The People’s Republic of China continues to reject overtures for high-level ministerial dialogue while maintaining that Australia bears the lion’s share of responsibility to create a situation in which the relationship can be improved.
The new year opened with a slight shift in rhetorical approach from Australia with respect to the People’s Republic of China (PRC). But while tone is being smoothed again following the ructions of 2020, policy substance remains sharp-edged, and the PRC continues to reject overtures for high-level ministerial dialogue whilst maintaining that Australia bears the lion’s share of responsibility to create a situation in which the relationship can be improved.
PRC Foreign Minister Wang Yi had on December 31 stated:
‘We hope that the relationship can come back to the right track as early as possible…If Australia sees China not as a threat, but a partner, then for the issues between us there are better chances that we find solutions. So I would kick the ball to Australia’.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison on January 1 told a press conference that he ‘would certainly welcome [a better relationship between Australia and the People’s Republic of China (PRC)]’ and that he was ‘always optimistic … always hopeful … always positive’ on that front.
And during another media appearance later in the month he deliberately took the opportunity to weave in and elevate positive aspects of Australia-PRC relations as well as areas of future cooperation. Asked about the recent arrest of alleged drug importer Tse Chi Lop following an Australian-led operation, the Prime Minister tacked on to his response:
[I]t’s a good example … of the areas in which Australia and China cooperate. Whether it’s on issues of organised criminal gangs, counter-terrorism, biosecurity issues, these types of things. Australia has had a very good working relationship with China on those very important global matters.
And we would look forward to having increasing good relations with them on issues of environmental management as well, not just around matters of climate, but particularly around energy technology. But I’d also say in terms of the health of our oceans and plastics and these matters as well. So there are many areas where we work together and cooperate.
New Trade Minister Dan Tehan, who assumed the portfolio in December 22 last year, when asked during a January 27 interview what his approach to the Australia-PRC relationship would be, said: ‘I’ll be just making sure that I continue, at every opportunity, to point out how mutually beneficial our trading relationship is’, pointing out that ‘there is a lot of complementarity between our two nations when it comes to commerce, when it comes to trade, and when it comes to investment.’
The Trade Minister also elected to home in on the ‘positives’ of PRC President Xi Jinping’s Davos address delivered on January 25. When asked whether he saw ‘a bit of irony in [Xi’s comments regarding building circles or starting a new Cold War]’, the Trade Minister responded: ‘Well, he also spoke about the importance of trade liberalisation and investment liberalisation. And, I think what we’ve got to do is look at the positives from messages like that.’
The Trade Minister had this month also written to the PRC’s newly appointed Commerce Minister Wang Wentao ‘saying that we’d like to constructively engage’ and that ‘there are many ways that we can constructively engage across the trade and investment liberalisation path’. A response is yet to be received.
But while there seems to be a renewed push by Australia to proactively highlight the pursuit of areas of cooperation with the PRC, policy with respect to the PRC continues to get harder, despite a reluctance to publicly acknowledge it. Some decisions in the arena of foreign investment appear to highlight this.
On January 11 PRC state-owned China State Construction Engineering Corporation withdrew its $300 million bid to buy an 88 per cent stake in the Australian construction firm Probuild. The following day, Probuild’s parent company, South African infrastructure company Wilson Bayly Holmes-Ovcon (WBHO), stated that they had been ‘advised by the potential acquirer of Probuild that it has withdrawn its proposed investment application in Probuild lodged with the Australian Foreign Investment Review Board following advice that its application would be rejected by the Federal Government on the grounds of national security.’
Reasons for the rejection, in keeping with precedent, were not expounded upon by the Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, who said: ‘The government does not comment on the application of the foreign investment screening arrangements as they apply or could apply to particular cases’.
Off the back of the decision on the acquisition of Probuild, The Australian Financial Review reported that the Australian government had ‘secretly rejected several other Chinese takeovers in the past six months, beyond traditional critical infrastructure sectors, including in the construction and technology industries’.
The media outlet provided a theretofore unpublicised example of the Australian government ‘privately rejecting other Chinese engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractors from local infrastructure and energy projects’: the Australian government had recently advised a consortium which included a PRC state-owned entity that had partnered with Australian entities to construct an Energy Australia gas plant in New South Wales ‘it did not intend to approve the deal’.
The Treasurer has refused, however, to characterise the ongoing economic turbulence between Australia and the PRC as a ‘trade war’ and attempted to assuage business community concerns by pointing out: ‘Over the last six months around 20 per cent of approved foreign investment applications have at least one Chinese party. So that means more than 250 Chinese-related foreign investment applications have been approved. Less than a handful haven’t proceeded’.
The parlous state of the Australia-PRC relationship invited interventions this month from Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese and the former head of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) and the Office of National Assessments (ONA), Philip Flood.
The Opposition Leader wrote to Prime Minister Morrison on January 23 saying that the Australian government ‘should use all assets at its disposal to move the relationship in a more positive direction’. He suggested that ‘an offer of personal diplomacy by former Australian political leaders’ Kevin Rudd and John Howard ‘could assist the government to reset the relationship and to help secure our export markets’. He added in a press conference, ‘To be clear, it is China that is to blame for breaking down that relationship. But you need to find a way through.’ Towards the end of the month former DFAT and ONA head Philip Flood said that ‘[b]oth sides contributed to the impasse and both have interests in a return to greater cooperation’ and urged ‘somewhat more nuance’ from Australia.
On January 5 Hong Kong police arrested 55 pro-democracy figures for alleged subversion under the National Security Law. Australia expressed concern at the mass arrest through a statement issued by Foreign Minister Marise Payne, as well as in a joint statement with the foreign ministers of Canada, the UK and the US, Foreign Minister Payne expressed ‘serious concern’ about the development. While the Australian government announced last year that visa holders from Hong Kong would be eligible for a five year extension of their stay, with a path to permanent residency, they have not allowed for the creation of a humanitarian intake.
The latest trade figures show that November continued the run of strong mining exports underpinning resilience in the headline trade numbers. Nonetheless, it is worth noting that the annual value of non-mining goods exports to the PRC have fallen by 21.7 percent over the past year. When combined with the collapse of tourism and education services stemming from COVID-19 border closures, the breadth of trade with the PRC has narrowed markedly in a short space of time.
Key trade indicators table – January 2021
Co-written with Elena Collinson, a senior researcher at the Australia-China Relations Institute, the University of Technology Sydney.
James Laurenceson is Director of the Australia-China Relations Institute with the University of Technology, Sydney.
Comments
11 responses to “Stalemate in Australia-China relations”
Australia is like a flea on a elephants posterior ; the elephant will keep moving forward irrespective of the flea and the flea’s progress well that all depends on the flea!!
And the flea never realizes it is on an elephant’s posterior, and has no idea where it is going.
A most apt ending to the narrative!
You want to know how to rub up a country so you get into such a situation?
The truth is that we have been the bullies all along after signing an FTA with China under Abbott, who praised Xi Jinping on many occasions, then later after much political interference from the US, we started reversing our position on cue under Turnbull, and then we’ve continued to carry out the American orders under Morrison with Trumpian zest.
The story not told by the media that all drink from the same toxic Sinophobic water (1), is that we were the US’s proxy bullies first, and Morrison hasn’t got a clue what he is doing. In a race to appeal to the US administrations, particularly Trump’s, and use racism and xenophobia to succor to the Coalition’s domestic base, he sold us out 100%, and what does that say about whose allegiance he respects? We might as well fly the Star Spangled Banner over parliament house.
Pauline Hanson not doing too well? The Coalition have absorbed all of her racist policies once again 2.0.
The Chinese have perceived this all, a long while ago, and they now see us as even worse than the US. We are seen as cowards that hide behind mother America’s dress and then come out to poke our tongues out. They see our position as duplicitous, subservient, and pathetic. Morrison emphasizes his isolationist diplomacy stance in the region, and only thinks of a bigger military budget and further forays into joining the military industrial complex. He turns off S.E. Asian and Melanesian neighbours and lies about “how good” the relationships are. While he blocks Chinese investment, he is however quite happy to be selling China as much iron ore as it wants to prop up our dwindling GDP. Hypocrisy has no boundaries with this man. Over the last 5 years w’eve seen every American possible coming to Australia repeating over an over again “China is bad” but of course that has never been political interference. Nor is it when the CIA is active in Australia helping to facilitate US aims.
We blocked over 100 Chinese imports against WTO rules, well before China blocked the various products from Australia.
We were first off the block against Huawei and carried out an international propaganda war to inhibit the company’s business.
We blocked Huawei from supplying services and equipment to the Solomon Islands.
We laboured the point on human rights in China while neglecting to charge equally any other country for the same things. What about India, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia? In fact with Cambodia Morrison gave the despots $40 million for a failed refugee program, no problems there, he even toasted the deal with Champagne. He says nothing about the US’s network of rendition camps, Guantanamo Bay, human rights funding shut down by Trump against Americans. Nor did he notice Trump’s violent and frequently racist speech. Then there is our own appalling treatment of refugees and indigenous Australians, much of it with asylum seekers carried out under his watch.
We complained about Chinese foreign influence but blocked no one else. Several scare campaigns over computer hacking were blamed on China but there was never any proof given to make it fact. We failed to see the amount of foreign influence from the US and other nations that operate secret operations in Australia.
We’ve carried out raids on Chinese academics who were even critics of China, just for media exposure. We did the same with Shaoquett Moselmane, mainly because he was Labor and an easy target. No charges were ever laid.
We failed to explain why a FTA with Israel brokered recently was cheered on when it is one of the greatest human rights violating countries in the world. Not to mention being a country that has had nuclear weapons for years and continues to receive billions in military aid from the US every year. And what happened to Palestine?
We condemned Chinese organisations in universities yet forgot about the other countries that have influence in the same tertiary institutions. The US has them too, but of course they never influence anyone. We talk about foreign influence from China but forget the Kuomintang (Taiwan) are active in this country and have been for about 100 years.
We turned China into the country taking over Australia, when the facts are it has around 16th of the foreign investment in this country compared to the largest investor: the USA at $ 1 trillion.
We decided to push for a WHO inquiry into the origins of Coronavirus – only directed at China – and we did not even inform China in advance. We have put very little pressure on the US even though it is the country with the most infections and deaths. While it costs up to $9,000 to fly back home from Europe (if you are lucky) it costs as little as $1,000 to fly here from the US for expats.
We have now literally banned any investment from China and destr0yed working relationships between our Australian universities and Chinese universities. Frydenberg decides.
We blamed Chinese people for high house prices. They continue to rise but Chinese investors backed out a long while ago.
We fabricate stories about virtually every Chinese development project in the Pacific, Vanuatu, and PNG as being a potential base for the Chinese military. Meanwhile we extend our military relationship with the US with Pine Gap becoming a drone controlling centre, and furthering more US bases and troops. All pointed at China making us a greater sacrificial target.
We made circumstances very difficult for Chinese students (unlike others) in this country who were studying here when the virus broke out. China continues to counsel students not to come here for fear of racism and the general anti-Chinese sentiment. Who can blame them?
While there have been a considerable amount of attacks on Chinese students, people of Chinese ancestry in general who live here as Australians, and other Asian featured people, the government says nothing, just as it did with Muslims last time we needed a racist target. The media is also hesitant to report on such attacks. This has developed to a point where a new term “Chinga” is used by racists in this country to abuse those deemed Chinese. Some of these attacks have been brutal and left those attacked with serious facial and other injuries.
When states like Victoria made their own MOU with China over the BRI, the government and media have been relentless in their attacks to override the state.
And of course signing up to be part of the Quad that continues to carry out provocative operations in waters close to China just helps in sending another message from a master bully, one that seeks to avoid responsibility for their actions by simply pointing the finger at others.
Then we put Dan Tehan in charge to clean up the mess after Simon Birmingham of the IPA managed to shut all doors.
It ought to work out just fine.
(1) https://preview.redd.it/9zcj4o4ncif61.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=15db990320d74ce19a670b693293f5a745a43434
China surely takes little notice of what our Government says – what counts is what our ‘leaders’ do! And the list of anti-China ‘do’s that you list here George is very telling.
The continued funding of ASPI – and tolerance of foreign input to that organisation – are another actions that are not un-noticed by China.
I would disagree with you say about what our government and media says not being something the Chinese object to.
Yes much of it from Morrison is directed at the Australian audience to drum up patriotism and nationalist anti-Chinese sentiment here for votes, and taking a big license with defence spending, but matters concerning what is said here are written in their newspapers and every one of them is considered Chinese government propaganda by the West, particularly in Australia – in other words the view of the CCP. There has been an increase in articles directed uniquely at Australia ever since the relations between our respective countries broke down when we were perceived to be the puppet of the US. We’ve also had all of our journalists thrown out of China. I wonder why they did that? It is mainly because they as media always wrote and covered negative articles about the place. The last one that left was Bill Birtles from the ABC. He was occasionally an exception to the rule in that he covered some Chinese cultural events in positive ways, and some more positive material on Chinese technology, society and progress etc.
But I would agree that many of the things I have listed above are the results of actions and hence ‘doing’ as well.
We are well perceived as the US’s subservient lacky and that is one the things they dislike the most, especially after having established a FTA with Abbott.
Also they are now far less forgiving of Australia than of the US that there is a new leader in Biden with whom they hope to work more constructively after Trump. Essentially China sees a chance for better outcomes with the US, but we are not going to be let off the hook any time soon to the great detriment of our trade relationship. From my opinion things will not get better until the Liberal government is gone, the mess that has been made by the Coalition is already too far gone. We must also realise that China is a one party state and when they make decisions they stick to them. Only a change of government in Australian will be seen as a better opportunity, even though Labor appear to have lost their ability to hold independent views from the US as well.
Australia was a developed country at the time in the recent past when all the Asian countries, with the exception perhaps of Japan, were developing or in an underdeveloped state. Australia had all the wealth and power (albeit a small representation) of the West that they all aspire for. It was a time when Australia could call the shots and not be questioned. Several historical occurrences precipitated a change in their thinking. Firstly, WWII indicate that the world’s greatest colonial power could be defeated – The Prince of Wales and Repulse in the South China Sea and the fall of Malaya and Singapore comes to mind. This was followed by Korea and Vietnam. The next important revelation was the economic success of Japan with its Sogo Shoshas assisted by the government. The idea that the East could catch up with the West gained traction. A good example, albeit a crude and loud one, was Mahathir Mohamad’s “Look East” policy.
The Asia that used to look up to Australia like a child looking up to a parent began to grow. China, in particular grew monstrously. The West grew concerned because they did not expect China to grow to the extent that it could eat them out of house and home. Initially, they had fed it with some technology. Some other foods they thought it had stolen from their kitchen at night. They had to keep that child under control and the closest they could get to a proxy for that unpleasant task was Australia. Fortunately for them, the concern coincided with a period when Australia had a conservative government that wants to see the continuance of its past exulted status by burying its head in the sand and thus deny reality. For a short period during the Whitlam/Hawke/Keating governments, Australia helped to nurture this monstrous aberration. It was like a normal child/parent relationship. But when the parent morphed into a strict, conservative and authoritarian figure and whacked the child on the head for not behaving the way it was expected to, two expected reactions happened. One is “Et Tu Brute?” The other is that the child breaks the relationship with the parent. It is painful for the ageing parent because it was beginning to depend on the child to do the heavy work around the house. The longer this estrangement happens the more the parent suffers from the lost of the big baby to do some of the heavy lifting.
Now, the parent has had enough. Nevertheless it cannot resist the temptation of telling the other children, relatives and friends how monstrous the baby has become. Words like “assertive”, “hegemony”, “human rights abuse” and others were used indicating that the monstrous child was getting more than it was entitled to . This got the big boy event more riled up. Thus, when Australia now decides that it is time to put a stop to the estrangement, the big boy says “No. You do not call the shots anymore!” “I will decide when it is time to make up.”
Meanwhile, that big child, the aberration that struck fear into all its other neighbours, has been helping the other Asian nations with their heavy liftings. And so, they reluctantly keep their relationship with it sweet while they gossip behind its back. That gives the propagandists in the West fodder to keep the idea that “everyone” is against “that big monster” alive. End of story.
Excellent commentary from the earlier respondents. It is as clear as day that the Morrison LNP wants to destroy our many and varied relationships with the Chinese peoples. The contempible offer of the olive branch comes with the sneering bigotry learned from the US overlords.
Nothing speaks louder than the government’s arms acquisitions program designed to make war with China.
Exactly !
The media bashing of China has subsided but occassionally with Mr Hartcher turning the screws intermittenly. Could recent government announcement of community grants for improving Australia China relations from the National Foundation for Australia-China relations *under DFAT) could signal a change of attitude of the govenment?
“So I would kick the ball to Australia -FM Wang Yi’” : I take this statement to mean restorating the trade relations back to where it was, allowing Huawei to exist in Australia, allow investments, and scrap the foreign interference laws which perceived by China as targetting them and no more media bashing. BIG ASK!
Unles these issues become part of the negotation, nothing will change.
“Pro-democracy”?
On what planet are people who lose every election then riot ‘pro-democracy’?