The widening strategic differences between Australia and China and how these affect their bilateral relations is nothing new. In fact, the tide arguably changed as early as in 2017, to be constantly pushed further by an Australia that has grown more and more assertive and outspoken about what it believes.
While many would envision a reset of China-US relations under the coming Biden presidency, it would not necessarily mean a reset in China-Australia relations, which have been growing worse almost every week this year.
On the strategic front, no fundamental change is expected to happen on either side any time soon, particularly under the current governments. What is worse, the strategic and security aspect of bilateral relations between China and Australia will tend to grow more contentious if Biden resorts to what he advocated as “a united front of U.S. allies and partners”, which in reality has gradually taken shape. It would be almost impossible for Australia to keep a distance from this grouping. Rather, given the country’s track record, it is very likely to be one of its first and most enthusiastic members. Even if the Australian government withstands that intuition, it would be under even greater pressure than it already is to align itself with other “like-minded countries” in policies and approaches towards China.
The widening strategic differences between Australia and China and how these affect their bilateral relations is nothing new. In fact, the tide arguably changed as early as in 2017, to be constantly pushed further by an Australia that has grown more and more assertive and outspoken about what it believes.
The fundamental turn this year, however, is shifts in economic and people-to-people connections which have long been assumed by both sides to be the ballast of this bilateral relationship, though in a quite different sense. China has long held the belief that closer economic ties and people-to-people exchange would strengthen understanding and good will. Every businessman to venture into the Chinese market would first be reminded how important “guanxi” is. The Australians, nevertheless, have approached this more with a sense of “business as usual”. Trade numbers would continue to grow and people would keep travelling between the two countries in spite of deteriorating relations, many claimed. This is rooted in and partly explained by a long-running argument in Australia’s domestic debate on its China policy that strategic and economic decisions can be separated when dealing with China.
There is certainly some sense in that optimism. After all, a market of 1.4 billion people with an emerging middle class estimated to count at least 300 million will always offer plenty of opportunities to any business. But does a constant flow of opportunities and growing volume of export mean deteriorating relations have in no way affected foreign trade or public sentiment? I am afraid not. However, the market is too big to show that detriment, for now.
Despite wide coverage on export to China being still strong, it is important to note that this is unfortunately mere a part of the true picture. On the one side of it, trading numbers have partly been driven by iron ore the price of which has been at a seven-year high. On the other side, Chinese investment in Australia has continued to shrink for three consecutive years, lower than the last ebb in bilateral relations around 2010, and almost down to the 2007 level when capital inflow from China just started to be substantial.
Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott got to the essence of it. When introducing Chinese President Xi Jinping’s address to the Australian Parliament in 2014, he said “We trade with people when we need them, but we invest with people when we trust them”. The essence of the problem is a lack of trust. Australia does not trust China and has amplified this by taking administrative decisions and proactive legislation to that end while loudly publicising them. The issue with that position is the simultaneous hope for “business as usual”.
People-to-people connections have also been compromised as bilateral relations sour. Both the Lowy Institute’s annual poll and the inaugural poll of the Australian Studies Centre at BFSU and Global Survey on the Chinese perception of Australia point to a shifting sentiment. For example, when 2105 respondents in ten major cities were surveyed in our poll, 80% of which defined in China as “highly-educated” and “high-income” groups, one third of them believe that “to China, Australia is more of a political, ideological or military threat than economic partner”. Cross-tabulation indicates that the proportion would be much higher if sampled against the whole population.
It is more wishful thinking that following the media bombardment of negative news about China, an average Australian would be rational and calm enough to separate those from the Chinese Australians, Chinese students and tourists they meet in their everyday life. After all, respectable Chinese Australians have already been asked in Parliamentary hearings to “unconditionally condemn” the Chinese Communist Party to demonstrate their allegiance.
However unwilling many are to admit it, Australia’s people-to-people connections and economic ties with China, stronger than to many western nations, are not without issues any more. On the contrary, anything related to China is an easy target of suspicion and scrutiny.
With both sides unlikely to back down in any of the above areas and shrinking policy space among megaphone diplomacy and unwise messaging, it is getting increasingly unrealistic to imagine a reset in China-Australia relations for the near future.
Dr Dan (Diane) Hu is Assistant Professor and Deputy Director of the Australian Studies Centre at Beijing Foreign Studies University.
Comments
28 responses to “China-Australia Relations Doomed (UWA PPI Briefings Dec 17, 2020)”
Quote: “It is more wishful thinking that following the media bombardment of negative news about China, an average Australian would be rational and calm enough to separate those from the Chinese Australians, Chinese students and tourists they meet in their everyday life. After all, respectable Chinese Australians have already been asked in Parliamentary hearings to “unconditionally condemn” the Chinese Communist Party to demonstrate their allegiance.”
I disagree.
Firstly, ‘average’ Australians are just not so political as to be overly concerned about ‘China’.
Secondly, ‘average’ Australians give greater priority to their personal (as opposed to their potential political) affiliations with those Chinese people they meet.
Thirdly, to promote Senator Eric Abetz to omnipotence is to mistake our constitutional (not to mention our psychiatric) checks and balances.
And a postscript: does Associate Professor Hu have ambitions for promotion? This piece would certainly help the CCP to smooth that prospective path.
China has ended 2020 with two major trade and diplomatic deals. The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, of which Australia is a signatory, and the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment, signed between China and the European Union, form the basis for the world going forward.
Both are about trade, not war. Both are envisioned as win-win for their various signatories. Together they show the world a path toward a future better than the hectoring, adversarial approach so evident in Canberra.
As M.K. Bradrakumar so succinctly puts it, China is entering 2021 with the wind at its back. He did not say that the U.S. does not have the wind at its back, but I think that is obvious.
In an attempt to counter the prevailing winds of change, and ever unwilling to accept a future without itself in the lead, the U.S. is spruiking Taiwan as a manufactured and manipulated flash point. It is dangerous, potentially disastrous. Don’t go there, Canberra. Just don’t go there.
The TAR is of great significance also. Chinese and Laotian engineers have just completed building a engineer wonder of the the world, the Yunnan- Vientiane railway. The next stage is the Lao-Malaysian section (contracts already signed) that will link Yunnan to Singapore by rail. PRC is building a 5,500-km trans-Asia railway, from Kunming through Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Malaysia, before ending in Singapore. This will transform SE Asia.
A very interesting and helpful article. I find the assertion that a third of Chinese see Australia as an ideological, political or military threat astounding. I don’t say Dan Hu is wrong, of course, just that I am surprised. I wonder what the reasoning is for those who are scared of Australia. Do they think we are much more influential than we are?
Second, I agree that the issue is trust. I am one of those who don’t trust the Chinese Government in any sense. And my distrust has been amply justified by China’s punishment of Australia on purely political grounds. I agree also, however, that under those circumstances it is idle to hope for trade “as usual”. No other country we trade with behaves like China, repudiating contracts and agreements on a whim. A sign of the Chinese Government’s bad faith is the way it is willing to allow tens of millions of its own citizens to suffer an appalling and freezing winter with widespread power restrictions rather than let them use Australian coal for power. A country so indifferent to the suffering of its own is hardly likely to worry about any suffering elsewhere.
Third, retaliation by Anglo-Australians against Chinese Australians is entirely wrong and indefensible.
Barney perhaps the only country lift 800 million of its citizens out of poverty in an astonishing twenty years might provide some balance to your views of the PRC? By the way what is your position on trade with Saudi, UAE, India (Kashmir suppressed by 700,000 troops and 60,000 Kashmiris killed by the Indian army since 1990), Israel and the dispossession and oppression of the Palestinians and the military dictatorship in Thailand. Just a question. Do you have a moral statute of limitations with Japan? 30 million Chinese killed in a war of aggression, sexual servitude, mass rape, war crimes against civilians and still no apology. And the one million communists (many ethnic Chinese ) slaughtered in 1965 in Indonesia? There are about 60,000 massacred communists in mass graves in Bali and Australians dance on them every holiday. The genocide in Timor? The continuing oppression of the desperately poor people of West Papua? Do you trust Indonesia? How does this work as a moral position? Where does your statute of moral limitations cut in exactly? Tony’s trade and trust equation (dont start me on that immoral Bob Santa turd)is OK with these paragons of democratic virtue? Faux elections are the holy water that washes away the crimes and the blood of millions? Consistency is the bedrock of moral logic and credibility. This is a genuine question. I am really curious about the anti-Chinese moral outrage exceptionalism in Australia. How does it work as moral logic?
You and others keep replying to me as though I have linked trade and human rights. I have never done so, and have explicitly said that I do not. That’s because I don’t know how it could work. Of course I don’t expect you to have read all my posts, but I suggest you didn’t read that post sufficiently carefully. I want to minimise trade with China because I think they are bullying and untrustworthy, and always liable to flip on any agreements the minute it suits them. Australia is not the only country to find this out, though we do seem to have irked them more than anyone else. I do think China is one of the worst countries in the world on human rights, but I didn’t mention that because it is not relevant. I referred to the coal ban at an enormous cost to China’s own people to emphasise how much China hates Australia.
I talk about the Uighurs and the Christians and others not because of trade, but specifically to question people on these boards who pretend for reasons of their own that there is no persecution. I regard that as reprehensible, and make no apology for thinking that. As I posted elsewhere, they remind me of the Stalinists of my youth who claimed that Stalin was only benign, despite masses of evidence for decades. I have not linked China’s human rights record to trade or any activity by Australia. Please read what I actually am saying.
Fair enough Barney re. trade and human rights. Your sidestep would do Reg Gasnier proud. But my question remains. Why is PRC so exceptionally a human rights pariah, because you do seem to argue that corner. And what of Japan? My question was really one of – do you and the other human rights critics of PRC who claim that PRC represents an exceptional threat, have a moral statute of limitations in regard to Japan and Indonesia. Two countries with shocking war crimes in the twentieth century. Is that all behind us, historically and morally?
Why is it a sidestep? You made a mistake, and I pointed it out. We all make mistakes, but this time, Skilts, it was you. It would be much better just to admit it, without making me out to be at fault. Not very handsome.
It’s a good question about historical war crimes. Yes, I suppose we do eventually allow nations to put the crimes behind them if they have recognised them and taken steps against similar crimes in future. The Germans have been admirable at this with regards to their Nazi past, the Japanese have been much more divided. Even the Saudis admitted wrongdoing in killing the journalist in Turkey. I’m not aware that the Chinese have ever admitted fault about anything since 1949, but if I’m wrong I’m happy to be corrected. Of course, according to the likes of Godfree, that is because China has been the epitome of perfection since then and has nothing to apologise for. Like Stalin, he evidently considers the deaths of 45 million in the Great Leap Forward just a statistic, entirely acceptable. Or perhaps like others here, he just thinks it fake news, invented by the mainstream media then and now, by academics, by victims and those who suffered, but in fact it never happened.
The point, to me, is that China’s persecution is massive, systematic and right now. I have already agreed that Australia’s treatment of refugees has been systematically shameful, and you are right to point out other serious perpetrators. That is relevant and important – but it still shouldn’t let China off the hook. Jack the Ripper couldn’t say I shouldn’t be held to account because Genghis Khan killed more. What do I say we should do about it? I have no answers, but I really don’t think we should lie about it.
Thanks for your reply. And your honesty. Yes OK i was wrong. It was a missed tackle. But i reckon you swerved a bit.
And thank you too, Skilts.
The parallel with the Left and Stalin apologists is valid but in that case the Left was turning a blind eye to the Gulag on ideological grounds. Here you are arguing with a substantial number of voices who are saying we should suck up to China because it is richer and more powerful than America. It is about money.
I think you still represent a majority Australian view, Barney, and we will not see any significant change in China policy, or even rhetoric, from either Government or Opposition. The Chinese have not given us that option. Their 14 points can be translated into one Australian sentence: Kiss my arse.
It would seem a good time to leave this area to individual firms and they will make their own judgement. In view of recent events, they are unlikely in their business plans to be placing too much faith in the Chinese market. An immediate Government initiative should be expanded overseas trade offices as suggested by the eight former Trade Commissioners who wrote to The Australian newspaper on 18 December.
Yes, Jerry, good points.
Your phrase “Stalin apologists” does a great disservice to the actual rationale of the supporters of the Soviet Union in the thirties and forties. They were not apologists. They were overwhelmingly morally utilitarian particularly in regard to the role of the Soviet Union in defeating fascism. All morality is finally practical.
That is true, Skilts, and my apologies. I was thinking more of my lifetime when people were still hanging on to the dream, even after 1956 and Hungary. I knew lots of people who were communists or sympathizers from the wartime and earlier era. Not many of them left now but I enjoyed their company for many years. We were allies with the Soviets during the war and the Second World War was their victory. Compared to Barbarossa, everything else was a sideshow. The Russians beat Hitler and we should give them more credit and gratitude.
The injustices of capitalism were good reason for people to seek alternatives and the existence of the Soviet Union exercised a discipline that permitted the successful years of Keynesian management and social democratic policies, which are sorely missed.
“No other country we trade with behaves like China, repudiating contracts and agreements on a whim”
Barney, I have no reason to believe the learned man that you are came down on the last shower. The statement, quoted above, is therefore obstinate hyperbole.
Back in 1882, Emperor Gojong of Korea signed Joseon-US Treaty whereby the US promised to defend Korea if Korea’s independence was ever threatened. Emperor Gojong wrote: “We have the promised of America; she will be our friend whatever happens”.
Barely 20 years later, the then US Vice President Theodore Roosevelt wrote, “I should like to see Japan have Korea”. In 1904, Japan invaded and colonised Korea while Roosevelt, by then US President, looked the other way.
After the defeat of Japan in WW2, Japan withdrew from Korea and the Americans decided to keep the entire Korean Peninsula for themselves. Kim Il-Sung, the grandfather of the current leader of North Korea Kim Jong-Un, pushed the illegal coloniser back to the DMZ. The divided Korea was the result of a broken treaty – dishonoured by our trusted ally.
Fast forward to Trump unilaterally cancelling NAFTA, Paris Agreement, Iran nuclear deal JCPOA, INF…etc.
Then there were the laundry list of repudiated agreements that occurred long before Trump took his first gasp of air. Happy reading:
It’s not just Trump. The US has always broken its treaties, pacts and promises
https://qz.com/1273510/all-the-international-agreements-the-us-has-broken-before-the-iran-deal/
Thank you. I accept your points. I should have made clearer that I was looking purely through my Australian lens – the “we” in your italic paragraph.
My only caveat is that to be compared with Trump is hugely demeaning; we’ve simply never seen his like. In the Pew survey I quoted in another thread which said in the 14 countries surveyed China’s reputation and Xi’s reputation had plummeted, there was one leader who finished well below Xi. I think you can guess who, the temper-tantrum-throwing toddler-in-chief who refuses to accept he lost by millions of votes.
I am surprised and somewhat delighted by the quality of journalism reflected by this contribution. I would rate this as an important contribution to our understanding of the Chinese side of the debate. Obviously it has to have the approval of the Chinese government for it to be published in a foreign journal. Be that as it may, it reinforces our understanding of the other party to the discord. In fact, I would put it beside Chinese Embassy’s Wang Ximing of “Et Tu Brutus?” fame and the Chinese “leaked” list of grievance as the three major sources that ought to be analysed for possible solutions to the presently intractable problem with China. Such a study should be carried out by suitably credentialed people who have knowledge and experience of dealing with Chinese counterparts. In the past, I was alarmed by advisors extracted from think tanks financed by foreign governments, the arms industry and others to whom the word “guanxi” sounds like a fruit. They often throw into advisory panels Chinese Australians with career aspirations or those with an axe to grind with the Chinese government. What was most disturbing was an advisory panel including a member of the Falun Gong cult – perhaps the next time around a Church of Scientology member might be found suitable for advising the government on its relationship with the US.
Apart from its rational analysis of Australia’s schizophrenia cause by its split between its strategic alliance with the US and its trade needs, it offers a glimpse of what seems like the Chinese intelligentsia’s current view of Australia:
“For example, when 2105 respondents in ten major cities were surveyed in our poll, 80% of which defined in China as “highly-educated” and “high-income” groups, one third of them believe that “to China, Australia is more of a political, ideological or military threat than economic partner”. Cross-tabulation indicates that the proportion would be much higher if sampled against the whole population.”
This is in stark contrast with the time when they would have considered Australia a friend as reflected in Wang Ximings “Et Tu Brutus?”. Lost friendship and goodwill is further reflected in the statement:
“However unwilling many are to admit it, Australia’s people-to-people connections and economic ties with China, stronger than to many western nations, are not without issues any more.”
As I suspected, one of the single most painful exchange for them is the attempt by Eric Abetz to intimidate the Chinese Australians into condemning China. I am not surprised that it is mentioned here.
It has often been stated that China is difficult for Australians to understand. On the contrary, I think that the Chinese are not difficult to understand if a number of basic cultural values are taken cognisance of, namely the need to give “face” and “guanxi” described by her as people-to-people connections. It appears to me that it is Australia that is difficult for anyone, sometimes even Australians, to understand because of the self imposed contradictions embroiling alliances, trade needs, the need to please the US, moral grandstanding, proscribing “values” and often bigotry ( as state openly by our erstwhile Attorney General, George Brandis, that people have the right to be bigots).
Finally, her observation that “anything related to China is an easy target of suspicion and scrutiny” and Australia’s use of “megaphone diplomacy” has more than an element of truth in them. Such manner of dealing with other people does not augur well for any kind of positive relationship. It is not necessary to say so, but I will say it anyway to press the point. If the Chinese were to scrutinise everything they observe as faux pas by Australians, be it treatment of asylum seekers, treatment of minorities or our spying on East Timor or Indonesia, and broadcast them in a megaphone manner, would Australia be as forgiving?
I do not believe that the relationship is beyond repair even at this stage. It only requires only a willingness on the part of the coalition of the willing among the Australian political elites to repair the damage done.
I think the situation is more fluid than the pessimistic view here from the writer and commentators. Best for our politicians to lie low on this issue. There are mutual interests. Lower level contacts are the go for a while, as they say in the diplomatic world.
Our current policies toward China are a reversion to our historic policies that were interrupted by a brief period of sense. These are underpinned by an entirely unjustified sense of racial and moral superiority coupled with an almost psychotic paranoia. Our nation might be located in Asia in a geographic sense, but politically and culturally we are located in the Imperial Metropolis. The reckoning, when it finally comes, will be painful.
The ball is really in Australia’s court.
China-Australia relationship will remain doomed as long as Australia
persists with its “have the cake and eat it too” attitude.
Prof Hu’s prediction of worsening relations bw Australia & China is consistent with the current relevations that the world is entering into a bi-polar era where most nation form blocs either to the US or China side. Two China experts ie. Prof Kishore Mahbubani (distinguished Singaporean -“Has China Won” & British Jounalist Martin Jacques (When China rules the World”) made this claim. Prof Hu however did not elaborate how and why Australia chooses the US partisan pathway and these were well revealed by Mahubani & Jacques.
https://www.quora.com/Is-there-any-way-that-the-Australia-China-relationship-can-improve/answer/Anthony-Pun. The prediction by China experts is that US -China relations is going to get worse for the next 10-20 years, if emerging nations don’t do anything about it. If Australia can use an Asian lens to visualoze the problems and make plans for a diplomatic solution, the economy agony of the next 20 years could be avoided. The suggestion by SMH editorial today about resetting the relation in 2021 is a wellcome turnaournd news.
Anthony, on the matter of the ‘bi-polar era’, I suggest you consider the ramifications of the China-EU investment deal signed a day or so back, incl why it was agreed now (e.g. before Biden slips into the Oval Office).
But, much more importantly, I suggest you seek out an op-ed published a couple of days ago, by this fella;
“Artur Leier, who works as a scientific employee, with a focus on foreign policy, in the German parliament. He is the executive director of German media platform Weltnetz.TV”
The op-ed is headed;
“China’s Belt and Road is the way for Europe and Asia to cut colonial Western ties and prosper”
Now, if that was merely ‘opinion’, I wouldn’t be recommending it. But, it’s not straight opinion, and has a number of little known facts. Such as;
“In October 2008 a special train arrived at the port of Hamburg – Germany’s biggest port in the country’s second largest city……
The operating company Transeurasia Logistics, also known as China Railway Express, was a joint venture between Germany, Russia and China. It was marketed as the ‘Trans-Eurasia-Express’. In 2017 Transeurasia Logistics became a subsidiary of Germany’s biggest railway corporation Deutsche Bahn and was renamed DB Cargo Eurasia……
There are great development opportunities and for years, there have been suggestions in Russia to make transportation faster by using the latest technology…..
One thing is certain, in 2016 Russian Railways had talks with private company Hyperloop One from the US and set up its own Transport Ministry working group to develop the vacuum-tube tech on Russian soil…… ”
From there, if you go back to early December, and look for ‘China hypersonic aircraft engine’, you’ll find China well advanced towards launching an aircraft that can travel anywhere in the world in 2 hours max (i.e. circa Mach 16).
And, that engine uses hydrogen as a fuel.
Vladimir Putin’s No 1 priority for Russian economic development?
Hydrogen as a fuel (and, there are a number of technologies that split the H and C in Methane, to produce hydrogen and graphite, which is pure ‘C’, meaning little to no carbon emissions as a waste product).
DJT- Many thanks fop introducing a new source of independent information on China’s BRI. Our media will not print such success story as the Trans Eurasian Railway as part of the BRI. This win-win China-Europe-Russia venture should be the envy of the US.
Happy to help, Anthony. Gave up on the local mainstream ages ago, and now cast the widest net possible – only way to learn.
A couple more references to the US -EU relationship.
In relation to the now frantic desperation of the US to stop the completion of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline (the US needs the EU to buy their fracked LNG, because the whole caper’s a bust, built on dodgy corporate bond issuance, as it was, with the cost of production way north of the selling price), the German FM, Heiko Mass, last week said;
“We do not need to talk about European sovereignty if it means that, in the future, we will only do everything Washington wants……The federal government will not change its position on Nord Stream 2″
And, when asked if the Germans saw any chance of the coercion (e.g. sanctions on companies involved in building the pipeline) easing, when Biden arrives, said Berlin realised there was;
“….hardly any difference in views between Democrats and Republicans”.
And, in relation to the China – EU investment deal being agreed last week, the first paragraph of one article on the US reaction;
“It’s no coincidence that Washington slapped new tariffs on European goods just hours after the agreement was signed. A year of repeatedly seeking the international vilification and isolation of Beijing has ended in abject failure.”
Article published on Dec 31, and if you look for the author, you should be able to locate it;
“Tom Fowdy is a British writer and analyst of politics and international relations with a primary focus on East Asia.”
Thanks for the German angle, DJT. The New Silk Road project now known as the Belt and Road Initiative owes a great deal to the philosophy,planning and promotion of American physical economist Lyndon LaRouche and his German wife, now widow, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, who remains active in the Schiller Institute. I first read about the project 30 years ago in the Australian publications of the Citizens Electoral Council, now the Citizens Party.
Australia is making a significant contribution to the project through the export of iron ore from our north-west harbours of Dampier and Port Hedland, where I do my weekly shopping. In the plan, Darwin is the connection to the Eurasia network via Singapore. The New Silk Road is happening and will continue to happen because it has the logic of geography.
For the many countries along the way, including ours, the challenge is to participate without losing our political and economic independence and our cultural heritage. Australian infrastructure should be built with Australian capital and our farms and firms should stay in Australian ownership.
The complete ignoring of the strategic shift by the Philippines is puzzling by the Australian commentary. President Duterte has shifted the Philippines strategic and economic relationships dramatically. Surely if a former US colony and neo-colony can in the face of a dangerous pro-US military elite, threats of a military coup, a muslim insurgency and an overwhelmingly hostile (ignorant and mendacious) press can move decisively there is room for some optimism? Duterte has just kicked off the year with a total travel ban from the US. The pimps of Angeles City and the CIA are weeping. Love Rodrigo.
https://www.manilatimes.net/2021/01/01/second-headline/duterte-approves-us-travel-ban/821192/