<p>This paper analyses the linguistic complexity of English-language press statements by the Chinese Embassy in Australia during a time of sharp bilateral deterioration (2020–2021). While a range of structural and geopolitical dynamics underwrote the faltering of China’s public image in Australia, we argue China’s communication on foreign policy, language-wise inaccessible and formalist in its register, has been unable to alter the negative trend. Leveraging measures of text readability and underpinned by a body of linguistic theory and political communication research, we find that Chinese official statements are persistently published at levels well beyond the reach of non-specialist audiences and poorly attuned to the media ecology of Australia. We argue that such elevated complexity is likely to depress media salience and diminish China’s agency over its communication environment. The paper concludes with recommendations that a localized, fluent, and audience-calibrated approach to messaging should be one facet of a more strategic and deliberative diplomacy of communication. We conceptualise this as discursive asymmetry: in settings where a state’s legitimacy is contested, the communicative burden is higher and readability becomes a compensatory condition for media uptake and audience trust.</p>