By Lin Lan
Frances Adamson, secretary of Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), said on Wednesday that the Chinese government is “dogged by insecurity” and holds a “deeply defensive mindset perceiving external threats even as it pushes its interests over those of others,” according to Australia’s ABC News on Wednesday.
Adamson is in her final week as secretary of the DFAT, and she made the speech in Canberra before leaving office this week. About to leave her post, Adamson has spoken out her “understanding” of China.
Adamson’s speech is opposite to the facts. Where is China’s “insecurity”? In today’s world, China is one of the most confident countries, and the Communist Party of China is one of the most confident political parties. China’s Shenzhou-12 manned spacecraft has just sent three Chinese taikonauts into China’s own space station. The aerospace achievements are another huge spur of Chinese people’s confidence, against the background that the Chinese economy has taken the lead in recovering from the COVID-19 epidemic.
At the same time, China’s economy seems to be more stable and prosperous than other major powers. China is also accelerating the resolution of a series of social and economic problems, which are being gradually resolved through deepening reforms. Chinese people have gained unprecedented confidence in the country. As the Munich Security Report released on July 9 showed, China is “an unperturbed country” and there is “a sign of the confidence of the Chinese people in the strength of their country.”
Adamson’s speech shows that Australia has serious mistakes in its view of China, which is one of the root causes of the worsening bilateral ties. She was Australia’s ambassador to Beijing from 2011 to 2015, and her oversight of the 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper was described as “instrumental” in guiding Australia’s foreign policy agenda by Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne.
Even as Adamson was once Australia’s ambassador to China, she still has a superficial understanding of China. No wonder Canberra’s overall perception of Beijing is biased. With such a misunderstanding and serving as secretary of the DFAT for years, it is also not surprising that China-Australia trade has been hit hard.
“Adamson’s speech is not only inconsistent with the facts, but also trying to shift contradictions away. Australia has always had a deep-rooted sense of insecurity and anxiety, and the sentiment has been amplified over the years, affecting China-Australia relations,” Ning Tuanhui, an assistant research fellow with the China Institute of International Studies, told the Global Times on Thursday.
Australia’s sense of insecurity is reflected in two aspects. First, Australia has followed the US in the Cold War mentality against China, yet Canberra is also highly dependent on Beijing in the economic and trade field.
Second, Australia has security concerns because of its dark history of plundering and killing indigenous people. “Due to the illegality of its own land derived from indigenous people, Australia has always been worried that any rising Asian country will look into its historical plundering,” Yu Lei, a chief research fellow at the research center for Pacific island countries of Liaocheng University in East China’s Shandong Province, told the Global Times.
Because of the Australian government’s sense of insecurity, Australian people are also full of such sentiment. The Sydney-based Lowy Institute on Tuesday released its latest annual poll, which shows that China was seen as a threat by 63 percent, reflecting a 22 percentage point increase since last year’s poll. Canberra knows which country is “dogged by insecurity.”
–The Daily Mail-Global Times News Exchange Item
