How Beijing brainwashes its people and manipulates the West | Cheng Lei

Cheng Lei, who spent three years in detention in China, explains how Beijing’s leaders use coercion and brainwashing to create an “ant colony” without independent thought.

I’m not a defence person. I don’t go ga-ga over hypersonic missiles or stealth bombers. I don’t know how much of our GDP defence spending should be.

What I do understand acutely is the value of what we’re defending. And the dangers in weapons of the mind.

When you don’t have to be behind bars to experience imprisonment. When our businesses are worried that any geopolitical kerfuffle will hurt their prospects. Or when we don’t say fully what we think because last time we did it, there were repercussions.

That uncomfortable truth is what Australia faces dealing with authoritarian powers like China.

We’re up against China’s mind games to control and influence.

In Xi Jinping’s China, national security concerns have been expanded to 16 sectors including media and culture, and overseas interests.

Public service announcements and TV soaps warn about foreign spies. China’s top police academy (People’s Public Security University) used footage of me in a recruitment video about catching well-disguised spies. A judge said in court that all Japanese diplomats are spies.

The number one rule in detention is not about fighting or bullying cellmates, it’s about not making derogatory remarks about the CCP and its leaders. The number one punishment is making you self- reflect in ‘sitting duty’, followed by writing a self-bashing essay.

Australian journalist Cheng Lei was held captive in China for three years.

China is like a huge ant colony. From cradle to grave, the bombardment of messaging is about the importance of the state (colony) vs the insignificance of the individual (worker ant, soldier ant, IT ant, journalist ant). The slogan goes ‘Give up the small family for the big family’.

Contrast that to our high regard for individuals – China’s foreign minister made a comment when our leaders brought up my case time and time again ‘why do you make such a fuss for an individual?’

Personal sacrifice is glorified – to die for your country, to gain gold medals, to erase the ‘century of shame’, the storyline is that outsiders try to bully us and the Chinese have had enough.

Chinese President Xi Jinping inspects troops of the People's Liberation Army during a military parade in 2017. Picture: Li Gang/Xinhua

Leaders and the party are like gods. Interview the average Zhou down the street, and he feels compelled to say ‘thanks to the Party, we’ve got food on the table’. Each natural disaster is a CCP promotional opportunity. Everything that’s good is because of their vision and leadership.

Mismanagement, waste and self-enrichment, are ‘state secrets’. Group think is encouraged. ‘To be one of the herd’ is a compliment. Even if nobody believes what’s being said, it’s a must to learn the lines and act well. Living with your tail between your legs is seen as the survival mindset.

Younger generations grow up with tragic tales about ‘those who stuck their necks out and got them chopped off’. The term ‘hanjian’ (China’s traitor) is about the worst name you could call someone. ‘Lap-dog of the US/West’ is another term. This extends to those who have gained foreign citizenship.

China’s state news carries stories about the military just about every day. War preparations in Fujian, the province closest to Taiwan, range from copper stockpiles to blood donation stations.

Even my Chinese cellmates who’ve been wronged by the system and have never been to Taiwan, say ‘we should reunify with Taiwan — even if by force’, as if reunification righted some personal wrong done to them.

In the heavily restricted Chinese online space, a popular blogger’s shocking view that China should take over Australia because its defence is weaker than Taiwan and is much richer in resources, is unbelievably not censored by authorities.

China has always wanted to control its people even when they go overseas. In 1989 when my dad and I had gone to protests in Melbourne in support of Tian’anmen square students, there had been officials from the Chinese consulate taking photos of who was there.

Unlike weapons that break our bones, subtle binds of interference are not unpleasant.

We can slip into the comfortable noose of ‘friendship’ that stops us from calling out human rights abuse. We can become complacent about community associations and chambers of business that are helpful for voter engagement, when transparency should be ensured about their charters and sources of funding.

At the same time, we must separate Chinese people from the Chinese regime and take them as we find them, instead of casually tossing out the charge of ‘spies’. Alienating immigrants runs counter to our values and leaves them vulnerable to manipulation. Instead, we should win them, by understanding and accepting them.

How well does mainstream Australia understand China and the Chinese? Is our intellectual curiosity waning and future talent bank drying up? We need to know China better, to avoid any strategic miscalculation.

Maybe we need wallbreakers. People who understand both sides and facilitate open dialogue.

China says it’s waging ‘a war without gun smoke’ in reference to grey zone operations like economic coercion, so our defence ought to be the same, a resistance without gun smoke.

How we model by example to stand up for justice and freedom, what we do to make everyone in our multicultural society feel welcome, heard and represented, will be our best defence.

Cheng Lei is an Australian journalist who was jailed in China for three years. This is an edited version of a speech she gave at today’s Defending Australia forum in Canberra.

Originally published as How Beijing brainwashes its people and manipulates the West | Cheng Lei