Albo's Triumphant China Reset
Australian Media have covered Albo's China trip in great detail. Let's see what Chinese media had to say:
Albo arrived in China and was met at the Shanghai Airport by ….. A random girl with a small flower bouquet and Xiao Qian, the smarmy Chinese Ambassador to Australia.
In other words either they forgot he was coming or intended to insult Australia, via our PM.
Then he went to a Trade Fair: After years of China breaking WTO rules and breaking the Australia China Trade Agreement rules and bullying our nation with trade sanctions, harassment of sailors and pilots, cyber attacks, political interference, disinformation campaigns1…..Albo had to stand next to Premier Li Qiang, and refrain from punching him when he said:
the nation (China) was ready to enhance cooperation with other countries.
"China will always stand on the right side of history, keep up with the progress of the time (and) resolutely oppose unilateralism and protectionism,"
Later he got to meet Xi Jin Ping, apparently.
人民日报:Peoples Daily:
The Peoples Daily App covered it in it’s Nov 6 edition:
The big news was Xi having a meeting with the Feng Qian style work method elected unit representatives “枫桥式工作法” 入选单位代表。He also met the Vice President of South Africa, and the Australian PM, and the Serbian Premier, and the Cuban Premier……all on the one day.
Peoples Daily App Front Page:
The good news is that State media placed Albo’s meeting as the third item in the front page. Surely this means it is important right ?
Here is the detailed coverage when you click through:
It says Xi Jin Ping met Albo in the Great Hall on Nov 6 in the arvo. A positive sign for the Australia China relationship is the one comment with the thumbs up emoji. Even if it was the work of the 50 cent army, it still shows the Chinese government is working towards creating a good image in China for Australia.
澎湃新闻 The Paper
澎湃新闻 Peng Pai / thepaper.cn did not dispute the importance of the FengQiao work style representatives meeting, but elevated Cuba to item 2.
ThePaper.cn did not acknowledge that Albo actually met Xi, a search on Australia did bring up an article about the import trade fair he went to and an article about Native American and Australian Aboriginal issues.
观察者网 The Observer
观察者网 Guancha / The Observer observed that the Feng Qiao people were important, but you had to scroll a long way to get a picture (YES A PICTURE) of ALBO in Chinese media.
He’s in this one below.
And the Guancha article itself
Contact between the two countries is important, says the lonely man visiting the country that unilaterally severed contact with Australia due to us …..being Australia.
央视新闻 CCTV
According to CCTV, Xi Jin Ping wrote a letter to the One Belt One Road Technical Discussion Conference, and then met the same four leaders.
and the meeting was acknowledged by a one sentence article again.
But it seems I’m too impatient, or Chinese journalists have to get their articles reviewed so many times they are hours later than Australian journalists. 2
In fact there was some coverage after all, you just have to stay up late to read it when it is ready.
The CCTV phone app article stated that Xi thought it was mutually beneficial for China and Australia to have a relationship and Albo said China was great for ending poverty in China and should be respected by the whole world and that China’s economy would continue to grow and Australia was very interested in that.
Ok, they used more words and fluff but that’s basically all they said. You can read the CCTV account here:
shade the text and click translate if you don’t read Chinese.
Dialogue is always important, apparently.
Did this trip advance Australia’s prestige and interests ?
BTW, I have been trying to write an article on the Chinese Economic Model, but it keeps growing in complexity (and length). Hopefully it, or a sequence of articles will be ready soon.
Have I forgotten anything ? oh, arbitrary arrest of citizens, censorship of a former PM in his own country, refusal to communicate on disputes….there’s more I know.
now it’s past 1 am. I am NOT going back to the other news outlets to see if they belatedly wrote some sort of article. The point is - Chinese State Media are trying to make Australia look like an obsequious supplicant. And succeeded.