Get-tough rhetoric has denied us any sway with Beijing (AFR, 10/07/18)
Jul 14, 2018As foreign minister I recall an irritating flare-up in our relations with one of the Pacific states. There had been a “misunderstanding” at Sydney airport that upset the island state’s prime minister. The anger ran strong and the state contemplated a big anti-Australian gesture: terminating an arrangement under which we trained their police. And, here’s the rub, inviting China to fill the gap.
More interesting was the Chinese response, captured by one of our agencies. China rejected the notion of moving in because it knew it would antagonise Australia.
At the time we had differences with China over Huawei and US Marines, but still managed a mutually respectful, pragmatic relationship.
Last week there were reports of Australia and New Zealand sponsoring a Pacific Pact to include, among other things, agreement on police training.
It may be a useful initiative. But if our relationship with China were in something approaching normal working order we could go further and contemplate negotiations toward shaping its policy in the Pacific.
We could tell China we would send a team of federal and state treasury officers to each of the Pacific Island states to advise on debt management and help ward off any unsustainable aid deals. We could offer to jointly fund aid projects with China that meet OECD guidelines for overseas development assistance. We could seek an agreement from the Chinese that all their aid in the region would meet the same Western profile.
Right now New Zealand could open such a dialogue with China, or for that matter Canada or France. But one price we pay for becoming, since early 2017, so flamboyantly anti-China in our rhetoric is the missed opportunity to forcefully press China about its behaviour in a part of the world more important to us than for them. By adopting the language of “China containment” in official speeches beginning in January last year we were giving up this option.
Parody of Chairman Mao
Moreover, some of the anti-China panic that consumed media mid-year appeared to have been driven from the Prime Minister’s office. In December the Prime Minister gratuitously opted to parody Chairman Mao when introducing anti-foreign interference legislation. To the Chinese it then looked like Barnaby Joyce had been unloosed to drive the rhetoric even more wildly when he said in January that the Chinese can “overrun” us. The same for Concetta Fierravanti-Wells when she publicly attacked Chinese aid in the Pacific. The more intelligent path would have been to have opened the sort of discussions I suggest above.
When Australia opts to become the American ally with the most adversarial policy towards Beijing we also risk losing opportunities in trade. The 2015 Free Trade Agreement included a Chinese commitment within three years to review investment access of Australian firms and negotiate privileged access immediately afterwards. In other words, the possibility stood that Australian firms could not only get their goods through Chinese ports at lower cost than competitors but could set up shop on the ground more freely. But how likely is it that Chinese negotiators will come to the party given over 12 months of rhetoric that currently positions Australia more at odds with China than China’s strategic rivals India and Japan?
A third foregone opportunity is in the Belt and Road Initiative. All the reservations expressed by Australian spokespeople about the BRI are the stuff of reasonable policy. We should indeed be talking about transparency. We’re entitled to ask about specific deal flows for private-public partnerships in airports, toll roads, rail.
It was right to reject badging of Chinese investment in Australia’s north as part of BRI. An MOU with China, like New Zealand’s, would mean very little until the deal flows start.
Global conversation
But if we had a normal relationship with Beijing, we could put ourselves in the vanguard of Western nations which respect China’s global conversation about infrastructure but want to have it governed by healthy multilateralist benchmarks. After all, Australia under Abbott joined the AIIB and then took a lead role in devising rules for governance. The Chinese accepted them.
If, however, the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister read into the record speeches written by the most ideologically anti-Chinese among their advisers, we surrender opportunities to drive such dialogue. Especially if, as well, the government appears to have relished and even fed an anti-China media panic.
A pragmatic, national interest-based China policy seemed to work for most of the Abbott prime ministership. Returning to it doesn’t require Australia to alter its diplomatic position on the South China Sea one iota. I’ve repeatedly said as foreign minister I’d be using identical rhetoric on maritime territorial disputes as that used by Julie Bishop. Yet when diplomacy in Asia is in flux due to Trump, and when the world trading system could collapse in on itself, and when China’s trajectory to world’s largest economy is clear, surely Australia can rediscover the diplomatic skills to remodulate. And then seize opportunities that right now are beyond our grasp.
Bob Carr is Director of the Australia-China Relations Institute at the University of Technology Sydney. He is a former foreign minister and the longest serving premier of New South Wales.
Bob Carr is a former Premier of New South Wales (1995–2005), a former Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs (2012–2013) and the former Director of the Australia–China Relations Institute, the University of Technology Sydney (2014–2019).
Bob Carr was the longest-serving premier of NSW and a federal Labor foreign minister.
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Bob Carr is suggesting that Australia play long term smart in its economic relationship with China its largest trading partner rather than play short term steadfast loyalty to its military/geopolitical alliance with the U.S. i.e. sort out the essential facts and truth. Is China a ‘Yellow Peril’ to be contained? Should the Cold War and Domino Theory be revisited! Surely the issues come down to (a) protectionism vs globalised free trade in economic terms and (b) Western supremacist hegemony vs a multipolar multitudinous peaceful co-existence as in the biblical Good Neighbour Principle. As to trade Australia must recognise and accept that its economic destiny viz a viz China is totally different from the U.S. As to regional politics Australia must accept the fact that China, given its population, size, economic and military power will play a primary role in the Asia Pacific its backyard. As to geopolitics Australia must accept the ascendancy of China (and the East) in propagating a new mindset in global governance based on equal multipolarity and diversity in values in whatever the future rules base might be. Win-win as in East-West!
Vincent Cheok
This comment is a response to Prof Carr’s current article and previous article “Turnbull Government may be toning down anti-China stance”.
Prof Bob Carr’s articles provides a high level insight on the workings of Australian foreign policy, particularly in the Asia Pacific region. His view are relevant and not “armchair” stuff as it comes from his journalist and political backgrounds with a good knowledge of America history.
Prof Carr’s suggestions to improve our Australia-China relations are good however it requires a change of direction of Australian foreign policy and the political will to implement it. Prof Carr’s optimism that the Turnbull government is changing is not completely shared by most Australians of Chinese descent as evident from the still “dripping tap” of China panic in the media. However, we all wish it to be true.
The Chinese claims in the South China Seas may seem controversial or unsubstantiated but to China, these claims are culturally ingrained in the minds of the Chinese citizens in China and the wide overseas Chinese diaspora.
There is no evidence that China is blockading or restricting access to international shipping in the South China Sea. China needs those sea lanes opened as much as any other nations trading with her or just passing through.
The claim that militarization of the islands could block freedom of navigation is farfetched and is only relevant to US-China military power play in the Asia Pacific and one such exercise occurred on 17 January 2018 where USS Hopper, a U.S. Navy Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer, carried out a freedom of navigation operation (FONOP).
The potential for igniting WW3 in FONOP is probable.
There appears to be some hope on the horizon for mending of relations when a China Global Television Network (CGTN) reporter (Nathan King) was allowed on board a helicopter from HMAS Adelaide participating in the Pacific Rim naval exercise (RIMPAC 2018: A look behind the scenes of the world’s largest naval exercise)
The role of Australian Dr Richard Harris in the cave rescue of the Thai soccer team brings much credibility and respect from Thailand and in general, the Asean countries. His bravery has put Australia as a caring nation and in good standing with her Asian neighbours, an achievement that Australian foreign policy in Asia failed to do in the last 10 years. Here is an opportunity for Australia to rally its Asian neighbours with the good capital from Dr Brian Harris.
The Thai rescue with an international team, showed that Australia and Asian countries can work together in peace and Australia can resume its major role in Asia.
Bob Carr is correct. Caught between multilateral economic globalisation and free trade or maintaining full support for U.S. led Western unipolar hegemony in militant geopolitics – it is a stressful dilemma for Australia whether to put geopolitics before global economics or vice versa. It is a choice between being street smart and business minded or sticking to wielding the stick and flexing the muscles. It reflects on whether you are now mellow, urbane and wise adult or still an adolescent child caught up with your bodyworks. The choice our Australian Government has to make is whether the most assured pathway to global peace and harmony is through global trade or through sabre rattling. But decisions have first to be based on sorting out the truth from what are simply loosely stated as facts. Unless China as a ‘Yellow Peril’ is a actual fact it cannot be the truth! The citizens of Australia require an explanation stating the full facts based on historical and current evidence proving why China needs to be ‘contained’ rather than to be engaged in open dialogue understanding and comity – be friends rather than enemies.
Vincent Cheok
This sounds eminently like good sense to me. Softly softly
Some intelligent commentary at last from someone qualified to so speak.