Chapter Eight
126
New Zealand, the established regional powers and custodians.^4 In the two
antipodean countries, political figures, academics, and journalists have
often responded to China’s grand entrance onto the Islands stage by
expressing deep concern about the PRC’s strengthening of Pacific
connections, and evoking scenarios in which China becomes the regional
hegemon.^5 Even though the initial driver of Beijing’s engagement with the
region was the mainland’s diplomatic rivalry with the Republic of China /
Taiwan, the new course in cross-strait relations and the stepping up of
diplomatic and economic connections with the Pacific Island states after
2008, have redrawn the lines of the “China discourse” in the region.^6
Substantial scholarly and media analyses, and preoccupation over
China’s intentions, have been formulated and voiced in neo-realist terms.
In other words, many observers have been–and are–looking at the Pacific
Islands regional system as a zero-sum environment under the tyranny of
competition.^7 Although the lens of realism may explain the “China threat”
angle characterizing many analyses of Beijing’s increasing footprint
regionally and globally, a deeper and more comprehensive investigation is
in order. As Sullivan and Renz intelligently ask, “why, for example, in the
case of Sino-African relations, do discursive patterns employed by
Western media systematically endorse images of African weakness,
Western trusteeship and Chinese ruthlessness?”^8 Actually, the matrix of
Western images of China is the West itself, with its ideas, perceptions, and
fears being projected onto the Asian giant. For instance, research on
British media reactions to China in Africa reveals a bifurcated narrative
featuring a dichotomy between “a sometimes mistaken, but essentially
well-intentioned West and the amoral, greedy and coldly indifferent
Chinese battling over a corrupt and/or helpless Africa.”^9
The rationale of this paper is to examine a similar narrative which has
been constructed for representing and explaining China’s presence in the
Pacific Islands, where Australia and New Zealand play the role of post-
colonial powers, established partners, major aid donors, and security
providers. Just as European post-colonial powers claim a special relationship
with African states and sub-regions, the antipodean pair traditionally
(^4) Brissenden, “The Rise of China in the South Pacific.”
(^5) Brant, “Australian Anxiety over China's South Pacific aid efforts is misplaced.”
(^6) Bozzato, “Swimming with Dragons: Cross-Strait Waves in the South Pacific.”
(^7) Buchanan, “New Zealand’s Coming Melian Dilemma.”
(^8) Sullivan and Renz, “Representing China in the South Pacific”, 378.
(^9) Mawdsley, “Fu Manchu versus Dr Livingstone in the dark continent?
Representing China, Africa and the West in British broadsheet newspapers”, 523.