Australia’s anti-China stance is a misguided attempt to cosy up to Trump
Bob Carr says Australia’s pivot away from China, jettisoning a relationship that dates back to 1972, is an overreaction and a naive attempt to fall in line with the US administration’s policies
Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is in Washington, able to tell Americans that in 12 months he has positioned Australia as the most anti-Chinese of all America’s allies. In fact, he can boast that, under his leadership, Australia has jettisoned a consensus on China policy that stretched from diplomatic recognition in 1972 to the decision to join the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank in 2015.
A hard ideological edge now shapes policy. It was signalled last year when Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said China would never reach its economic potential until it became a democracy. This was the first time an Australian leader had elevated the issue of China’s political system.
The tone continued throughout 2017, and on December 7 the prime minister stood on the floor of Parliament and taunted China in language the leader of no Western country would be likely to use. He chose the words, attributed to Mao in his opening address at the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference in 1949, that “the Chinese people have stood up”. He repeated it and said, that in respect to China, “…the Australian people stand up and assert their sovereignty in our nation”.
Tough message from Australian Prime Minister on Chinese interference
That is, through new anti-espionage laws that he implied were directed at China. No minister has intervened to defend 130,000 Chinese students in Australia from a burst of demonisation that saw John Garnaut, once adviser to the prime minister, accuse them of espousing “racial chauvinism” without the remotest evidentiary base.
Advertisement
In fact, Chinese students in Australia are conspicuously uninterested in politics and focused on studies. Despite a year-long campaign to demonise them, a survey by the think tank I head confirmed that there have been a mere four instances of Chinese students registering protests about teaching material, and in none of these cases had they sought to bully or intimidate. In one instance they had made a point to their lecturer about “one China” that accords with not only China’s, but Australia’s, diplomatic stance.
Last month, the US released a National Defence Strategy that called China a “revisionist power” and “strategic competitor”. Australian Defence Minister Marise Payne quickly endorsed it. Australian Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce went further, and in an astonishing abandonment of diplomatic language, said China had the capacity to “overrun” Australia. Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop was forced to say this wasn’t the government’s view.
Many Australian businesses are asking why, under Turnbull, Australia has abandoned 45 years of pragmatic engagement with China
A still more gratuitous attack on China came on January 10 from International Development Minister Concetta Fierravanti-Wells. In an interview with The Australian, she slammed China’s overseas development assistance in the Pacific, and said that the Chinese were funding “white elephants” and “building a road to nowhere”. Former Australian diplomats remarked it might have been better for any Australian criticism of China’s aid profile to be listed for discussion at the next meeting of foreign ministers.
