Opinion | The great myth of China
Philip Bowring says that exaggerated outsider views of China - both as a land of opportunity and as a threat to economic and political security - have led to more than a few policy distortions
China at times likes to see itself as surrounded by actual or potential enemies, be they the US, Japan or indeed any Chinese who do not subscribe to Beijing's interpretation of what constitutes patriotism. Hence liberalism is deemed a foreign import with no basis in Chinese culture while Marxist-Leninism is apparently not so. This results in muscle-flexing when scapegoats need to be found for domestic ills.
In turn, foreigners see China as even larger than it already is, whether as a threat or opportunity, economically or politically. This distorts policies all around as nuances and the complexities of inter-state relations, as of international trade, are forgotten.
Australia presents a striking example of how views of China as an opportunity and a threat do not just cancel each other out but find exaggerated reactions in different directions, both of subservience and suspicion. But, first, it is worth noting how even normally level-headed commentators fail to see the East Asian wood for the great tree of China. Thus, The Economist, much read in Western policymaking circles, recently ran a 14-page special report on the Pacific with sections on trade, economics, maritime issues and regional politics. It had more than 150 references to China but just one to Indonesia - and that just in a list of the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
The 250 million people of the world's largest archipelagic nation - one which dominates all the vital straits between the Indian and Pacific oceans, and hence all sea traffic between China, Japan and others on the one side, and India, Europe and the Middle East on the other - are of no account. Other great nations are supposedly minor actors in a China-US "Great Game".
Indonesia is, of course, also Australia's nearest neighbour. So it was equally instructive that on the occasion of the recent G20 summit in Australia, Chinese President Xi Jinping and the new prime minister of India, Narendra Modi, were invited to address the Australian parliament in Canberra. So too was British Prime Minister David Cameron. But no such opportunity for image-boosting was available to the new Indonesian president, Joko Widodo, despite his democratic electoral triumph against the still-powerful remnants of the Suharto era. Perhaps there was not enough time to organise it. Perhaps.
Xi and Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott were also able to unveil a long-negotiated bilateral free-trade agreement. This was greeted ecstatically by most of the local media even though implementation will be very gradual and excludes some key local exports like sugar and wheat. Its benefit to Australia is mainly on equal terms with some other countries that have free trade agreements with China. For China, it offers unrestricted access to purchasing Australian companies of up to A$1 billion (HK$6.66 billion) - access unavailable to European countries.
But while Australia seeks cosy economic relations with China, it has been going out of its way to bolster its strategic links with the US and Japan, to the extent of joining the Western involvement in the war against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. While it may be rational to develop relations with nations such as India and Japan as part of its overall strategy in its region, the enthusiasm for involvement elsewhere could well be counterproductive.