Being clear-eyed about China under Xi Jinping is one thing. But managing the relationship effectively also requires Australia to be clear-eyed about the effectiveness of our policy options in response.
In plotting Australia’s approach to managing relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in the decade ahead, it is important to be ‘clear-eyed about the China that is, rather than the China we wish’.
The next step is to be clear-eyed about our policy options in response, drawing on those most likely to be effective, rather than those that just make us feel justified and plucky.
A case in point: has Australia’s national interest been served by intelligence agencies raiding the homes of four PRC journalists accredited to state media in an application of foreign interference laws? Or by declaring two mainland Chinese academics who were directors of the two largest and most active Australian Studies Centres in the PRC as security risks and revoking their visas as part of the same investigation?
It remains an open question but there are reasons to be concerned.
On May 25 2017, Duncan Lewis, then-Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) Director-General, put on the public record that foreign interference was occurring ‘on an unprecedented scale, and this has the potential to cause serious harm to the nation’s sovereignty, the integrity of our political system, our national security capabilities, our economy and other interests’.
This served as the trigger for the enactment of foreign interference laws in June the following year. Once on the books, it was entirely predictable that the Minister for Home Affairs and the agencies themselves would feel intense pressure to deliver ‘scalps’.
On November 18 last year, Peter Hartcher, International and Political Editor of The Sydney Morning Herald wondered, ‘[W]hy are the foreign influence laws not being enforced?’. He went on to opine, ‘It is worse than pointless for parliaments to pass fine laws, for politicians to make grand speeches, if the laws are not enforced’.
The next month, Hartcher followed up by contending, ‘The authoritarian great power, China, was mocking the laws that the Parliament passed a year and a half ago’. Reacting to news that Prime Minister Scott Morrison had announced the formation of a taskforce to enhance enforcement capabilities, he prodded harder, ‘Congratulations, Prime Minister. But does your government have the political will to follow through in the implementation?…[a] test of actual enforcement will be whether we see arrests, prosecutions, deportations of people…’
When news broke in June this year that the home of New South Wales MLC, Shaoquett Moselmane had been raided in connection to a foreign interference investigation, Peter Jennings, the head of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, told The New York Times, ‘From the moment the new legislation appeared, I anticipated that our intelligence agencies would be looking for a case to test the laws out on’.
Indeed. But that also drew attention to a problem. Intelligence agencies may have incontrovertible evidence that Moselmane was a target of foreign interference. But what also seems incontrovertible is that his ability to influence political decisions in Australia in ways favourable to Beijing was marginal to non-existent.
The professionalism of intelligence agencies is not the principal issue here. Answering the question of whether the benefits outweigh the costs of using intelligence and legal means to push back against PRC government interference is one that only political leaders can make.
This will likely be a long march. And what is on the public record to date does not inspire confidence that preserving Australian sovereignty is the sole factor that will drive their application, or that the full suite of consequences of doing so are being contemplated.
Last month, when asked to confirm reports in PRC state media that ASIO had raided the homes of journalists for PRC state media alongside Moselmane’s, Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton insisted, ‘I’m not going to comment in relation to that’. Yet a few months earlier Minister Dutton had raised no operational security concerns when a Melbourne-based journalist was in position to film the dawn raids on Moselmane’s Sydney property.
And when it became public knowledge that Anthony Byrne, deputy chair of the Australian parliament’s intelligence committee, had boasted of being able to work with journalists to orchestrate a ‘hatchet job on China’, Minister Dutton’s response was simply, ‘I think he has done a great job in the intelligence committee’.
(Recall also that it was Minister Dutton’s comments fresh from a visit to Washington in April that appeared to confirm in the PRC government’s mind that Australia’s call for an independent, international inquiry into the origins and global spread of COVID-19 was at the behest of the US.)
Actions taken in pursuit of foreign interference laws have contributed to there now being no Australian media outlets with journalists on the ground in the PRC, as well as bilateral academic exchanges being curtailed. Heightened risks for Australian businesses engaging with the PRC are another outcome.
Australia’s democratic institutions, notably a free and independent media, were already achieving results against foreign interference by shining a light on it. The Morrison government also proved adept in seizing other opportunities such as working with universities to ensure that their activities did not work against Australian interests.
For Australians facing intimidation and harassment by Beijing for exercising their right to free speech, legal remedies may well be part of the necessary mix in pushing back.
But it also a hideous prospect that because Australia now has foreign interference laws, incentives are such that resources will be poured into justifying their existence and political fancies rather than security realities will feature in their use.
Meanwhile, there is no off-ramp to tensions in the Australia-PRC relationship in sight.
James Laurenceson is Director of the Australia-China Relations Institute at the University of Technology Sydney
James Laurenceson is Director of the Australia-China Relations Institute with the University of Technology, Sydney.
Comments
15 responses to “Clear-eyed responses as well as assessments needed on the PRC”
How do we keep falling for all the cloak and dagger brigade nonsense. These breathless claims of unprecedented spying by (insert target country here) are never backed up nor questioned. Somehow though it never occurs to ask why not ? If it’s discovered by Australian agents operating in Australia how could they be endangered ? More importantly though what’s the point of all these secrets and does it do much more than keep a cabal of well paid unaccountable public servants in the lifestyle to which they become accustomed and feel entitled.
We’re watching the very well done The Bureau on SBS On demand and it keeps raising this basic point to me. Ever since the legendary Callan in the 70s and the Philby revelations it all seems so incestuous and an expensive way to find out little of use. After all the blatantly obvious dangers of Man Monis didn’t register despite all their attention.
The best way to deal with foreign spying and interference is to expose it in full in short order. This is anathema to those imbued with the Secret Squirrel complex who understandably equate withholding information with power and influence. Australia should lead the world with a complete rethink of these important matters.
Foreign interference is a paranoid nationalist term for globalisation. International culture is taking on an increasingly Chinese flavour. The bulk of Australian business, big and small, has adapted to it without problems. In fact our economy has been rescued by China’s economic vitality. But our Federal politicians and their financial backers see globalisation as a threat to their power. They would rather plunge Australia into misery than lose any of it.
A gratifyingly firm analysis by an academic who has China relations expertise and credibility . Useful links too. Tony Kevin
Calling Australia’s media free, independent and democratic is ridiculous on its face.
Our media are owned and controlled by the US and the UK and have never served Australian democracy or independence. Quite the contrary.
No doubt for you it is the same with the media as you have claimed for the courts, for democracy etc: China is the most perfect, most free model. Unfortunately, you won’t need to social distance in that choir because the membership will be very low.
Can you explain to me how our media are owned and controlled by the US and UK? One could argue, perhaps, that the Murdoch media companies are US-owned, since he has become a US citizen but he notoriously works for Murdoch’s interests. How about Nine, the TV companies, local papers, radio and TV stations? I’ll need some evidence for the assertion that they are owned and controlled by the US and UK.
As for democracy and independence, unsurprisingly you are absurdly prejudiced again. Let me point out, just in one vital example, that every meaningful Royal Commission since the Fitzgerald Inquiry in the 1990s has come about because of media exposing malpractice or other problems. Usually the government and authorities have to be dragged kicking and screaming. The Federal Government declined a banking royal commission 54 times before conceding it had to happen – due to the efforts of journalists led by The Age’s Adele Ferguson. The clergy sexual abuse Royal Commission took a good decade of exposure by the media before the Government had to act. Police, courts and churches had not been good friends to victims of abuse. Journalists remain the most important guardians of democracy. Yes, they are flawed; yes, they get things wrong; yes, they can be duped by lobbyists and the like. But society is vastly better served by the press we have in Australia than the Chinese have in China.
China’s model delivers much better results, as does Singapore’s. Plain old.
https://i.imgur.com/OYJCPkf.png
Are you serious? You think the measure that counts is trust, in a country where people are brainwashed and forbidden access to any dissenting views? Far more important is whether the media protect people, uncover corruption, afflict the comfortable and try to be accurate in what they tell you, rather than following a state censor’s line. The media in the West is far from perfect, and varies hugely in standard and integrity across the range, but it is manifestly better than crushing dissent, removing journalists who transgress, and brainwashing the people.
I remind you again of my request to show me how Australian media is owned and controlled by the US and UK. Or was it just another ideological assertion, based on prejudice rather than evidence? Four legs good, two legs bad.
I’m always amused when China announces more punishment for Australia with the words that the Chinese people are wounded. They know only what they are told, through official campaigns, and when they do know what they are talking about, such as Australian wine, they like it.
You are talking about Bad China, the mythical land that exists only in our media. In Good China–where 95% of citizens are better educated and more widely traveled than us–they say the opposite.
When they support overt government censorship, they have Lee Kwan Yew on their side:
Our media regularly subordinate national needs to special interests. Haven’t you noticed?
I’m not sure what you mean by 95% of citizens are better educated. That’s a factor of 19. Do you mean that if 30% of Australians have degrees 570% of Chinese have degrees? You’re fond of these big statements without justification – I’m still awaiting an attempt to justify your claim that Australian media is owned and controlled by the US and UK. I suspect I’ll be waiting a long time for that one. You are certainly learning from Donald Trump – it seems to be one of your alternative facts.
I do know that a heck of a lot more Chinese students come to Australia than Australian students go to China. That’s not especially significant but it’s some sort of indicator.
Nor would I accept Lee Kwan Yew as a model, a very authoritarian leader with a limited appreciation for democracy. I am sure he, like you, would have favoured the Chinese model where the CCP tries to tell people what to think and makes sure they have no access to other information. They don’t do this perfectly because it is impossible, but they try damn hard. If Trump could utterly control the media, as I’m sure he would love to, make those pesky New York Times journalists disappear, and make every article a positive one about him, you’d probably find trust in him increasing over time. But this is the media model you endorse.
Bad China and Good China both exist. It’s just so unusual to find a Westerner who openly advocates tyranny (or, at least, authoritarianism) over democracy that I’m always unsure how seriously to take you, Godfree. I suspect you might be having a cosmic-sized tease.
By saying that they’re better educated, I mean that they graduate from high school three years ahead of our kids in STEM subjects. Here are the scores:
https://i.imgur.com/djll25R.png
The students who come to Oz are those who cannot get into a Chinese university.
You do not need to accept Lee as a model, but you do need to address his argument.
If it’s tyranny that interests you, find a country whose head of state who regularly orders all of these things with no congressional or democratic oversight:
* assassinating citizens and non-citizens
* warrantless surveillance of private phone and email conversations.
• SWAT team raiding homes;
• endless unpopular wars
• secret bans on 50,000 people from flying and refusing explanations
• imprisoning 2,000,000 people witout trial
• executing 2,000 people each year prior to arrest.
• out-of-control government spending with little benefit to citizens
• heavily armed, militarized police;
• roving border sweeps that imprison citizens and non-citizens
• fusion centers that collect and disseminate data on citizens’ private transaction
Godfree, we often have topics in US iniquities on this website, and rightly so. Many of the points you make about the US concern me also. But I can’t accept the strategy, often employed here, that when one criticises China the response is “no. no, look over there.” So your post above, while highlighting real issues, is in no sense a reply to mine. I may well reply about Lee later.
Most reporting on China is from countries whose governments and media not only lie–daily and professionally–but which commit the crimes of which, without evidence, they accuse China. My wonder is that you take their allegations seriously.
“Can you explain to me how our media are owned and controlled by the US and UK?”
Dr. Vince Scappatura’s work on ‘The US Lobby’ shed some interesting light into the little-known yet highly influential Australian American Leadership Dialogue. Some swear the AALD is dinky-di undiluted foreign interference.
You can judge for yourself as to whether Scappatura made a strong enough case regarding AALD’s activities in moulding and shaping Australian political and media landscape on behalf of Washington, its enduring effects and whether the AALD constitutes foreign interference.
The US Lobby and Australian Defence Policy
Monash University Publishing, Melbourne, 2019
https://www.amazon.com.au/US-Lobby-Australian-Defence-Policy/dp/1925523527
Thank you for this link. I probably won’t spend $31 on it, but I don’t doubt that it makes some powerful points. I already accept that pro-US lobbyists influence mainstream media, especially at the Australian. But forgive me if I observe that, while such lobbying efforts should be identified and watched, China also attempts it, and there are other lobbyists as well, if less important. Obviously any journalist is only as good as his/her sources, and must always ask “why am I being told this? Who benefits? How can I check it?” We shouldn’t be anyone’s tool.
But that is still a huge distance from Godfree’s assertions that Australian media is owned and controlled by the US and UK, and that Chinese media is much better. These assertions are so counter-intuitive that they need some support.
Australia has joined US-China Cold War 2 and the rationale for it defies logic, With alignment, it is a political stand that was taken and re-enforced by government of the day. If we think rationally, then perhaps such partisan stand with the US in containing China may not eventuate. The hard realtiy is that the pendulum has swung hard right and it would be someime before it starts to swing the other way. The question is how dangerous it is to “play Cold War games” with China and the playing field is not longer the same as in the1950s when the adversary was the USSR, Our pre-occupation in this game is like “play lift-frog in the mine fields”; one mis-step and you blow yourself up and the world. Prof Laurenson is right and we should be looking towards doing something peaceful and constructive that is beneficial for all instead of trying light up the nukes!
On Shaoquette: the media has revealed that Mr Moselmane is a not a person of interests and acting on this information, the Chinese and Arab Australians have issued a joint communique on the matter and requested natural justice and fairness should be accorded to Mr Moselmane. We believe Mr Moselmane had suffered enough stress, trauma and humiliation and we hope his Party membership would lift his suspension, as an act of compassion, justice and fairness – a way of comforting his supporters.