Australia was the most unfriendly country to China in 2017, says Global Times poll
The country that hurt the Chinese people’s feelings the most
According to a very unscientific poll on the Chinese website of the nationalistic Global Times tabloid, the country that was meanest to China this year was Australia.
In the online poll, netizens were asked one simple question: “Who was the most unfriendly country to China in 2017?” Australia ended up coming in first in a landslide with 8,589 votes. In second was India with just 1,967 votes. Then comes the US (1,572), Japan (1,327), South Korea (566), Germany (112), Singapore (112), Vietnam (110).
Along with the sampling bias that comes with surveying Global Times readers, this poll also likely suffers from recency bias, coming just after an explosive diplomatic feud with Australia accusing China of meddling in its domestic politics. Two weeks ago, an Australian senator was forced to resign amid questions over his murky ties to Chinese money, while Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull evoked Chairman Mao, declaring, “The Australian people stand up!”
However, China-Australia relations have certainly been more than a bit rocky this year. Over the summer, Australian media published a bombshell report about how China was attempting to “infiltrate” Australian politics and universities. China’s foreign ministry responded to the report by saying that it was “not even worth refuting.”
Meanwhile, there were several instances this year of racist flyers and graffiti appearing at college campuses in Australia, warning Chinese students to get out or be deported. In March, a Chinese Australian woman was attacked in public by a man in Sydney who told her to “get out of my country.” Later in the year, Chinese students in Canberra said that they were living in fear of being attacked and bullied by local teens. On December 19th, the Chinese consulate in Melbourne issued a safety alert to Chinese students.
And perhaps no other has drawn as many fiery Global Times editorials this year as Australia. In a November opinion piece, the tabloid called Australia “ungrateful” and a “fake Asian country.” In June, it ran a report accusing the Australian government of spying on the Chinese embassy and citizens.
It’s also probably worth noting that last year the tabloid called Australia an “ideal target to strike” if its ships stray into the South China Sea.
To explain Australia’s landslide win in this year’s poll, the Global Times went to Yu Lei, a research fellow at the Oceania Research Center of Sun Yat-sen University, for a quote:
In Chinese culture, treachery is really despised, and this is a key reason why Australia received the most votes.
China has made efforts to sincerely boost bilateral cooperation, but Australia has never stopped inflaming hostility on the South China Sea issue. Recently, Australian politicians’ and the media’s anti-China chorus became more rampant. Chinese netizens felt that China’s efforts and sincerity in developing bilateral ties was not properly appreciated by Australia.
It also cited some netizen comments on the poll:
One states “His (Turnbull’s) fickleness is truly disgusting,” while the others say “Australia is not qualified to be China’s rival, and China doesn’t need to treat it seriously, because it’s just a US proxy in the Asia-Pacific region to fulfill Washington’s will.”
At the moment, tensions between the two countries show no signs of settling back down. Will Australia repeat in 2018? Or will another country pull ahead in hurting China’s feelings?
