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Australian media's coverage of China has more than doubled since this time last year, led by growing interest in topics like Hong Kong and the US-China trade war, new data shows.
Key points:
- More than 300,000 stories mentioned China in the last year
- Topics like human rights and espionage are on the rise
- Experts question the quality of coverage
The research shows a particular surge in the past three months, partly driven by increased mentions of topics generally seen as negative about China, such as human rights and espionage.
"The recent spike in China-related coverage has been dramatic, when you consider that China's emergence as a global power has been decades in the making," said Conal Hanna from media monitoring company Streem.
Streem compiled data from 28 of the country's major media outlets across online, print, radio and TV, and found trade was the number one topic mentioned, followed by Donald Trump, security and Hong Kong.
It found more than 300,000 stories mentioned China in the last year, with topics like Crown Casino and Huang Xiangmo experiencing big recent rises.
"Almost every week a new story emerges that has China, or a Chinese-Australian, as a central element, whether that be alleged links between Crown Casino and Chinese crime syndicates, ICAC investigating political donations from billionaire Huang Xiangmo or question marks over MP Gladys Liu's links to Chinese organisations," Mr Hanna said.
"Often with these big issues, increased attention begets even more scrutiny as reporters dig into the various security, economic and political threads that emerge. But not all of the issues are new either.
"It's interesting to me that mentions of human rights are up 150 per cent in China stories year-on-year when there have long been concerns over China's attitude to human rights."
Problematic for Chinese-Australians
Professor James Laurenceson, acting director of the Australia-China Relations Institute at the University of Technology Sydney, said he had concerns over the way some issues were being covered.
"The scrutiny of potential connections between China and the Chinese Communist Party and Australian organisations and individuals — there is absolutely nothing wrong with that at all. I'm glad Australian media outlets are putting resources into [this].
"[But] sometimes, media coverage and commentators' analysis can be sensationalised and run ahead of facts and evidence, and that can be problematic. And one of the groups it can be problematic for is Chinese-Australians.
"Chinese Government trying to interfere in Australia … [is] not the entire Chinese-Australian relationship.
"We have a lot of Chinese friends. They tell me that the tone of Australian debate around China relations generally has affected them personally. In particular, [when] their loyalty to Australia is called into question.
"It's a very unfortunate turn and I don't think it's fair."
What about rural China?
The increased interest in China is not happening in Australia alone.
Muyi Xiao from ChinaFile, a US-based not-for-profit online magazine, said she was seeing a rise in coverage of China in global media, but not all of it was hitting the mark.
"I've read many very solid China reports coming from international media but at the same time many 'parachuting-style' irresponsible stories," she said.
"One thing that matters a lot to the quality of reporting, is the resources the media put into its China coverage.
"Human rights issues and geopolitics topics are often in the spotlight of international media coverage. They are indeed very important topics and deserve the attention, especially when these topics can not be brought up in public in China.
"What I feel is being neglected are stories happening in rural China where the majority of China's population live."
Topics: information-and-communication, print-media, journalism, jinping-xi, donald-trump, world-politics, australia, china, asia, united-states