Premier Wen Jiabao's front-page billing on his tour of Australia this week raises a key question: just how well does Australia understand the nation that is a critical part of its economic and strategic future?
Not well enough, according to Australian academic Jonathan West, a former Harvard University business professor who has recently returned to his native land. He noted that if you go into your local bookshop in Australia, 'there are virtually no books on China'. Further, 'if you look at the [Australian] media, there is very little coverage of the deep issues about China's growth path'.
On both scores, Professor West is essentially right. Bookshops and libraries in Australia tend to stock stack upon stack of literature about European, Australian and American issues such as politics, economics and history, while the Asian - let alone Chinese - section is at best one shelf.
As for the media, the leading business newspaper, the Financial Review, and broadsheets like The Australian, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age feature China regularly. But popular tabloids such as The Daily Telegraph of Sydney and the Herald Sun in Melbourne, which are read by about 2 million people each day, rarely cover China in more than a superficial way.
On radio and television, apart from the publicly owned Australian Broadcasting Corporation, in-depth China coverage is minimal.
What China coverage there is tends to be about business opportunities or the growing strategic power of China in the Asian region. For example, there was little coverage of the National People's Congress discussion last month of the latest five-year plan - even though it would have a significant impact on Australia, Professor West said.
But perhaps that dearth of coverage is because politicians in Australia are also not focusing on the plan, he said. After speaking recently with some of them about it, Professor West said: 'If I [ask them] 'What do you think of the new five-year programme?' [They have] never heard of it. They don't know what the key points are; they don't know what the debates are; they don't know what the impact will be on Australia. In fact, I think it will have a major impact.'