this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2023
59 points (100.0% liked)
Australia
3613 readers
108 users here now
A place to discuss Australia and important Australian issues.
Before you post:
If you're posting anything related to:
- The Environment, post it to Aussie Environment
- Politics, post it to Australian Politics
- World News/Events, post it to World News
- A question to Australians (from outside) post it to Ask an Australian
If you're posting Australian News (not opinion or discussion pieces) post it to Australian News
Rules
This community is run under the rules of aussie.zone. In addition to those rules:
- When posting news articles use the source headline and place your commentary in a separate comment
Banner Photo
Congratulations to @Tau@aussie.zone who had the most upvoted submission to our banner photo competition
Recommended and Related Communities
Be sure to check out and subscribe to our related communities on aussie.zone:
- Australian News
- World News (from an Australian Perspective)
- Australian Politics
- Aussie Environment
- Ask an Australian
- AusFinance
- Pictures
- AusLegal
- Aussie Frugal Living
- Cars (Australia)
- Coffee
- Chat
- Aussie Zone Meta
- bapcsalesaustralia
- Food Australia
- Aussie Memes
Plus other communities for sport and major cities.
https://aussie.zone/communities
Moderation
Since Kbin doesn't show Lemmy Moderators, I'll list them here. Also note that Kbin does not distinguish moderator comments.
Additionally, we have our instance admins: @lodion@aussie.zone and @Nath@aussie.zone
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
This might be harsh but I have little sympathy for this woman. Remember she was the news anchor at CGTN from 2012 - 2020 and based on Beijing at that time. CGTN is a state owned news (i.e. propaganda) outlet. She was an Australian Citizen prior to taking that position, so surely she should be aware of what she was walking into a conflict between Australian values of freedom and the oppression that the CGTN apparatus represents.
Instead of being an ethical and fearless journalist, she picked money, clout and prestige, betraying the very principles of the country that she's pleading for sympathy from now.
The fact that the role become a poisoned chalice is entirely predictable. It's disappointing that our government is now having to expend political capital for her.
A valid opinion but I have a different take on her story. Given her Chinese background and immigrant status it is perfectly reasonable for her to end up working in China. You have to understand a few points.
Tldr; she wanted to be a news lady, not a speck of a chance that would happen in Australia, used her Chinese background and the prevailing economic winds at the time to nail that dream in China.
Yeah there were plenty of warning signs and opportunities to leave but when you've built an outstanding career over 20 years it is hard to leave. It'd be like finally getting to be footy captain and then calling it quits. Also when you have lived and worked in China (or anywhere) for that long everything gets normalised. The bribes, corruption, harsh penalties and censorship of the state become part of everyday life, things that are objectively wrong don't feel wrong anymore. Just like how we in Australia have become accustomed to paying ridiculous fines, levys, fees and insurances. Also uh... COVID kinda made it hard to escape. Australia wouldn't have let you in and China wouldn't have let you return to your job. Many at that time were hoping to ride out the storm.
She is indeed, to a degree, a victim of her own ambition but given thr above I can't really say it's a "leopards ate my face" situation. Perhaps in some warped way she thought that being a state media shill would offer her some insurance against detainment but in reality it only made her an even more attractive target for the increasingly heavy handed Chinese State authorities.
She is 100% being used as a political weapon against Australia as every day she is being detained erodes the value of Australian Citizenship. There will be plenty who will argue "weelll she's not really one of us is she?" but that only serves to tear apart our multicultural values which benefits the geopolitical power of the Chinese State. One of China's problems continues to be the massive flight of human capital (and in turn $$$) from their shores. Power plays like this demonstrate to that nobody in China is untouchable and furthermore a foreign citizenship is worthless even if you obtain one. A truly twisted way to enforce loyalty among your own populace.
Finally she gets to write one letter home per month. Wouldn't believe most of what's written as you can guarantee that shit is heavily curated to hit us in the feels.
The warning signs are all there. It's no coincidence that China has become more belligerent as their economy has faltered, they are a dictatorship and they need to divert the attention. Expect more of the same or even dialled up a notch or two as stagnation becomes long term.
Second I wouldn't say being a journalist in China has any prestige. Certainly not any investigative journalism there. You're just told to say what you're told to say, you can pick some random person off the street for that, I mean how hard is that? Would her "experience" mean much outside of China? It's like a person having 10 years experience but never moved beyond the duties of a graduate.
Third she could have gone to Taiwan. If she's struggling to get a job in Australia (I assume due to language abilities?) Taiwan speaks her native language so she would fit right in there and not be in this predicament.
But the end of the day they target us because we can't do anything to counter it. Americans would probably lock up a Chinese citizen on trumped up terrorism charges as leverage whereas Australia doesn't.
You really need to do the bare minimum of research on this person. It is highly likely she has better "language abilities" than you.
Maybe but that makes it even more perplexing why she would go. It's not like she would do any actual journalism there like I said. Being told what to say rather than telling the truth isn't really journalism.
How is that a mystery? She is bi-lingual and was born in China. And yes, she did do "actual journalism" there - she worked for CNBC for nearly a decade.
Ok so she's bilingual. But I still refute that she did much journalism. Sprouting propoganda and operating in a censored environment isn't really journalism in my books. She had no editorial independence.
Edit: I think someone here put it better than me. She's a propagandist not a journalist.
I disagree. I think, like the referendum, this issue is shining a light on the minority of people in Australia who don't share our multicultural values. The people who say "she's not one of us" never shared our national values.
That will, absolutely, tear apart relationships in Australia short term, however I think it will make Australia stronger in the long run. It's easier to deal with the racist fucks in this country when we know who they are.
Surely what it demonstrates is once you have foreign citizenship, don't go back to China? That's not good for the Chinese economy.
I don't even think it's necessary to go that far. This should be "don't work in a political position in/for China".