China has hit out at Australia again. This time for not siding with the “victim” in the ongoing tensions between China and the US in the Taiwan Strait resulting from US House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taipei last week. The victim, as you might have guessed, is China. The Chinese embassy in Canberra has characterised its country as the wronged party in a game of US “political provocation” and, according to them, instead of condemning the perpetrator, Australia has erroneously attacked the victim.
Whether or not we find this depiction of events and responses mere theatrics, if you follow that narrative, this is not about Taiwan, it’s about Sino-US relations. The lens of western and US media coverage doesn’t seem to stray too far from this great power rivalry either. In regards to Pelosi’s visit, the satirical news site the Onion pointedly observed: “Who gives a shit what Taiwan thinks? This is about us and China.”
