One of the most enduring habits of public discourse is to divide the world into polar opposites, of which one pole is seen to be good and the other is seen to be bad. This can be done to religions, to political systems, or to nations. Contemporary public culture, with an antagonistic political style and the vicious use of social media, favours the making of polar opposites. It is evident in current discussion of China.
Those who see relationships through the lens of polarisation usually describe themselves and their allies as virtuous and their rivals as wicked. Their nation is a shining, peaceable democracy; their rivals are aggressive totalitarian states. They are prosperous and rational; their rivals are impoverished and slaves of ideology. The fear that feeds on polarisation then urges the cutting of ties and the building of walls.
Australian attitudes to China have always flirted with this kind of polarisation. After a period in which commentators emphasised the contribution a close relationship to China could make to Australian prosperity, in the last year the condemnation of China has become strident.
To demonstrate its totalitarian character, critics of China dwell on its baleful intentions towards Hong Kong and Taiwan, its incarceration of a million Uighurs and its electronic surveillance of its citizens. They also emphasise Chinese attempts to project its power beyond its borders through territorial claims, its economic assistance to small nations in return for access to ports and other resources, and through the use of spies and of overseas Chinese to further its interests and to project a favourable image in Australia.
Taken together these actions are represented as the actions of a hostile totalitarian, perhaps Marxist, power intent on taking over our democratic institutions and those of our neighbours in order to make us subservient to its interests. They urge control, disengagement and strong alliance with democratic powers with similar ideals and cultural background as ourselves, such as the United States. These lead logically to the cutting of ties with a nation that is seen as culturally alien and politically hostile, to a new cold war.
This polarisation should be resisted, even while the evidence urging it is taken seriously.
Certainly much behaviour by the Chinese government should be recognised as unacceptable. Its lack of respect for the human rights of groups of its citizens should be deplored. Other behaviour such as buying influence in the Pacific, spying and expecting Chinese residents