Perspective: Australia's leaders are right to keep their cool on China, but they must respond to the regime's intrusions into our democratic and other institutions, writes Peter Hartcher
I knew Australia was worried about the Chinese Communist Party's grip on the country, but until now I didn't realise the extent of the fear. The worry shows up very clearly in opinion polls. Fear is harder for a poll to detect.
A comparative poll of 41 countries by Pew Research in September found the people of South Korea, Japan, the US, Canada, Sweden, France and the Netherlands have darker views of China than Australians do. Our universities and our national Parliament are supposedly the very cradles of free inquiry and free debate in our society. Yet at least some officials have been conditioned to think that the People's Republic of China is an exception to Australia's normal processes.
Talkback radio shows and sessions with live audiences brought me in touch with fear and anger in roughly equal measure. Fear and anger at the extent of Chinese investment, at Beijing's efforts to buy and bully its way into Australian politics, at China's crushing of its Uighur minority. And frustration at the perceived lack of Australian government action to restrain Chinese government activities, overt and covert, in Australia.
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