself contributes to how Australians (or anybody else) view it. But politics in the West itself is also crucial. The mainstream media rarely has anything good to say about China. The Murdoch media is generally hostile (and to judge from the blogs on articles about China, most of its readers obsessively so), while the Fairfax stable is not much better. Even the ABC tends to focus on the bad things, and a couple of “Four Corners” programmes have done quite a lot to stoke negative views.

While aware that knowing a lot about a country doesn’t necessarily mean a positive view, it’s my strong impression that ignorance means less wish to engage. As one involved for decades in trying to promote Asian and especially China studies, I find it alarming and horrifying that knowledge and appreciation of China, its people, its language and its culture are so low.

As early as 1994 the federal, state and territory governments set up a body with some decent funding to promote Asian languages and studies in Australian schools. There have been various iterations of this work, though none as well funded or carried out with such enthusiasm as that early attempt. These programmes made a difference, and Asian languages and studies are more prevalent in the Australian education system than they were in the old days.

Yet I have to say that the results are overall disappointing in the extreme. I never imagined that in 2020 Australia would be back to the situation where for an Australian to be Chinese could make their loyalty suspect. Have people like Eric Abetz remained so immune to multiculturalism, at least as it concerns Chinese?

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In a report by Anne McLaren of 22 November 2019 and published by the Asian Studies of Australia the next year, one unnamed “seasoned” academic was reported to have said the following: “We have seen the gradual hollowing out of the deep language and cultural expertise on China in Australia. Increasingly those Australians who speak to us about China don’t know the language, nor have they spent extended time studying its history, culture and politics” (http://asaa.asn.au/chinese-studies-in-australian-universities-a-problem-of-balance/).

That comment accords with my own impressions. Just at the time of China’s rise when we need expertise most, the country doesn’t have the will to invest in knowledge of our biggest trading partner. That is not only stupid but verging on suicidal.

As for the sub-tertiary level, the situation is mixed. In Victoria, which has long been the main centre for Chinese language learning at primary and secondary level, there has been a rise in the number of schools offering the language and the number of students taking it.

Obviously, that is positive. Most of the students, however, are themselves background speakers of Chinese. Of course, it is good that they learn their own language. But it is very unfortunate that so few whose background language is not Chinese want to learn the language. One 2016 report found “an overall drop over the past eight years of some 20% in the number of [students] taking Chinese as a second language” (https://www.crikey.com.au/2019/06/25/fact-check-mandarin-speakers-china/). If young people think there are no jobs in Chinese, obviously they are not going to learn it.

The number of second-language learners who can use Chinese at a really professional level is extremely small. This impacts on mutual trust. I regard this as very important, because trust has now completely disappeared in Australia-China relations and that is a disaster. Trust takes years to build, but can be destroyed in minutes.

The deterioration of Australia-China relations and the decline of China literacy in Australia are both unfortunate trends that reinforce each other. Our government is focusing less on China and allowing reactionary trends in the United States and elsewhere to undermine not only relations with China but even understanding and knowledge about it. Just when China is most important, we are least in a position to deal with it.

I remain an advocate and lover of Western culture, especially music. However, I also believe passionately that Australia must study China, its language, people, history and culture not only because they are also worth study and appreciation, but because they matter more and more in our contemporary world. The cost of ignorance of China could be high.

[category China, education] [status draft] [end]

COLIN MACKERRAS, AO, FAHA is Professor Emeritus at Griffith University, Queensland. He has visited and worked in China many times, during the first working as a teacher of English from 1964 to 1966 at the Beijing Foreign Studies University. He is a specialist on Chinese history, theatre, minority nationalities, Western images of China and Australia-China relations and has written widely on all topics. His many books include Western Perspectives on the People’s Republic of China, Politics, Economy and Society, World Scientific Publishing, Singapore, 2015.

First posted in John Menadue’s Pearls and Irritations, 28 October 2020.

By COLIN MACKERRAS

The twenty-first is likely to be China’s century. Over the period since I first started visiting and living in China in the mid-1960s, the global balance of power has shifted enormously in China’s favour. The US and the West have not declined, but China has grown more quickly, in economic, technological, infrastructure and political terms. This trend is likely to continue.

One turning point was 1971 when US President Richard Nixon’s National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger visited Beijing and arranged for Nixon himself to visit before May the next year. Nixon himself called the days he spent in China (21 to 28 February 1972) “the week that changed the world”. He was right in the sense that what in effect eventuated from this week was that the US would help China’s modernization in return for its willingness not to disturb the American-led liberal international order.

However, a more important turning point was Deng Xiaoping’s introduction of reform policies at the end of 1978. These allowed for the modernization and acceleration of China’s economy and world standing, such as in United Nations and other international agencies. The main credit for China’s rise should go to the Chinese people and Deng’s leadership. American and other international cooperation certainly helped but was not the crucial factor.

Another turning point was 2001, when the September 11 Incidents in New York and Washington highlighted the destructiveness of Islamist terrorism. They led on to fruitless and counterproductive attempts by the US and its allies to turn back this evil through wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Meanwhile, China joined the World Trade Organization at the end of the year (2001), enabling it to strengthen its economic ties with the rest of the world more than before.

Xi Jinping became Party Secretary-General in 2012 and President in 2013, and his leadership has introduced a new dynamism and even assertiveness into the expansion of China’s economy and infrastructure, and its foreign relations. The Belt and Road Initiative he initiated has greatly increased China’s influence across the great Eurasian continent and into Africa.

Meanwhile, what of technology? In 2015, China’s leaders introduced a plan called “Made in China 2025”, aspiring to upgrade China’s labour-intensive manufacturing industries to technology intensive. The US and Western Europe are used to their status as the world’s technological front-runners and have resisted the challenge from China. In 2018, the American think-tank the Council on Foreign Relations declared China’s plan as “a threat to US technological leadership”.

The best example of China’s technological advance is the telecommunications company Huawei Technologies, founded in 1987 and centred in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province. This has done extraordinarily well and in 2012 overtook Ericsson as the world’s largest telecommunications equipment manufacturer.

The West has recently gone out of its way to block Huawei’s technological advantages.  Most of the main Western telecommunications systems have banned or resisted Huawei in their fifth-general (5G) telecommunications networks, claiming it as a threat to national security, while African and Central Asian have adopted it. China has responded by trying to manufacture all essential technology inside China. At the end of 2020 overall success is far from clear, but Huawei is extremely unlikely to succumb to American blandishments.

And in various other respects, China has advanced technologically beyond what would have been conceivable not so long ago. Examples include artificial intelligence technology, space research and medical advance, with China being one of the front-runners in developing and manufacturing vaccines against the COVID-19 pandemic. China’s high-speed railway system is now the best in the world.

The year 2020 has seen massive changes in the world order. The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted heavily on already existing trends. Many of these are crucial for the world, such as climate change and the environment, world population and health and global economic trends. However, here the focus is on the global balance of power, especially Sino-American relations.

The most important factor is the attempts by the Trump Administration, especially since 2018, to decouple from China, launch a trade war against it and damage its economy. This has completed reversed the Nixon understanding of 1972. In 2020, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has been active travelling around the world trying to persuade the leaders of every country to cooperate in opposing China and even in overthrowing the Chinese Communist Party. The US has gone out of its way to exacerbate the ideological divide, and to thwart China’s rise.

As far as the Anglophone world is concerned, it has been broadly successful. To a greater or lesser extent, China has become “the enemy”, even though such a position is clearly against the interests of those countries. Continental Europe is also moving away from China, though the situation there is much more complex and fragmented.

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The ability to deal with COVID-19 has varied greatly throughout the world. After an initial period of great difficulty, China has been able to manage the pandemic very well. By the end of 2020, life is more or less back to normal in most places.

Meanwhile, in the United States and Europe, life is anything but normal. Trump directly blamed China for the pandemic, calling COVID-19 “the China virus” and “the Wuhan virus”, many of his supporters believing him with a consequent devastating impact on China’s image. Lockdowns remain common at the end of 2020, with many countries actually banning travel from Britain due to the emergence of a new COVID-19 strain there.

China’s economy remains the only major one to register growth in 2020. On the other hand, the world economy and those of the Western countries have fallen into recession, with the strong possibility of worse to come.

In political terms, the divergence is also widening. China has certainly experienced tensions, especially in Xinjiang and Hong Kong, but it has remained stable, and the CCP shows no signs of succumbing to attempts to overthrow it. At the same time, the United States is more divided than ever. Not only have racial tensions worsened, but Trump has really shown himself as little better than an overgrown spoilt boy in his reaction to his loss in the 2020 presidential elections. His narrative that the election was stolen has not withstood any testing by the courts. Yet not only has Trump refused to concede defeat, but reports suggest he has widespread support for his stand. What this says is that the American political institutionsare under serious question in much of society. That will not be fatal to American democracy, but cannot help but be very damaging.

The overall conclusion is that the global balance of power has again shifted in China’s favour by the end of 2020.

So will the situation change with Joe Biden as US President? In domestic politics he will try to reduce divisions and show some graciousness to political enemies. In foreign relations, his will be a less abrasive Administration, less willing to offend allies, less generally bullying and demanding. He will be more willing to offer leadership on matters like climate change and trade. But on China, any change will be marginal, not essential. He is not going to bring the US back to the position of leadership it occupied in the years following World War II.

This does not mean that the US is on its last legs. But with the pandemic still rampant, its institutions under suspicion and its race relations worse than ever, there would be no surprise if Chinese people thought its much-vaunted freedom and democracy vastly overrated.

So what of the medium-term future, meaning the next few decades? World tensions could well worsen, though apocalyptic change is unlikely. The trends that have brought about the rise of China are likely to continue, while those that are pointing towards the decline of the US and the West will persist, or even intensify.

For Australia, we need to accommodate to this situation. Unlike some others, I don’t take an alarmist view of this. China does not constitute a threat to Australian security. It does not want to colonize Australia or undermine its current political system. It will certainly want greater influence vis-à-vis the United States. Unfortunately, Australia seems keener to fawn on the US and allow the relationship with China to slide. This is flatly contrary to our interests.

We are moving into a different world, which will see China more influential and the US less so, especially in our region. That is not necessarily worse than our present situation. Given China’s demonstrated unwillingness to go to war, in stark contrast to the American tendency to drag us into wars that don’t concern us, it could even be an improvement.

Colin Mackerras

COLIN MACKERRAS, AO, FAHA is Professor Emeritus at Griffith University, Queensland. He has visited and worked in China many times, during the first working as a teacher of English from 1964 to 1966 at the Beijing Foreign Studies University. He is a specialist on Chinese history, theatre, minority nationalities, Western images of China and Australia-China relations and has written widely on all topics. His many books include Western Perspectives on the People’s Republic of China, Politics, Economy and Society, World Scientific Publishing, Singapore, 2015.

This article was first published on John Menadue’s Pearls and Irritations, 29 December 2020.

China is Not an Enemy

Colin Mackerras

21 June 2020

The downward spiral of Australia-China relations is getting near a tipping point towards a Cold War and must be stopped. Such a Cold War cannot help anybody and, in the short term, will be very difficult to reverse.  Already the trust in bilateral relations, which took years to build up, has long been undermined.

Take the example of reaction to COVID-19, which has been much in the news lately.  When Foreign Minister Marise Payne called for an independent enquiry into the development of COVID-19 in an interview on the ABC on 19 April, she immediately went on to suggest that, due to its lack of transparency, a review of relations with China was under way.

A few days later Ambassador Cheng Jingye made a calm statement saying that China preferred cooperation to deal with the pandemic and rejected a suggestion for a review into COVID-19 that, under the guise of being an independent and comprehensive review, sought to blame China for spreading the virus throughout the world. A journalist from the Financial Review goaded the Ambassador with his own concern, that China was out to punish Australia for leading an independent review. Cheng foolishly capitulated and offered the opinion that Chinese might regard Australia as a hostile country and less willing to send students to Australia. That was the only thing anybody remembered. The upshot was that China was dubbed a bully, a nasty country that did not want Australia to lead an independent and comprehensive review into the origin and spread of the coronavirus.

Of course, China did not see it that way. The Chinese resented the fact that they were apparently in the dock when their own leaders were calling for defeating the virus as a top priority. In the end, the World Health Organization resolution adopted by virtually all countries on 19 May called for an evaluation and review of the WHO-initiated reaction to the COVID-19 experience. It was closer to what Xi Jinping had called for in his introductory speech than it was to what Australia had been calling for. Moreover, Xi offered $2 billion for international help against the virus, as well as any vaccine China developed as a common good, not a commercial product.

The Australian government and mainstream media presented the whole series of events as a vindication of Australia’s initial call. My take is that it was nothing of the sort. I think it showed China as more internationally minded and generous in its approach than either Australia or, especially, the United States. It also had the effect of delivering an unnecessary blow to Australia’s relations with China.

Australia of course had the right to lead this attack on China, under the guise of an independent and comprehensive review of the origin and spread of COVID-19. But it was unnecessary, foolish and counterproductive. You don’t have to defend everything China does or its reactions. But the simple truth is that if a country goes out of its way to insult another one, it will react.

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Last Tuesday (16 June), Foreign Minister Marise Payne gave a speech in which she denounced China, Russia and Turkey for cyber attacks in Australia. On Friday, Morrison held a press conference with the same message, saying the attacks were serious enough that only organization at national level could carry them out. He didn’t mention any specific country, but it was pretty clear he was referring to China. The same evening, a headline appeared in the web version of The Australian that the Australian Strategic Policy Institute had named China. Of course, an official Chinese spokesman denied the charges.

Why now? We’ve had cyberbullying from various sources for a long time, and neither Payne nor Morrison gave specific reasons why the situation was more serious now than before. I think it is probably part of a long-term campaign against China, to justify why Australia should take part in a Western effort to stereotype China as totalitarian enemy, rather than the friend it’s been since the 1970s. I agree strongly with a comment made in direct reaction to Payne’s speech at the ANU that it was “boofhead diplomacy”.

But let’s be fair. Apart from her attack on China, Payne also made it clear that she still supported multilateralism. This is important. We are at a time when Trump is more and more withdrawing the United States from multilateral organizations and fora, such as the World Health Organization and the Paris agreement on climate change of 2015. China wants to remain in these organizations, and it’s good if Australia does too.

Earlier this month, also, China announced that it was advising young people against going to Australia as students. The reason given was that there had been a spate of racist incidents in Australia. This is extremely worrying. Recent reports (for example see article by Naaman Zhou in The Guardian Australia, 1 June 2020) suggest strongly that in Australia there has been a spike in racist incidents against Asians, including Chinese, in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Black Lives Matter demonstrations also indicate many people see systemic racism in Australian society.

My own view is that the reports of an anti-Asian spike in racism are credible and must be taken seriously. On the other hand, I doubt very much that racism is serious enough to make it unsafe for students to come here. Just at present, the whole situation for international students is difficult because the borders are closed due to the pandemic. I suspect that the impact of these accusations from China will be noticeable but temporary. However, I think we have to be very careful not to do anything that could endanger the lively student and academic relations Australia has with other countries, China being extremely important at present. The value of these students to Australia is incalculable, not only in financial, but also in human and academic terms.

Looking back over the last three years or so, a whole series of incidents has damaged Australia’s relations with China. Not all are Australia’s fault by any means. But many of them are. I think we should be very careful not to irritate China. We have more to lose than they do.

Just at present I think we should be very wary of fawning too much on the Americans. The Trump Administration is extremely unreliable and the signs are that the United States is fundamentally turning against China and also tending to draw in on itself. In addition, a poll of 120,000 people in 53 countries (reported in The Guardian Australia, 15 June 2020) showed that, throughout the world, 60 per cent of people think the Chinese have handled the pandemic well, far higher than the one-third who similarly credit the Americans. It’s a view I personally share.

It’s in Australia’s interests to try and conciliate China as far as possible. The way it looks to me, the Morrison government is going out of its way to insult China and make it an enemy. It is not that and should never be.

Of course, we want better relations with such countries as India, as well as more students and trade. But it should not be at China’s expense. It is all too easy to sneer at the hard work that has gone into building trade, academic relationships and political good will with China, now that it’s a country with a poor image in the West. But it’s not sensible. And if we’re not careful it will cost us dearly.

Subject: BAD RELATIONS WITH CHINA ARE NOT IN AUSTRALIA’S INTERESTS (COLIN MACKERRAS, Professor Emeritus)

Our leaders tell us continually that they will stand up to China on behalf of Australia’s interests. But I cannot see how the deteriorating relations with what is still our largest trading partner serves Australia’s interests in any way. Moreover, Australians should understand that what looks like standing up to China to us often looks to Chinese like provocation. [more]

The last week has seen an acceleration of the downward spiral of Australia-China relations. The Chinese are imposing killing tariffs on our wine and barley, with accusations of dumping. Meanwhile, the wolf warrior journalists are insulting Australia, even its military forces. All this is extremely unfortunate and indefensible. However, I still believe strongly that we should try to bring our relationship back on an even keel and doubt that China wants to cut Australia off altogether.

On 30 November 2020, Robert Gottliebsen, business columnist for The Australian, a newspaper nobody could accuse of being favourably biased towards China, wrote as follows. “From President Xi Jinping down, the Chinese are angry at what they regard as iron ore price gouging by the Australians. They are working feverishly to lessen dependence on Australia.” In other words, this sense of economic injustice cuts both ways. I think it is naïve to assume that, because Australians are convinced that Australian iron ore is the best for China, they are not looking for alternative markets, just as Australian producers are doing for products such as barley, wine and lobsters.­

It’s my experience that Chinese look at the world in a way that suits their own point of view, not ours, that their assumptions are not necessarily the same as ours. Most importantly, they are very proud of China, its culture and even its contemporary achievements and don’t like to see these belittled or insulted.

The Australian-led demand for an enquiry into the origin and spread of the coronavirus seems obviously desirable from the point of view of the Australian government and mainstream press. How absurd to oppose it! From the point of view of China, it looked like an attempt to blame them for the pandemic, an accusation of a terrible crime costing millions of lives and ruining many economies. My own point of view is that it was unnecessary and provocative, even self-righteous, for Australia to lead the insistence on this enquiry, which was always going to happen anyway.

Just as in this case, China is sometimes more reactive than it seems. Early in September, the ABC’s Bill Birtles and the Australian Financial Review’s Mike Smith pulled out of China leaving no accredited Australia media journalists on the ground for the first time since the mid-1970s. Reports said they were in danger of arrest, showing how irrational the Chinese authorities are. Then we found that ASIO had been tracking Chinese journalists and academics. They had even revoked the visas of two academics, Li Jianjun and Chen Hong, regarding them as threats to Australia’s national security. Maybe I have a conflict of interest, since both are good friends of mine, but I regard the suggestion that they are threats to Australia as totally ridiculous. The action over Birtles and Smith was reactive, not proactive.

When wolf warrior spokesman Zhao Lijian tweeted a political cartoon accusing the Australian soldiers of gross cruelty in Afghanistan it had already attracted 20,000 “likes” from Chinese viewers. As Morrison and the ALP rightly responded, it was insensitive and insulting. But considering the Brereton report acknowledged happenings similar to what the tweet suggested, it was no more insensitive than our implicit accusation of China’s treachery in starting the pandemic.

Why should 20,000 people like such a tweet? I think it is because they are so tired of being lectured by the West, especially Australia, about their human rights deficiencies. It’s like saying, “you are hypocritical, you lecture us about human rights abuses, but are guilty yourself.” Of course, most Australians would not see a parallel. After all, Australia had a lengthy enquiry before delivering this report and has been open about the murders of 39 Afghan civilians and prisoners by Australian troops. Difference of assumptions and viewpoints does not justify the Chinese attitudes but does help explain them.

The mainstream media reacted with extreme hostility to China over Zhao’s action. Actually, it seemed to me in some quarters to border on glee, as if to say “look, how contemptible, immoral and untrustworthy these Chinese are, we told you so, it might be best to decouple!”. Personally, I think this is not a helpful attitude. Hatred has already bred hatred, and more hatred can only deepen the quagmire. Trust takes years to build and seconds to destroy.

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I think it will definitely look like a provocation to take China to the World Trade Organization, as has been suggested, and I doubt it will serve any useful purpose. Most of all,

I am seriously worried about the Foreign Interference Law currently being introduced into Parliament, with the support of the ALP. If it demands that all dealings with foreign countries by states and universities be approved by the Commonwealth, it is going to be obvious to the Chinese that it is aimed against them. Why else would people mention only Victoria’s signing up to the Belt and Road Initiative and universities needing Commonwealth approval before agreeing to Confucius Institutes? This law, which says it aims at national security, seems totally unnecessary and provocative to me.

Late in August, Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg decided to block a proposed purchase of Australia’s Lion Dairy by the Chinese dairy company Mengniu. In doing so he overrode the Foreign Investment Review Board, saying his grounds were “food security”. Of course, Mengniu felt greatly insulted and withdrew.

To me it looks hypocritical for the Australian government to be so obsessed with its own national security that the Treasurer even blocks a food company investment on these grounds, but at the same time scoff at and denounce China for its obsession with national security in Hong Kong. Considering China’s restraint at month after month of demonstrations in Hong Kong that were aided and abetted by the US and Britain, among other countries, and then turned into demonstrations unfurling the US flag and quite clearly asking for Hong Kong independence, I don’t find it surprising that the Chinese leaders felt China’s security was threatened.

I realize that the mainstream press in Australia has tried to belittle the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership signed in November and including all the countries of East and South-east Asia, as well as Australia and New Zealand. On the other hand, surely such a large-scale agreement that includes China, Japan and Korea has a good deal of potential. A Global Times article of 26 November by Chilean scholar and diplomat Jorge Heine writes that for the three Asian economic heavyweights to have “joined such an economic group despite their ongoing differences is historical”. Heine, whom I know and trust for his experience and knowledge, argues that it demonstrates China’s strong commitment to a regional future and that the world economic and political centre of gravity is moving towards Eastern Asia. I think Australia would do well to profit from it, both politically and economically, even using it as a basis to try to improve relations with China.

So will the Biden Administration make any difference to solving the quagmire where we find ourselves? I think it will, but I’m not particularly optimistic how much. But one thing will change. The sinister and dangerous Mike Pompeo will no longer have real authority in going around the world pushing his crusade against the Chinese Communist Party, or what on 11 November he described as the “Marxist-Leninist monster”. He and the Trump Administration may try to stir up as much hatred and trouble on the way out of office (or even after) as they can. But the fact that he will carry much less weight will be a relief. Can anybody be surprised that China finds such “crusades” threatening?

Under the Biden Administration, Australia will be able to deal with China and the US on many multilateral matters, and it is even possible that trade will be facilitated.

There are a couple of good signs, as suggested above. However, Australia-China relations are now at such a low ebb that I cannot see a way out for the near future. Just at present the wolf warrior diplomats are definitely hostile towards Australia. I think this could well be temporary. Certainly, we should not cast unnecessary provocations towards China and do our utmost to restore a situation that accords with our interests better than at present. Although I can see that Morrison has to act in a way that appeals to the Australian public, it is just not sensible or in Australia’s interests for him to throw his weight around in a way that strengthens already rampant Sinophobia.

COLIN MACKERRAS, AO, FAHA is Professor Emeritus at Griffith University, Queensland. He has visited and worked in China many times, during the first working as a teacher of English from 1964 to 1966 at the Beijing Foreign Studies University. He is a specialist on Chinese history, theatre, minority nationalities, Western images of China and Australia-China relations and has written widely on all topics. His many books include Western Perspectives on the People’s Republic of China, Politics, Economy and Society, World Scientific Publishing, Singapore, 2015.

This article was originally published in John Menadue’s Pearl and Irritations 4 December 2020.

From 26 November to 4 December 2019 I made a visit to China with two of my grandsons, Ben and Kai.

We went to Shanghai, then to Huangshan 黄山 in Anhui Province and finally to Wuyishan 武夷山 in Fujian Province. Trips between the individual destinations were all by high-speed train. We returned to Shanghai’s Pudong Airport on 4 December for flights to our respective destinations.

I would like to add that China’s high-speed train system is now the best in the world. It is smooth and comfortable, extremely fast, and covers a very wide area. It is also extremely punctual, and you can just about tell the time by it. Once (a while ago) I caught one during a really heavy thunderstorm, which I thought would affect its punctuality. But no, it was exactly on time, as usual.

For Ben’s, Kai’s and my visit, I prearranged and pre-paid for hotels with a travel agent friend of mine in China, which enabled the two grandsons to obtain a visa for the visit. I also bought the train tickets well in advance through another travel agent friend of mine in China.

In Shanghai, we were hosted by two Chinese friends, Susan and Kevin. The weather was quite good on our second day, but rather wet and bleak on our first. Our activities included:

1. A visit to Zhujiajiao 朱家角, a water township 镇 near Shanghai;
   1. A night visit with a view of the Bund and the central part of Shanghai;
   1. Ascending the Shanghai Tower 上海中心大厦, the building with the highest observation deck in the world, and very close to the Shanghai World Financial Centre (also among the world’s tallest buildings); and
   1. Shopping in the commercial heart of Shanghai, which is one of the main commercial centres of China and the world.

Although I have been to Shanghai several times before, I continue to be impressed by how modern everything is and how high the standard of living. Apartment blocks are considerably more modern than I remember from last time, and there is a good attempt to maintain greenery. Kevin and Susan maintained confidently that the environment was somewhat better than a few years ago. I was also very impressed by the night lights, which are among the very brightest, most colourful and most artistic of anywhere in the world. The Shanghai Tower is quite extraordinary, having a bird’s-eye view of the entire city. It is not only among the world’s tallest buildings, but even has the second fastest lift.

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The visit to Zhujiajiao was pleasant and educational. This is a traditional town close to Shanghai, which features canals and beautiful houses in traditional Shanghai architecture. The place has been reconstructed for the tourist market, which seems very successful

Our visit to Huangshan was in two parts. We spent the first night in the town of Huangshan. On the second day we went up the mountain by one of the several cable cars, leaving our luggage at a special place at the edge of the scenic area. When the cable car reached its destination, we walked a fair way among what is without doubt the most beautiful mountain scenery I have seen anywhere in the world. We stayed at a nice hotel right in the mountains and were able to undertake further walks. Due to mist the cable car we had gone up the mountain in was closed when we made the descent, but another was open and we came down satisfactorily.

In the town of Huangshan, right next door to the hotel where we stayed, is a large Christian church. I recognized it as such through the large cross on the top of the building. I was welcomed in by a woman who gave me a blessing and showed me round. It is quite large and she claimed that it was full on Sundays. Although this is nothing unusual, I found it interesting, because recently there have been quite a few reports in the West about persecution against Christians. These reports found no support at all in the evidence of this church. The fact that I found it by accident shows that there is nothing prearranged about this evidence.

The mountain scenery in Huangshan is on a very large scale. Enormous and high peaks are accompanied by beautiful strangely-shaped trees. I was impressed by how well maintained the whole place is. People do not leave garbage lying around and, if they do, there are workers who come and clean it up. The Yungu 云谷Cable Car sails quite a long distance over the valley. There are numerous peaks in the Huangshan complex. My grandsons went up the Shixin Peak 始信峰, which is a bit higher than I could manage. Admittedly, the weather was very cold and slightly misty. However, it did not rain and was nowhere wet, snowy or dangerous. The air was crisp and refreshing. The whole experience was simply wonderful.

On our way from Huangshan to the high-speed train that would take us to Wuyishan we stopped over briefly at the town of Chengkan 呈坎. We found we had a bit of time to fill in before our train to Wuyishan, so our taxi-driver suggested we make the visit, while he waited for us at the exit.

Chengkan is a very special place and was a headquarters of Zhuge Liang 诸葛亮 during the Three Kingdoms period of the third century CE. It features the very distinctive architecture of old Anhui Province, with crowded narrow streets which, however, are kept very clean nowadays. One of my grandsons had an old calligrapher write out the four characters 忠義仁勇, meaning “loyal, righteous, humane and courageous”, characteristics to which my grandson aspires. One of the most striking places in Chengkan was an ancient ancestral temple from the Song Dynasty, a very beautiful building typifying the strong traditional Confucian ancestral ethic of this region. Commerce seemed very strong in the town, with people selling local special products to tourists.

In Wuyishan we stayed at the same hotel for three nights in a row, quite near to the scenic area. The weather was perfect. It was cold but clear and clean, with air more or less totally unpolluted. The scenery here is less spectacular than at Huangshan. It features gullies rather than very high peaks, and includes a river and ponds. It also has some special cultural sites. Particular places we visited include the following:

• Youtian Peak 游天峰.
• The Zhu Xi 朱熹 memorial museum,
• Boating on the river.
• Da Hong Pao 大红砲, and
• The town of Wuyishan.

The Youtian Peak is the comparatively high, but nothing like those featured in Huangshan. To get to it, one walks past the Zhu Xi memorial museum, which I found very interesting. Zhu Xi (1130-1200) was the greatest of the Neo-Confucians and of China’s medieval philosophers. He lived and taught here for several years, and there are statues both of him and of his disciples. In the back room of the museum, there are desks, some of them with images of students sitting and listening to the master’s lectures. The fact that so great a medieval philosopher lived and worked here gives this beautiful place an additional cultural interest.

The boat ride was also beautiful, with a guide explaining the places we went past and three boatmen punting. I also went to the Da Hong Pao, a beautiful walk through a gully leading to a large rock high above the valley, with a spectacular view.

People were everywhere very friendly and helpful to us. Other than in Shanghai, everything was in Chinese, which I interpreted for my grandsons, although one of them knows a bit. I must admit to finding the Fujian accent in Wuyishan a bit hard to follow, but on the whole there were no major problems. All three of us tried to improve our Chinese language skills while in China.

The hotels we stayed at were all excellent and comfortable. The one right in the mountains was exceptional, with not only an excellent atmosphere, but very nice food. In all cases breakfast was provided according to the deal made in booking the hotels, but in most cases we went out to dinner to sample local food and restaurants, rather than eating at the hotels.

The high-speed train system is now the best in the world, representing a giant leap forward for the infrastructure in China. It is not only very fast, but very convenient, comfortable and punctual. This makes it, for me, a better way to travel than air. The punctuality of the high-speed trains does not seem to be affected by the weather. 

Our visit was very successful. We all learned a great deal about Chinese life and culture and got to know Chinese people better. We also enjoyed ourselves greatly. The progress China has made and is making, despite opposition and trade war from the United States and elsewhere, is remarkable and sustainable. For me it was a memorable experience. I shall always look back on it with pleasure. Both grandsons have told me they thought it was fantastic.

Colin

29 December 2019

Below is an article commenting  on my childhood.  It demonstrates the kind of family where I grew up. It was a highly cultured and educated family, but had no interest in China. Yet, it did encourage me to learn about China, for which I am eternally grateful.
Colin Mackerras

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How it came about that the Chinese invited Colin and Alyce to go and teach in China could have been indirectly due to Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai (1898-1976). In December 1963 and January 1964, he went to Africa, including Algeria, which had recently gained independence from France, with French still used as the diplomatic language. Zhou Enlai had lived in France when he was a student and spoke French very well, but because of protocol reasons he gave his speeches in Chinese. At one point, Zhou corrected his interpreter. It is said that the embarrassment this caused led him to take steps to get foreign languages better spoken in China. He ordered that teachers be got from overseas, including Europe. Colin and Alyce were among the beneficiaries of this policy, even though Australians.

 

Alyce was pregnant at the time the couple went to China. She could speak a bit of Chinese but certainly not enough to deal with the technicalities of dealing with doctors in China. One person who helped her enormously was the distinguished teacher and diplomat Zhang Hanzhi. Very few people knew it then, certainly not Alyce or Colin, but at that very time Zhang Hanzhi was teaching English to the Chinese Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong (1893-1976). He was not a good language student, and soon lost interest in favour of leading the Cultural Revolution, a movement we can see with hindsight was totally disastrous for China.

On the morning of February 18^th, 1965, Alyce felt the contractions starting very early in the morning and Alyce and Colin went to get Zhang Hanzhi, and she took  to the Friendship Hospital in Beijing, where Stephen was born later that day.

 

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Colin and Alyce studied in Canberra, at the then Canberra University College, which was then attached to the University of Melbourne. They both studied Chinese, Japanese and Oriental Civilizations. This Asian Studies degree resulted from policies by the Menzies government: although it was bitterly hostile to China, it believed Australians should know more about Asia.