Last week, a friend asked if I was worried about Chinese “nuclear threats".

A repost from 31 October 2025

I asked where he had heard that.

He showed me his phone.

“WE OPPOSE: CHINA ISSUES NUKE WARNING AFTER AUSTRALIA-US DEAL.”

Courtesy of News Corp. This time, the story was that China issued a “nuke warning” – because Anthony Albanese smiled a little too warmly at Donald Trump. Armageddon, apparently, was just around the corner.

But read past the ads and celebrity gossip, and you’ll find the real source: a bland Chinese statement reiterating opposition to nuclear proliferation. No missiles. No threats. Not even a spicy meme. Yet somehow, all those upper case letters make it feel like Canberra was about to get a call from the Pentagon.

We’ve seen the formula: take a dry statement, insert the word “warning”, sprinkle in “nuclear”, then hit caps lock.

News Corp knows exactly what it’s doing: junk-food storytelling, always ready to serve – fast, addictive, hollow. You know the menu: spy ships “lurking”, balloons “probing”, apps “harvesting”, EVs “spying”, Chinese Australians “betraying”.

It’s all fear, all the time. Because fear........

© Pearls and Irritations