China’s tweet could prove ‘huge mistake’, former Australian Foreign Minister warns

China is only “damaging themselves” with the fake image tweeted this week, and it could have unintended consequences, a former top Aussie diplomat has warned.

China has made a “huge mistake” by acting aggressively towards Australia in a move that will spur Western nations to join forces to tackle growing aggression from the superpower, Australia’s former foreign minister has said.

Speaking in London at the launch of a China Research Group report, Defending Democracy in a New World, Alexander Downer said the “new China” poses a significant challenge for many nations as evidenced by the “trade war” it is embarking on with Australia.

“You do see a China which is increasingly throwing its weight around and is harder to engage with,” he said.

This was evidenced this week with the publishing of a fake image by a Chinese government account on Twitter depicting an Australian soldier holding a knife to the throat of an Afghan child, which Prime Minister Scott Morrison slammed as “repugnant”.

Mr Downer said: “[China’s] made a huge mistake in embarking on this new, much more aggressive and very 19th century style of diplomacy.

“The Chinese leadership is driving Western countries together and they are increasingly going to consult with each other and collaborate on how to manage China.”

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Former Australian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom Alexander Downer said China’s aggression will unite countries against it. Picture: Lukas Coch/AAP

Mr Downer served as Australia’s Foreign Minister from 1996-2007 before becoming High Commissioner to the UK from 2014-2018. He is now chairman of conservative-leaning institute the Policy Exchange.

He said China’s growing economic and military power has also meant the country is “prepared in a very unsophisticated way to throw its weight around,” ensuring Western countries will need to “collaborate much more closely than they have done in the past”.

“The Chinese government is doing huge damage in terms of soft power,” he said. “Its reputation is taking a real hammering.

“They are damaging themselves and damaging themselves quite badly. The question is, what is to be done about this?”

Mr Downer previously served on the board of controversial tech giant Huawei in Australia and internationally and said he was “very sad” to see the sense of wolf warrior diplomacy derail diplomatic relations.

He advocated a policy of engagement with China rather than containment, but said too many countries, including the UK, had ignored geopolitical concerns in favour of economic ones.

The China Research Group is a collective of UK Conservative MPs led by Tom Tugendhat and Neil O’Brien, designed to influence government policy on China. The recent report outlines a series of policy options from export bans to creating a league of Democratic nations to combat concerns about Chinese government activities.

Australian-Chinese relations plummeted to new lows in the wake of the doctored image of the Australian soldier published by China’s foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian on Twitter.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison slammed the post as “repugnant” and requested social media giant Twitter remove it – which it has refused to do.

Chinese officials and state media doubled down on the offensive, with CCP mouthpiece The Global Times saying the PM should “slap himself” and “kowtow” on live television and calling Australia “evil” and the “hatchet man” for the US in light of alleged war crimes laid out in the Brereton report.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian tweeted the initial image. Picture: Reuters/Carlos Garcia Rawlins

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The Global Times kept up the thread on Tuesday night with an article that said people in China were “surprised and disgusted” by Australia.

“Many Chinese people feel as if they have swallowed a fly when hearing about Australia,” it read. “As a warhound of the US, Australia should restrain its arrogance. Particularly, its warships must not come to China’s coastal areas to flex muscles, or else it will swallow the bitter pills.”

China has ramped up a series of trade measures against Australia this year with tariffs on beef, barley and wine exports, after Australia called for a probe into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic and blocked Huawei from participating in building the country’s 5G network.

On Tuesday, Mr Morrison took to Chinese social media giant WeChat to draw a line between the Chinese government and the Chinese people.

Scott Morrison said the tweet ‘does not diminish our friendship with the Chinese people’.

“This post containing false images of Australian soldiers does not diminish the respect and appreciation for the Chinese community in Australia, nor does it diminish our friendship with the Chinese people,” he wrote.

“Our Chinese-Australian community will continue to play a pivotal role in ensuring that our country remains a successful multicultural nation.”

The diplomatic stoush has also seen China accused of hypocrisy on social media with many tweeting clips of tanks in Tiananmen Square and about treatment of the Uighur people.

World Uighur Congress director Rahima Mahmut said she was feeling “frustration” at the lack of action from the international community over the Uighur abuses carried out in China.

“Everyone is fearful, is scared. A knock on the door brings fright. This is the situation that Uighurs are facing,” she said.

“I do believe the West have lost a lot of opportunities to counter China’s aggression against its own people.”

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