The recent China panic stories raging across the Murdoch media, the Nine newspapers, the ABC and even the usually steadier Guardian are remarkable.

Remarkable not for what they report, but for what they reveal. The anti-China phobia appears to be a sad regression from Australia’s sensible regional outlook to the old simpering, sniping Anglosphere insecurity.

Sarah Ferguson, that ever-eager trier who hosts the ABC’s 7.30 show, ignited my umbrage with Aunty’s coverage last Wednesday. Interviewing the venerable former foreign minister Bob Carr, she doggedly tried to drag him into an admission that he was tainted by sharing the company of “dictators” (he wasn’t) and somehow present for the unholy military parade put on by the Chinese Communist Party (he wasn’t). Carr tried several times to explain to a determined Ferguson (determined not to listen), that he was in China to exchange ideas on peace and security with our Asian and New Zealand neighbours. He said he was pleased to celebrate the achievements of the Chinese people in overcoming their horrific suffering at the hands of Imperial Japan in 1945. He reminded the audience of the horrendous Japanese war crime known as the Nanjing Massacre.

Not satisfied with Carr’s explanation, Ferguson acidly corrected him by explaining to ABC viewers that it was the Kuomintang government of Chiang Kai-shek that had achieved that victory – not the nasty communists........

© Pearls and Irritations