Australia started the journalist war with China.

Tit-for-tat logic made it inevitable that Australian journalists in China would pay the price.

Hard questions should be asked about Canberra’s thinking on the costs and consequences of raiding Chinese journalists in Australia.

A dismaying Canberra mindset—shaped by politics, secrecy and security—views journalism as a disagreeable, troublesome bit of our democracy.

Unfortunately, our politicians, minders, officials, judges and cops repeatedly prove the truth of Tom Stoppard’s line: ‘I’m with you on the free press ^[1]. It’s the newspapers I can’t stand ^[2].’

Love the principle; just disdain the people and the press that practise it. Canberra’s secrecy obsession feeds on security fears ^[3] and it’s all bad news for the hacks.

My argument is not that there’s some moral equivalence ^[4] between China and Australia in the way they treat journalists. Rather than false equivalence, Australia should hold itself to the much higher democratic standards we proclaim.

Add to proper Australian standards the question of judgement and an apparent lack of smarts by Canberra about consequences.

Raiding Chinese journalists in the same way Australian journalists were raided ^[5]last year demanded a Chinese response. We didn’t expel four Chinese journalists but we showed them the door.

The lore of diplomacy that became tacit law during the Cold War states that if you kick out my diplomats or journalists, I do the same to you. That lore/law has been on vivid display in a big tit for tat between the US and China.

In February, Beijing expelled ^[6] three Wall Street Journal reporters—the first foreign correspondents ordered to leave China since 1998. The Journal’s alleged offence was a commentary under the headline, ‘China is the real sick man of Asia’ ^[7]. Then Washington cut ^[8] to 100 the number of Chinese citizens allowed to work in the US for five state-controlled Chinese news organisations. China responded by expelling ^[9]journalists (including Australians) working for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post.

Plenty of fresh lore/law to show Australia what’d happen if it went after Chinese journalists. Oz journalists in China would be hit, and Beijing plays this harder and harsher than we do.

Consider the timeline of our journalist war.

On 26 June, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation searched the homes ^[10] of Chinese journalists, warning the reporters that under Australian law they couldn’t make public the fact of the raids.

The ‘you must be silent’ instruction makes the strange point that it’s better for a journo to be done over by the federal police than by ASIO. At least with the wallopers, you can still talk. ASIO takes you to the hall of mirrors inside the cone of silence.

After the ASIO questioning, the Australia bureau chief of China News Service, Tao Shelan, China Radio International’s Sydney bureau chief, Li Dayong, and two other Chinese journalists left Australia. Not expelled, mind, just fled.

It was left to Chinese media to break the silence ^[10], with this from China News Service:

At dawn of June 26 this year, Australian law enforcement officers conducted an unprovoked search on the residences of four journalists from three Chinese media organisations in Australia on the grounds of alleged violations of Australia’s Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme Act.

Items such as mobile phones, computers and writing materials were seized.

On 7 July, Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade issued new travel advice warning Australians they may face ‘arbitrary detention ^[11]’ for allegedly ‘endangering national security’ if they visit China. Canberra was voicing its hostage diplomacy fears.

On 14 August, Australia was informed ^[12] of the detention of Cheng Lei, an Australian citizen who is a ‘high-profile, respected business journalist ^[13]’ for the state-controlled China Global Television Network. China has announced that Cheng is suspected of criminal activity endangering China’s national security.

Such detention is a ‘rare event’ ^[14] and this appears to be the first involving a foreigner, according to former Australian ambassador to Beijing Geoff Raby, who observes: ‘It’s not an accidental or random incident in China when they decide to take action like this.’

Raby says Cheng is ‘a very experienced journalist’ who has ‘done the job for a long time in China’. He told the BBC ^[14] her reporting was ‘thoroughly objective’, and she worked within the constraints of the state broadcaster to be as fair as possible.

On 2 September, Ministry of State Security officers came knocking ^[15] on the door of the ABC’s Bill Birtles, in Beijing, and the Australian Financial Review’s Michael Smith, in Shanghai. Full marks to Australia’s diplomats who negotiated the deal that got the two correspondents on a plane to Australia ^[16] on 7 September, after police had interviewed the two about their links to Cheng Lei.

The questioning on Cheng, however, was perfunctory ^[17]. As Birtles commented: ‘I think the whole thing was premeditated by the Chinese government. They wanted to get us out without expelling us. It’s a good outcome for China—now there is no Australian media on the ground in China.’

Action by Australia may have played a part in China’s detention of Cheng. It’ll be an interesting moment in a Senate estimates hearing when DFAT is asked whether it was consulted on the diplomatic repercussions of raiding Chinese journalists. I dread either answer: DFAT wasn’t asked, or it was asked and ignored.

A Canberra wise owl with much experience of the system, Allan Behm, offers ^[18] this dry truth: ‘It is difficult to imagine that DFAT would have advised an ASIO “raid” on Chinese journalists in June.’

On truth or consequences, Canberra has done poorly.

In dealing with its Oz journalists ^[19], Australia hasn’t met its own standards on the fundamental truths of press freedom. In weighing the consequences of actions against Chinese journalists, Canberra has been low on smarts, perhaps even cavalier.

An old warning applies: in waging the fight, don’t become what you’re fighting.