This is more Monty Python than Middle Kingdom

The problem with running a totalitarian state is that there’s no one to tell you when you’re making an ass of yourself.

The Chinese Communist Party plumbed the depths of absurdity last week when its Canberra embassy lectured Australia on the meaning of truth after blacklisting politicians critical of the one-party state. Without any sense of irony, the embassy sought to enlighten us on the glorious liberty of the totalitarian project.

The reason we cannot realise the totalitarian dream is our ­Mandarin illiteracy, apparently. Prepare to be re-educated.

It has been a big fortnight for the CCP. It deployed troops to deal with Hong Kong’s democracy protests only to find the US had passed a bill to defend freedom in the city.

The protests have been marred by such extreme violence that many people want peace restored, whatever the consequences.

However, the problem of CCP interference in Hong Kong’s fragile polis remains unresolved. The party is concerned that demands for greater political independence could spill over into China’s other regions, including Taiwan and Tibet. But President Xi Jinping’s threat to crush the bodies of pro-democracy activists is hardly conducive to lasting peace.

CCP newspaper China Daily published an article blaming the US for pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. The truth — that unrest was provoked by plans to allow extraditions from the city to mainland China — was lost in the revisionist piece. The article closed with a threat: “If Washington pushes the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act further towards becoming law, Beijing will have no choice but to respond with firm countermeasures.”

Reading CCP propaganda makes for an amusing diversion, but only when you’re on the outside looking in. Although there is stiff competition from the fatwa diaries, the CCP is a reliable source of political humour. Its propaganda is increasing as the Chinese government grapples to reconcile the conflicting image of its economic liberalisation with the culture of Maoism. The totalitarian state enforces Maoist ideology while reaping the benefits of a capitalist economy. While the CCP bristles against Western colonisation, it acts as a neo-colonialist force in the South China Sea and developing world.

It bemoans US isolationism under President Donald Trump yet bans Australian politicians who criticise the one-party state. It celebrates the China-first policy but smears Western politicians who defend their national interest as xenophobes.

The Chinese embassy in Canberra is in no position to lecture Australians on freedom or democracy. Yet on this page, embassy official Wang Xining bemoaned the lack of “qualified” debate at last week’s Australian Strategic Forum. He suggested commentators had not “reflected over (sic) the Mandarin language comments about Australia … in Chinese media” to gain a “Chinese perspective” on bilateral relations.

In particular, we are unaware that the Chinese people applaud barring foreign politicians who criticise the CCP. State-controlled media can’t handle the truth and the CCP’s Mandarin media is a classic example of passe political censorship. Wang thinks Australians would be “astounded” to read the “overwhelming support” in Chinese media for the CCP’s travel ban on Liberal politicians Andrew Hastie and James Paterson. But we are not astounded. We are not surprised. And we do not believe that the media of an undemocratic surveillance state remotely reflects the views of its people.

The CCP uses political censorship to deny freedom of thought and suppress free speech. It indoctrinates schoolchildren in politically correct thought. It mandates lessons on Marxist ideology in universities. It requires that politicians and state officials are members of the Communist Party. It has edited the Christian Bible so that it does not offend the state. It does not allow Christians to be CCP members. It makes Muslims suffer re-education in internment camps. In the lead-up to the 70th anniversary of the communist state, social media platform Weibo banned speech considered insulting to the CCP.

The party demands proof that journalists be versed in communist ideology before they can work for the state-regulated media. The BBC reported that from last month, budding journalists could gain accreditation only if they passed a test on President Xi Jinping’s Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics. In other words, freedom of thought, freedom of speech and freedom of ­religion mean their opposite under China’s communist rule.

Under such circumstances, it is little wonder that China’s popularity is low. As people learn more about the totalitarian state, they trust it less. The Pew Research Centre published a survey last year exposing the state of affairs under Xi’s hardline communist rule and aggressive foreign policy. It found a 25-country median of 63 per cent would prefer the US to be the world’s leading power compared with only 19 per cent in favour of a China-dominated world order.

Its neighbours have a pronounced aversion to the communist state; 77 per cent of Filipinos, 81 per cent of Japanese and 73 per cent of South Koreans want Washington, not Beijing, at the wheel. In Australia, 72 per cent of people thought a world led by the US was superior to the China alternative.

The findings are broadly consistent with a recent Newspoll ­survey in which Australians expressed a clear preference for the government to give priority to our relationship with the US rather than China.

And the Lowy Institute revealed Australians’ trust in China was at a decade low. Researchers found only a third of us trusted China to act responsibly in the international arena. The vast majority believe we are doing too little to pressure the CCP to improve its observance of human rights.

China’s failure to adapt to the modern world vexed historians who believed the free market was the basis of political freedom, not the reverse. The development of Chinese authoritarian capitalism proved that greed does not depend on political creed; a state can be capitalist by name and communist by culture. The result is corruption in high places that cannot be challenged by democratic means from within. The remaining choices are popular revolution against the totalitarian regime, or pressure brought to bear by pro-democratic forces in the international sphere.