Former Australia PM Scott Morrison says China can be a democracy; Chinese people ‘care just as much about freedom as we do’

Former Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has dismissed the idea that China is unable to become a multiparty democracy, saying there is no “anti-democratic” instinct in the Chinese people.

Morrison, who led Australia from 2018 to 2022, said the Chinese people “care just as much about freedom as we do” but “sadly in mainland China they don’t have the opportunity for it.” The former Australian leader was a guest on the Diving Deep podcast hosted by Olympic athlete Sam Fricker.

“There’s a view that some put around that, oh, you know, democracy can’t work in Chinese culture,” Morrison said on the podcast. “Well, that’s crap. I’ve been to Taiwan.”

During Morrison’s time as prime minister, relations between China and Australia reached their lowest point in decades. Following a call by Morrison for an independent investigation into the origins of Covid-19, Beijing placed trade restrictions on lucrative Australian imports such as wine, barley and coal. Just this week, Beijing scrapped punitive tariffs on Australian wine shipments.

Ties between the two countries have improved following Morrison’s defeat and the election of the centre-left Labor government in May 2022. Earlier this year, Morrison announced he was quitting Australia’s parliament, and later joined a consulting firm run by former US President Donald Trump’s national security adviser.

Morrison said Canberra’s relationship with China will always be transactional and never “values-based” like Australia’s ties with the US.