Australian media’s ‘China threat’ narrative is a never-ending story

share_windows This article appeared in the East Asia Forum. 

The US–Israel war with Iran is adding a new trope to Australian narratives about the ‘threat’ of China. Wall-to-wall coverage of the war and its myriad ramifications like fuel shortages has not replaced the Australian media’s coverage of China as an adversary and threat, but has sparked new ways of incorporating it into unfolding contexts.

On 30 March 2026, Sky News Defence Analyst Peter Jennings — the former head of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute — said that China could see the Iran war as a ‘ window of opportunity ’ to act on Taiwan. On 22 March, Nine Network’s 60 Minutes conducted an interview with the Chinese ambassador to Australia, Xiao Qian. His remarks on Taiwan were interpreted to mean that China could ‘take Taiwan and rule the Indo-Pacific’ while the United States is preoccupied with the Middle East. The Australian Financial Review took a slightly less alarmist approach but still argued that a US–Iran war could shift Beijing’s strategic calculus on Taiwan.

These snapshots of recent media discussions of China are central to understanding why Australian public perceptions of China as a security threat are unlikely to diminish anytime soon, despite waning support for the United States. In the Lowy Institute’s 2025 poll, 79 per cent of Australian respondents indicated low or very low levels of trust that China would ‘act responsibly in the world’.

There are several reasons why the China threat narrative is bound to continue.

The China threat trope is firmly established in Australian news reporting and the media are unlikely to deviate from it any time soon. Media scholars have long demonstrated that while the media does not tell people what to think, it does tell people what to think about. That effective agenda-setting can shape public opinion, influence voting behaviour and drive policymaking through public pressure. The media are pivotal in shaping public perceptions of foreign countries. The Australia–China Relations Institute’s 2025 poll shows that traditional media is the most frequently cited influence on Australians’ overall views of China.

Australia’s security and intelligence agencies have been increasingly concerned about potential security threats from China since the early 2000s. But the China threat discourse did not gain traction with the Australian public until 2017, with security sources increasingly offering public assessments in the media, including in the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Four Corners episode ‘Power and Influence: How China’s Communist Party Is Infiltrating Australia’. The episode covered a wide range of alleged Chinese state interference in Australia’s political system, claiming that Beijing had infiltrated Australian community organisations, the business sector and universities.

The 2017 Four Corners episode marked a turning point in media discourse about China. For the first time, the concept of national sovereignty in discussions about China entered the public consciousness. Scholars describe the episode as having set the agenda for reporting on a wide range of China-related issues in the following decade, with topics like ideological and political interference, economic coercion and Beijing’s strategic and defence posture dominating discussions.

A coalition of China securitisers — encompassing the security establishment, politicians and the media — has become firmly entrenched. Journalists tend to favour commentary from security analysts, security-oriented think tanks, intelligence agencies and those with defence backgrounds. This coalition often operates by marginalising China scholars, whose in-depth knowledge is frequently viewed with suspicion or even interpreted as a sign of sympathy towards China. There is currently no sign of this coalition being dismantled, and the struggle over epistemic authority — specifically, who can legitimately speak about China — persists.

Raising the spectre of war — especially with China — is a sure way of ensuring high ratings and driving audience traffic. Australian media outlets have made sensational predictions of an imminent prospect of military conflict with China. Australian mass media programs and series with such titles as ‘ Prepare for Armageddon’, ‘ War Games’ and ‘ Red Alert’ have drawn widespread criticism for their depiction of China and suggestion of imminent war. The tendency to link the 2026 US–Israel war on Iran with speculation about a possible conflict over Taiwan illustrates how this threat narrative is sustained and adapted across different contexts.

The Australian government’s bipartisan approach to China, its defence policy and its commitment to AUKUS also show no signs of changing, despite waning confidence in Washington as Australia’s security guarantor in the Asia Pacific. To justify AUKUS and Australia’s defence posture, it is politically expedient for some political and security elites to continue emphasising the security threat from China while carefully balancing the economic relationship. On 17 April 2026, Shadow Defence Minister James Paterson reminded Australia that the US is using stocks of missiles designated for China in the Iran war, so Australia needs to grow its own defence ‘to deter any power … including the People’s Republic of China’.

Taken together, these factors suggest that the China threat narrative is not only resilient but also adaptable to new geopolitical developments. As long as media, political and strategic incentives remain aligned, this framing is likely to continue shaping public discourse in Australia. While many China scholars may want to play a role in countering the current narrative, this remains a big challenge given the China expertise deficit in Australia.