I have noted many times how, strangely, it is often Beijing that acts in the Australian national interest versus Canberra. Prominent examples of this include cutting off the flow of Chinese capital into runaway house prices in 2016, overplaying it’s hand with bribery scandals in 2017 and the recent trade divorce based upon incompatible political systems.
Today Beijing is right again. Via the always informative Global Times:
Australia appears to be pulling another publicity stunt. In a recent interview, the newly installed Australian Trade Minister Dan Tehan said that he had written a “detailed” letter to his Chinese counterpart in which he expresses hope that they could have a “constructive dialogue.” A week or so later Tehan has started publically whining that he hasn’t received a reply.
Such a narrative that China has purposefully ignored Australian officials’ outreach is not new. Tehan’s predecessor Simon Birmingham had also claimed that his phone calls to his Chinese counterparts went unanswered. The combative Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison also said last week that he was ready and willing to meet with the top Chinese leader, but only if there are no preconditions to holding the talks. Needless to say it hasn’t happened.
Still, many media outlets Down Under and in the broader Western world jumped on the story. Almost all of them appear to be painting the Australian trade minister as a “victim” of some sort of “political retaliation” by Chinese officials amid tense bilateral relations. That plays nicely into the official narrative in Canberra that Australia is a victim of what it calls “economic coercion” by China.
For political opportunists in Canberra, this narrative of shifting blame may seem a good strategy during the downward spiral of bilateral diplomatic and trade ties, while continuing their toxic and xenophobic rhetoric and actions toward China. They may be thinking that they can fool Australian farmers, winemakers and other exporters, who are bearing the brunt of the tensions, by basically saying “look we tried, but China didn’t reply.”
For many in China, this is nothing more than a publicity stunt and a shameless dereliction of responsibility that has not helped address pressing issues in any meaningful manner. The victimhood narrative is not fooling anyone in China.
Chinese officials have made that abundantly clear in recent remarks. On Friday, Zhao Lijian, a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, urged Australia to “face up and reflect upon the crux of the difficulties” in China-Australia bilateral relations. On Thursday, Gao Feng, a spokesperson for the Chinese Commerce Ministry, called on Australia to do “more things that are conducive to China-Australia mutual trust and cooperation.”
To offer a blunt reading of these officials’ remarks, the current trouble with China-Australia bilateral ties are Canberra’s own making, and bilateral relations and cooperation will continue to face challenges, until Australian officials take concrete actions to rectify their toxic approach toward China rather than making empty calls for talks or outreach.
How did China-Australia relationship sink so low? In case the truth has been buried in all of the political show and publicity stunts staged by some Australian officials, it important to remember the many first steps taken by Australia.
Australia was the first Western country to push for a so-called anti-foreign interference law targeting China, the first to exclude Chinese telecom firm Huawei from its market, and among the first to push for a so-called probe into the origins of COVID-19.
By comparison, Chinese officials have never linked actions on trade with Australia to diplomatic tensions, in the way, for example, some Western governments impose “sanctions” on Chinese entities and individuals over China’s internal policies in Hong Kong. In all of the recent actions on Australian products, including barley, wine and timber, Chinese officials specifically cited relevant anti-dumping and anti-subsidy rules. If Australia feels those actions are not fair, they can and should bring them to the WTO with concrete evidence, rather than trying to get attention like a whining child.
It’s true that bilateral trade has come under unprecedented pressure from the souring relationship. It may also be true that Australian officials are facing increased pressure domestically, as the economic toll on many Australian businesses continues to mount. It may even be true that some Australian officials want to push for trade cooperation with China, even while they continue to attack China on many other fronts.
But that would be wishful thinking. Until some concrete actions are taken by Canberra to repair the relationship, things won’t improve significantly on the economic and trade fronts. This shouldn’t be hard to understand: One cannot expect to shake hands and sign business deals with someone across the table, while they keep kicking you underneath it.
In the meantime, Tehan says he’s content to “wait patiently for a response” from Chinese officials, while China will also likely wait even more patiently for real and meaningful actions from Canberra.
Why is Dan Tehan writing to anybody in China? The CCP has made it quite plain what it wants:
Obviously, we can’t give it to them so let’s accept the relationship is over and move on. Leading with your chin into a perpetual grovel to satisfy greedy locals and the cowardly left is ignominious and pathetic.
Peter Hartcher has exactly the right idea:
A long-standing excuse was that China was going to need more “strategic space” as it grew richer and more powerful. This was an argument whose most prominent advocates in Australia were Paul Keating and Hugh White.
…China eventually decided to start grabbing “strategic space” for itself. It took maritime territories also claimed by its neighbours – the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei.
Fair enough, right? A rising China is entitled to more “strategic space”? When the Philippines brought a case against China to the international tribunal at The Hague, the independent experts disagreed. The independent arbiters ruled in 2016 that Beijing had “no basis in law” to its claim under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, to which China is a signatory.
Beijing’s response? It turned the maritime features it had seized – reefs and rocks – into islands and built military fortifications on them. We now see that that was just the beginning.
Under Xi Jinping, China is using its armed forces increasingly to intimidate Japan, India and Indonesia among others, while breaking its solemn commitment to Hong Kong’s autonomy and increasing its military pressure on Taiwan.
The argument to allow it more “strategic space” was a pre-emptive excuse not for some elegant academic argument on the rise and fall of great powers but an invitation to a rogue power to smash its way to dominance.
And it’s not about the moral equivalence of China with the rise of the US a century or two ago. It’s about the absolutes of security today. Beijing is injuring its neighbours, destabilising the region, and ignoring the rules that middle powers like Australia rely on for national security and sovereign survival.
Excuse number two. We mustn’t “make China angry”. Over the past few decades, the Australian media has been conditioned to expect “anger” from the Chinese government. We put ourselves in a constant state of anticipation. Reporters and editors closely watched Australia’s government for anything that might “make China angry”. It became the main frame through which Australia absorbed news about the bilateral relationship.
…This successful Chinese conditioning of the Australian mind over the decades had made us more receptive to the sort of self-abasement we are urged to perform to assuage China’s “anger”. This week, for instance, we hear a former secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Philip Flood, telling us that the “current low point” in relations is caused by both countries and that Australia needs to approach China with “more nuance”.
What sort of nuance would Flood suggest we use against a fascist power that is crushing human liberty at home – including a program of genocide in Xinjiang – and using brute force to make illegal territorial grabs abroad?
Let’s recall that the origin point of the “current low point” was the bipartisan decision of Australia’s Parliament to pass laws against foreign interference and espionage. This was followed by the ban on Huawei. And the request for an inquiry into the origin of the pandemic that has killed 2 million people so far and created a global recession.
The truth is that Xi’s regime is not entitled to the “strategic space” it is seizing from its neighbours. It is not righteously angry at any Australian lack of nuance. It is a dictatorship determined to break Australia’s sovereign will. Australia is seeking to defend itself and its interests; Beijing is the aggressor.
…There is no equivalence. So far Australia is holding firm against Xi’s campaign of coercion. It’s possible, however, that Xi could end up breaking Australia; we might end up yielding our independence to a rising fascist power. The least we can do is to stop making excuses for our oppressor in the meantime.
Bravo. It is remarkable how cowardly Australia has become.
