Perceptions of China in Australia, especially through the mass media, remain surprisingly one-sided. The population of Chinese-Australians has grown to 5% of Australia's total population; and the trade between China and Australia has made Australia the region with the largest trade surplus with China except Taiwan, but this does not seem to affect the unified image of China. make an impact. China is rich; it is an actual contemporary society with its own unique political model, the Communist Party of China formulates ideological guidelines, and the masses follow and implement them; and Chinese people are extremely homogeneous in attitudes, customs, and behaviors. All of the above, together with the fascination with China's long history, together constitute the standard beliefs of the public's perception of China.

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This lecture tries to reflect the other side of these standard beliefs: the real China is far more complex than those described in these standard beliefs, and it is this complexity that makes China and Chinese culture so attractive. We cannot simply use Germany or Japan to compare China, it is more like an aggregation of a series of countries within a continent.