China continues to bamboozle us every step of the way. But how we respond to the latest escalation is important. We must remember that our bipartisan position on China has served Australia well and that a political split is exactly what China wants.
In his 2010 collection of essays ‘China in Ten Words’, esteemed Chinese author Yu Hua paints a picture of modern China through ten words or phrases, culminating with ‘hu-you’. This concept is often translated to mean ‘bamboozle’. Defined as a mix of trickery, con artistry with unique characteristics, it is not always used pejoratively. As Yu Hua says: to ‘bamboozle throws a cloak of respectability over deception and manufactured rumour’.
China continues to bamboozle us every step of the way, ever since Gough Whitlam’s adventure there in 1971.
But the year 2020 is a consequential one for Australia’s economic relationship with China. What began as a rumour and then reported as fact from numerous importers who had received verbal government briefings, China was getting ready to sideline key Australian industries from accessing markets. If this happens, it will all but end our free trade agreement.
When coupled with threatening state media editorials, and now a detailed list of their disputes, it seems we are again at the top of the list of countries with whom China disagrees. All of this at a time the country opened its third annual import expo to promote engagement with the world.
Within 50 years Australia has gone from re-establishing and opening up an economic relationship, to celebrating its maturity under a free trade agreement, and back to wearing seat belts in anticipation of the need to regularly brace for impact.
With its centralisation of power around one man, China isn’t what it used to be. Even a person of the stature of Jack Ma was reminded this month that he serves at the pleasure of the President.
Our relationship is no different. Our Trade Minister can’t speak to his counterpart, and our hard-working diplomats in China can’t get much access, let alone be able to influence the hearts and minds of their Chinese interlocutors.
Our lead diplomat Frances Adamson reminded us in a recent Senate Estimates that for all countries, not just Australia, the ‘space for embassies to project into China … is diminishing’.
Australia is most definitely out of favour. Calls aren’t returned and we still have to send faxes to engage with the CCP system in Beijing. As far as Beijing is concerned, we are largely dispensable in this trade relationship and there is little we can do about it.
We have to question the motives behind China’s continuous attempts to bamboozle us. With the latest rumour of economic coercion, when added to all the measures taken during 2020, what Australia has experienced is well beyond what has been dished out to countries including the Philippines, Norway, and Korea.
Does China see an opportunity to make an example of us, even if we aren’t sure what we have done, beyond having an alliance with America. Or is part of it to try splinter our politics? Bend it so far just to see where it breaks?
For a long time, Australia’s major political parties have held largely bipartisan positions towards China. Of course, there have been debates, notably about elements of the free trade agreement, our role in the region, Asian century documents, and White Papers, but broadly speaking, Labor and the Coalition have been on the same page vis a vis our largest trading partner.
In fact, 2017 was the last significant time the major parties separated on a key China issue. The then Malcolm Turnbull-led government planned to pass through the Parliament the extradition treaty Australia had signed with China a decade earlier. While Labor opposed the treaty, then Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi had the numbers to ultimately scupper the plans, effectively neutralising the division between the parties.
In recent weeks there have been signs that Labor is also becoming concerned at the deteriorating relationship, and are fed up with its effect on business, but perhaps sees political mileage in the discord.
Early last month Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese called on the government to ‘be more strategic and less political in some of its rhetoric when it comes to China’. A week later, he said ‘this Government doesn’t seem to have made any effort to have a positive, constructive relationship to our mutual benefit’, while his deputy Richard Marles noted last week that ‘there’s not a single personal relationship of substance that exists between anybody in this government and anyone in the Chinese government’.
The reality is that beyond the call for an independent investigation into the origins of the coronavirus, a move that angered China, the government has trod a careful path throughout 2020.
In previous years, Australian business would lobby government to highlight the trade impacts of political rhetoric, warning of the pitfalls of megaphone diplomacy. But it’s hard to argue this any longer. While business still hopes the government can ‘fix’ this mess, it seems we are in the firing line, whatever we do.
How we respond to the latest escalation is important. Some will call for Australia to work out what we can do differently, what form a ‘circuit breaker’ will take, so that we can all go back to ‘normal’, as if supreme relations and smooth trading conditions with China are our birthright.
Whatever comes next we must remember that our bipartisan position on China has served Australia well. And while a critical analysis of our actions should be undertaken, a political split is exactly what China wants.
As we adjust to our largely powerless fate and understand our new predicament, a refreshed outlook is required. For years, some in the US have been talking about ‘coopetition’, cooperation combined with competition, as a lens through which to view America’s increasingly testy engagement with China. The bipartisan consensus that has now emerged in Washington is clear – the joke being that the only friend China has there is the Chinese embassy.
Our relationship with China need not go there, but it will be dominated by the power play between these two great nations, regardless of who is in the White House come 2021.
While there may be differences in style, the substance is clear. Let’s vigorously debate our position, and try to arrive somewhere near the same page. It’s in our interests.
Jack Brady is the former CEO & Executive Director of the Australian Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, where he lived for 5 years. Jack led the development and growth of AustCham Shanghai as the largest Australian representative business body in mainland China, building business, government and community partnerships. Jack led the opening of Australia House by AustCham Shanghai, a dedicated building for Australian business in the city, and started the Chamber’s annual advocacy delegation to Canberra. Prior to his time in Shanghai he worked in Sydney with government relations and corporate communications firm GRACosway as the National Research and Policy Manager. Jack holds a Bachelor of Arts with first class honours from the University of Sydney.
Comments
44 responses to “Brace for impact: Back to wearing seat belts in relationship with China”
Yes Barney. That is the crux of it. There is no point selling our souls to the devil if he is going to burn us anyway. However I do think the Government’s outburst against China on Covid 19 was foolish, especially since the most likely cause was joint American/Chinese research on “gain of function” in Wuhan, playing a dangerous game with bats.
Since the beginning of the cold war, the strategy of the US and its allies has been to “contain” China which for 50+ years it successfully did. Seen as a developing nation which posed minimum threat, bases in Korea, and Japan, a strong US navy and Chinese/Russia tension made this an easy task and the US was free to boost China via trade etc.
About 15 years ago some in the West started to get twitchy as the Chinese economy grew much faster than expected and as the tension even war between Russia and China failed to materialise. This is when the “Quad was born ie the effort to form a much stronger and wider ring around China.
So that is what all this trade stuff is really about. Australia is a willing participant in the military encirclement of China. Like any country/tribe anywhere since humans first picked up sticks to fight one another, Chinese strategists will pick off first the easiest target or the one least able to retaliate. China really does not need Australia other than possibly for iron ore, so by targeting our exports China is simply targeting the member of the Quad that is the easiest picking. At best (from a Chinese perspective) they could encourage Australia to become neutral in a US/China conflict and at worst they will weaken our economy and reduce our capacity to buy military or other hardware.
It is not rocket science nor any matter to puzzle over. China will react just as we would if we woke up and found a military alliance of NZ, PNG, Indonesia and say India attempting to contain our military/economic might. We would pick off the weakest link, using trade, bribery, coercion etc to the extent that each one worked.
Apropos the lively exchange below between Barney and Godfree, Robert Gottliebsen in Friday 20 November’s Australian places China’s quarrels with Australia into three groups — human rights, domestic policy such as communications and the Communist Party’s right to monitor students in our universities. We don’t have much room to move. We also appear to be repeating Robert McNamara’s transactional analysis error when the American discovered too late that Ho Chi Minh was playing a different game. Australian iron ore is competitive on price and quality but Chinese policy is driven by Geo-politics, not market forces.
I think that is exactly right, and it does make the sort of trade relationship we have with, say, Japan rather difficult. And if Teow Loon Ti’s suggestion that China is washing its hands of us is right, as it may well be, then that leaves us even less room.
I like Jack’s post and it was interesting to hear about the bamboozle expression. For Western Australia in particular the big question is what will happen to iron ore when the Chinese have an alternative source. In the meantime our northwest miners are making hay while the sun shines. They have a licence to make money. The other point to bear in mind is that we have no idea what is happening in the Politburo President Xi is a masterly politician but there are bound to be other schools of thought unhappy with his policies.
Other schools of thought? Indeed, and so we have read on this forum. China faces several internal problems, some rather intractable such as an ageing population, though it is hardly unique there.
I lived and worked in China for near 8 years and saw that ‘face’ was very important to them. Both westerners and Chinese made errors with cultural clashes (I was guilty to some extent too). We in the west claim not no be so concerned with ‘face’, but have you seen our politicians and the trouble they go to to save ‘face’, like secrecy, lying through their teeth. I also remember that when Chinese bosses feel they have been insulted, they tend not to forget and so future dealings with them may well be fraught. To them, their status amongst others is very important, so if you belittle a leader, watch out! We might see that as less than mature, but it is the way of things there and if you want to continue to do business, be more pragmatic and adapt to their environment.
‘even if we aren’t sure what we have done.’
Jack Brady may be unsure what we’ve done, but I think it is obvious what we have done, and I think if the shoe was on the other’s foot, we would recognise it immediately and be suitably outraged. What we have engaged in is an exaggerated form of sledging, constantly casting aspersions on Chinese actions and motives and depicting them in highly negative and provocative terms. This is true in how we represent current events in Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Tibet and Taiwan, and also true in how we have sometimes depicted the origins of covid19, accusing China of cover-ups, and even openly suggesting the virus was accidentally or deliberately released from the lab in Wuhan.
While News Corp is the most egregious promoter of negative hype about China, all main media outlets, including the ABC, have joined in. And Morrison’s constant appeals to ‘our values’ which we evoke to justify ourselves but which we routinely ignore when it suits us to do so, have not helped the situation.
MH, You are so correct. For several years, we have continually thrown buckets of sh.t at China, reinforced by our provocative “freedom of the seas” navigations and other anti-China actions, it is no wonder that we now see China reactions, which should have been foreseen if our politicians and agencies were even half-wise. Australian politicians of both major parties are too wedded to (or foreign influenced by) the Pentagon’s and CIA’s world power views. Over years, we have been so foreign influenced by the USA powers, that it is difficult to see Australia’s rocky future with China relations changing anytime soon. It would take a major and consistent change in Australia’s rhetoric and actions against China to turn that around. Our politicians don’t seem to have the intelligence to understand that.
Keating was correct in 2019 when he spoke about the “nutters” in the Australian intelligence agencies.
Sir,
“Does China see an opportunity to make an example of us, even if we aren’t sure what we have done, beyond having an alliance with America. Or is part of it to try splinter our politics? Bend it so far just to see where it breaks?”
This paragraph says it all: that Australia, after so many years of living among Asians have little understanding of what makes Asians tick. I have mentioned elsewhere in this journal that Australians do not fully understand the concept of “face” when dealing with them. This goes for other countries in Asia other than China. For this and any other of my comments on China, I have no more credentials than that I was born in Malaysia and brought up in a largely Asian/Chinese culture. While that concept has a major element of diplomacy in it, it permeates Asian culture in all aspects of life ranging from interpersonal personal interactions, group communications to relationships between nations. That is how culturally and politically diverse countries in the region eg. Myanmar, Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam etc. can come together so successfully in regional economic cooperation such as ASEAN.
It seems to me that in Australia, tactful dealings as an imperative are only confined to specific socio- economic/political realms of business and official diplomacy. Adversarial engagements in politics, the media and social groups, and even interpersonal interactions, seem quite acceptable. Australians see it as exercising our right to freedom of speech in a democracy, so long as it is within ones legal rights to do so. What it fails to take cognisance is that most of these Asian countries are not democracies in the sense of what we understand democracy to be. The culture of kissing and making up when it is time to do so after an acrimonious fray, such as when one party wins government at the end of an election, seldom happens there (this is a generalisation that I have to make base only on observations). In saying this, I am not implying that Australians are not polite people – only that our style of interpersonal and international engagements is different. What enrages another person to the point of aggression can be as simple as touching him on the head. We might have gone beyond the point of return in not giving the “significant other” FACE.
Sincerely,
Teow Loon Ti
Dear Teow Loon Ti
I respect your opinion, and your interesting point about politics, kissing and making up. I certainly agree that face is important in Asia, and with the assertion too that it is important here as well. But this is surely about more than face.
My personal feeling is that the CCP – in diplomatic dispute with a score of countries – has chosen Australia as a model to see how far it can push and divide. There is very little downside for China in this, as it calculates that we are welded to the US backside politically, we cannot harm it without harming ourselves more, and we are much less relevant internationally than we like to believe.
That is why I and many others agree with Scott Morrison in defending Australian sovereignty and interests to the limited extent that we can and do. First, because it is right, and second, because abandoning all these would still not make the CCP respect or like Australia. We will always be chewing gum stuck on its boot. It is why he is right to pursue other regional alliances, trade and military.
Mr Zwartz,
I am not suggesting that there is nothing more than “face”. In Asian culture, if face is given, any problem could remain open to further negotiations. This is an advantage when we have the tendency to misunderstand each other. Once face” is lost, the door would usually be shut and remain shut. What is more important in communication than the door remaining open?
Most people can see from media reports that our political leaders’ communication channels to Chinese leaders are now shut.
Sometimes, the inability to penetrate cultural differences can result in barking up the wrong tree. Our leaders have indeed been wasting time barking up the wrong tree. The sorry part is that once the diplomatic channels are closed the alternatives are the hard unpleasant stuff.
Sincerely,
Teow Loon Ti
Hard to disagree with your wisdom on this. I’d be interested in your view on my substantive point, that Australia is a sort of proving ground where China can be more assertive with no risk to itself.
Hi Barney,
The short answer is that I don’t know. The longer one is that China, with a population of more than a hundred times that of Australia’s, it has bigger fish to fry. It is probably not wanting to engage with Australia anymore. The signs are all there.
Sincerely,
Teow Loon Ti
“My personal feeling is that the CCP – in diplomatic dispute with a score of countries” Whereas the US is in dispute, militarily, diplomatically, economically, culturally with a considerable proportion of the countries on the planet. Indeed Brown University Costs of War project in the US has released a study of the effects of US eternal wars, just since 9/11, and estimates that it has created between 37 and 58 million refugees with well over a million dead and hundreds of thousands injured. It is well worth a read if you are interested in facts.
The US in that time has invaded, bombed, droned or subverted around twenty countries, In the same time period China has not invaded, bombed, droned or subverted a single other country.It is certainly true that it has had border disputes with Vietnam and India, but neither of those has led to any occupation of those other countries.
That is not to suggest that China is perfect either from their own or from our point of view. Individual human rights do not receive anything like the attention that we give to them at least in theory, as their belief system, developed over the last 4000 years, places a much greater emphasis on group well-being than individual well-being. You may not agree with that, but in a sense that is irrelevant as it is what the Chinese people value that is important for China internally. But it is true to say that China has nothing like the record of the West in violent and expansionist Colonialism, Imperialism and genocide of native populations.
You can certainly come to your conclusion about China choosing to use us as a model to “push and divide”, if you simply ignore the actions that we have taken that have prompted these actions by China. Just why they would have chosen us for this role if it was just about “pushing and dividing” is not clear at all. In the absence of our provocative behavior towards them what reason would they have to choose us for this role, when in fact they depend so heavily upon us for raw materials and agricultural and seafood products that they need for their industry and their population. Surely that is an irrational act on their part, and I’m not sure anyone is suggesting that China is an irrational nation. They could punish other nations with a far greater demonstrative effect without threatening those very profitable trading relations they have with us. The idea doesn’t really bear careful scrutiny.
Thanks for your reply. I’m not totally persuaded – I don’t believe China is in the slightest concerned about any threat to its trade with us. It knows we are far more reliant on it than it is on us, and there’s no chance of us refusing to sell it steel, for example. It evidently doesn’t need our barley, wine or seafood either.
I also disagree with the notion that the fault is all ours for provoking China – we have done little differently for many years; it is China that has suddenly become more assertive, requiring metaphorical obesiance. I, along with many Australians, am reluctant to provide that.
The idea that China was not generally a colonial power is true, but it is not because it had a “superior” civilisation. It was because it thought it manifested perfection, and other countries should come to it – the Middle Kingdom. It was highly suspicious of trade and foreign contact, change being the worst possible outcome. It is today as ruthless as any other country when it wants to be – particularly internally. I draw no conclusion from this other than that Chinese are people as Australians and Indians etc are people, heir to the same strengths and frailties.
Finally, it is interesting that you compare China with the US. It is a very common practice on this forum that when someone criticises China someone else replies “but look over there. The US is much worse.” This may or may not be true, but surely it is irrelevant to the discussion. We have many discussions on P&I on US issues, and there I criticise the US as freely as I criticise China. But not in this thread.
The Chinese have been pretty upfront about their motives, even listing them for our convenience. To date, I have seen no honest, direct response to them from Australian authorities:
Godfree, have you ever once in life criticised the CCP for any action, however small? Anything at all? Seriously, I’d love to know if there is any aspect at all where China isn’t shining perfection and an exemplar to every other nation?
Are you on a CCP payroll? Is the CCP holding your wife and children in Xingiang?
What does that have to do with what I wrote, Barney?
Your comment, like Morrison’s and our media’s, ducks the issues China is raising.
I find that amazing.
Your reaction is entirely a matter for you, and I don’t want to interfere. It’s a genuine question, because I’ve never come across a poster like you, unless you are fed your lines directly day by day from Beijing. That would be interesting but I don’t really believe it – you, and we, are not that important.
The many posters here of Chinese ethnicity are nothing like you – they may think and often say Australia is much to blame (as indeed do posters of Caucasian ethnicity), but they don’t think China is the epitome of perfection. Even Chinese communists I have met acknowledge privately that the situation is complex. But you find it blindingly simple. As I say, I’ve never heard you say as much as Beijing traffic is a little congested at times. If Chinese traffic can’t move because it is gridlocked, it is because it is part of the perfect plan of the ever-wise Xi, and is in any case a much better highway carpark than those in Australia or the US. And you’ll find a 1992 UN report by hardly disinterested observers to prove this.
One example: why is an allegation of cyber attacks against the CCP a racist attack on all Chinese and Asian people? But this utterly fantastic claim is standard fare for you, Godfree. How, if I claimed that, would I be insulting a Jeepney driver in Manila, a poor farmer in Bangladesh or a Singapore saleswoman? How would I be attacking a persecuted house church Christian in China? You know it’s absurd, but you are somehow locked into this strange attitude. Hence my question.
I know I’m not going to get an answer, but that in its way is an answer.
What are you talking about when you say, “why is an allegation of cyber attacks against the CCP a racist attack on all Chinese and Asian people? But this utterly fantastic claim is standard fare for you, Godfree.”?
I have never made such a claim. And why, again, do you not address the issues I raised in my comment and, instead, come up with an imaginary, personal allegation? This is a forum for serous discussion. What are you doing here?
Godfree, I was quoting you. And I’m afraid I don’t accept you as a serious interlocutor, because all you ever do is spout propaganda. And I’m interested – genuinely – in why you are so ferociously attached to these opinions, when on every other conversation I have in this forum there is at least a possibility of give and take.
It’s a legitimate question I ask you, and, equally, you are under no obligation to answer it. Which you are clearly not going to do, but evasively, so that I wonder whether you are hiding something. If you are hiding something you are obviously not going to tell me, especially in an open forum; I just wondered if there was some open explanation for this extreme attachment to the CCP.
If you want to quote me, by all means do so. That’s what those quotes in the toolbar, below, are for: they indicate a direct quote. Add the link and you’ve quoted me.
Until then, you’re simply fantasizing.
OK. Let’s go back to question one. Is there ever, anywhere, anything at all for which you would criticise the CCP?
You’re no better than Eric Abetz, coercing someone to criticize so and so party. Answer the issues Godfree raised, rather than obsfucating and smoke screening.
Slightly different circumstances, Andyy. People get asked many questions on this forum. Godfree has very unusual views. The Chinese justice system is juster and fairer than the West (despite a 99% conviction rate), Chinese democracy is more democratic (despite only one party to vote for), there is no mistreatment of the Uighurs, Falun Gong or Christians in China, the CCP is just and merciful in Hong Kong, China is definitely not making cyber attacks or trying to influence Australian politics (if we can’t know it is, he can’t know it is not); Australia is utterly and totally to blame for relations. Almost every time China is challenged Godfree rushes to defend it in a Trump-style manner (we won the election BIG, if only votes for me are counted). There has never been a skerrick of balance. I rather suspect Godfree is really a Beijing hack.
I’m not asking Godfree to condemn the CCP as a political statement of loyalty or disapprove of it; I just wondered if ever, once, anywhere, it had not been the epitome of perfection. Nearly every other poster here, including me, is willing to acknowledge points of criticism of our position.
If you are in agreement with Godfree, then that is entirely a matter for you, and I am not trying to persuade you otherwise.
‘Calling for an international independent inquiry into the COV1D-19 virus’ with the suggestion that inspectors have the same rights as the weapons inspectors in Iraq! Such mindless arrogance from us. When will the affected Australian businessmen/women have a not-so-quiet word with Morrison and say to him ‘this is down to you mate!’
Part of that “vigorous debate” should be a consideration of what the punters are thinking.
The surveys that I’ve seen suggest that Morrison is more in tune with them than Albanese.
When our trade has collapsed perhaps we can assess it then. Very early days. “Punters” as you condescendingly call workers vote with the hip pocket. If you mean real punters they dont back a losing horse in a two horse race like Morrison has. The Chinese are well known stayers and you never back against a proven stayer in a cup race champ.
Where I grew up, punter is a term of affection. Whatever you call them, don’t dismiss them.
Nobody is remotely suggesting that Australia is a Group One nag like China. But it is not to be dismissed out of hand that Australia should reset its diplomatic and trading relationship with China, and that this has strong voter support (Lowy poll). In the case of education “exports”, the Chinese students won’t return in the same numbers anyway. China is “punishing” a number of our exports, including coal, but not yet the red stuff.
What is less in doubt is that China is a + for Morrison, and not for Albanese.
I am from Port Melbourne and the term punter was not regarded affectionately. The two horse race I was referring to was the rise and fall of world powers the US and PRC. Morrison has put the motgage on a declining empire. Australia isnt even a jockey in this race. More like a blowfly buzzing arounf the rear end of the US. As for iron ore it will be relaced by Africa. The PRC is already developing ports and rail infrastructure.
The Africa claim is true, so China is already looking to divest from Australia – its right to do so. Though they may find African sources a touch less reliable. But it renders it futile as well as unappealing to be as servile and obsequious to a bunch of bullies as some Australians feel we should be.
With respect i think you are misrepresenting what i am saying. The problem is we are obsequious and servile to an international bully. The US. The US has waged two terrible and disasterous wars in Asia and we have followed like the satellite we are. We need to follow Singapore or even Duterte in the Philippines and tilt to the emerging power while maintaining our independence. The era of Western dominance of Asia is over. We have a choice. That is real sovereignty. Not some vague racial concept of commonality through “western” values.
I was not so much misrepresenting, as using your comments as a springboard for my opinion. 🙂 Which, to be fair, we all do. But it seems your main point is, let’s not stay rusted on to the US from faux shared values and a common history; let’s tread our own path, and try to walk it between the two big bullies of the day. And, put as baldly as that, most of us would agree. My only caveat is that the shared history and values are not totally fake.
Got my vote, Barney. The economic fall of America, and the global hegemony of China, is still a long way off. Besides which, leaving aside fake accusations of racism, we have so much in common with the US, and so little with China.
Fair enough Barney. The values are real and i would never denigrate the Judeo-Christian ethic and values. I do take issue with the cynical misuse of them by the US empire crowd in Canberra. I am not suggesting you are part of that mob.
Thanks Paul. They would never accept me, even if I wanted to join. Which I don’t.
I do think we have emerged from the post-1989 complacency into a time of flux and uncertainty that presents some uncomfortable challenges in all sorts of ways, not least the social media (by which we are having this discussion) and the geopolitical situation. We’re just going to have to face them, as we all agree, and I’d like us to do so with integrity and compassion. Not easy.
Surveys are often instruments to create narrative.
@stephensaunders49:disqus And it is clear the opinions reported in the surveys will to a large extent be influenced by and reflect relentless media campaigns so not much point in referring to them as evidence of broad opinion. They are reflective of campaign opinions.
“the government has trod a careful path throughout 2020”. Perhaps the more appropriate phrase is “navigate a careful voyage” as in the HMAS Parramatta steaming around the South China Sea, waters long claimed by Australia, in the wake of the US Navy. Careful?
‘waters long claimed by Australia’ was that meant to be ‘claimed by China’?
Sorry mate. A poor attempt at sarcasm.
OK, got it now. I thought it might have been the sort of typo I can make. Would actually now consider it to be excellent sarcasm on your part. Well done.
I think my life has been a series of typos so you made a reasonable assumption. All the best to you mate.