Former PM Tony Abbott once challenged the ABC to decide just whose side they’re on. As Abbott observed, “A lot of people feel at the moment that the ABC instinctively takes everyone’s side but Australia’s”.
Abbott was referring, at the time, to the ABC’s reflexive siding with people smugglers against the Australian navy, as well as its decision to pay a convicted terrorist sympathiser and smuggle him into its QandA audience, to spring a “gotcha” on a conservative government minister. But lest anyone think that the ABC has since seen the error of its ways and rejoined “Team Australia”, they’re making it clear just whose side they’re really on.
On June 23, Xiao Qian, Chinese Ambassador to Australia, visited the headquarters of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) in Sydney. On behalf of his colleagues, ABC Press Deputy Director Fang Gavin and Director of the Domestic and International Editorial Department [Lisa Whitby] welcomed Ambassador Xiao’s visit and accompanied him on the visit to the ABC News Production Centre […]
Fang Gavin and others said that China is a world power with important international and regional influence, and the Australian people are eager to understand and understand China and China’s development more comprehensively and deeply. China-Australia-China relations have always been one of the focus and priority directions of ABC news reports.
Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in the Commonwealth of Australia
Curiously, the above didn’t appear anywhere on the ABC. In fact, the Ambassador’s little visit went completely without mention on the ABC’s own sites. Interestingly, too, the Chinese embassy didn’t bother with an English language version on their site, so thank goodness for browsers with built-in translation features.
So, what was the Chinese ambassador doing, touring the ABC headquarters and pow-wowing with its top-level news executives? The ABC tried to pass it off as business-as-usual. While it’s true that the ABC has hosted foreign diplomats before, it did so openly and put them on-air for interviews. The Chinese ambassador’s visit, on the other hand, was conducted with what appears suspiciously like secrecy. If it weren’t for alert — presumably Chinese-speaking — whistle-blowers following the Chinese embassy website, nobody might ever have known about it.
But, for some people, it suddenly explains a lot.
An academic about to be interviewed by the ABC says he was asked “not to make any anti-China comments” just days after ambassador Xiao Qian visited the broadcaster’s Sydney HQ.
Malcolm Davis, senior analyst at think tank ASPI, was appearing on Geraldine Doogue’s Radio National program, which was being hosted by Kathryn Robinson, in an interview about space-based solar power.
Dr Davis told The Australian a producer facilitating the interview made the request, claiming the ABC was seen to be “anti-China”.
What on earth does space-based solar have to do with China? As Davis noted, it is the first time he’s ever been asked “not say something essentially anti-China”.
And who, exactly, sees the ABC as “anti-China”?
The request came just two days after the Chinese ambassador visited ABC offices on Thursday.
“This person then said to me, ‘Oh, look, we’ve come under a lot of pressure because we’re seen to be anti-China, so can you please not make any anti-China statements?’” Dr Davis said.
So, just two days after the Chinese embassy wrote that:
“It is hoped that ABC will give full play to its unique advantages in information dissemination, introduce and report China-Australia relations more rationally and objectively, and make positive contributions to enhancing mutual understanding and friendship between the two peoples.”
The Australian
Davis says that he “put two and two together”.
We all did. Long, long ago.