Pearls and Irritations

Paul Keating’s report on his meeting with China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi brought back memories of an hour long one on one conversation I had with Jiang Zemin, who in 1987 brought a trade mission to Sydney. He was the Mayor of Shanghai at the time.

The Keating Government had funded the Shanghai Trade Display at the International Trade Development Centre (ITDC) located in Sydney. It was part of DFAT and I was its Deputy Director. Trade relations were growing fast and China had a lot to gain from buying Australian resources and products. PM Keating and Trade Minister John Dawkins were wary of the trade imbalance in our favour and the potential effect on our bilateral relationship. The ITDC was tasked with assisting Chinese exporters to market and promote their products to Australia, which Keating thought was an ideal training ground for China’s fledgling export industries. If China could sell its products successfully in Australia’s tough and highly competitive market it might succeed in others. As Keating said, the world benefits from China’s ability to supply high quality and relatively low-priced goods, but that was not the case in 1987. Australia can take some credit for helping China, through technical cooperation and marketing assistance, to develop the quality and marketability of its exports. The productive trade relations we have enjoyed most of the time since China opened its economy to the world have built a mutually beneficial partnership.

My conversation with Jiang Zemin began with him emphasising China’s aim to familiarise itself with Australia as a source of raw materials, equipment and technology. He also emphasised his intention to make Australia a market for Shanghai’s products. Shanghai was the most sophisticated exporter in China at that time. They had some good products and ‘guanxi’ services – social networks – to offer. I agreed, and advised him of the need to work on product design and reliability to pass Australia’s money-back guarantee and warranty regime.

We then turned to politics. Jiang Zemin was interested in what I had read at ANU which included Chinese revolutionary history under Dr Bruce Kent and Prof Wang Gungwu. He became animated on some aspects of my knowledge, in particular “Splittism”. He said China was wary not only of destructive factionalism in the party, but more generally the propensity of foreign powers to divide the country by encouraging war lords and others to foment disunity. He said the latter was to be avoided at all costs because China had long suffered from splits and disunity. He also confirmed Shanghai was at the heart of China’s political leadership. I reported our conversation to Canberra and included a prediction that he might be the next President.

Based on my own experience, I can only endorse Paul Keating’s willingness to conduct informal meetings such as he had with Wang Yi. Informal conversations like mine with Jiang Zemin can engender trust and understanding, thus supplementing the often robotic and cliche-ridden formality of talking points exchanged across negotiating tables. The meeting I had with a future President of China was, in the larger picture, inconsequential, but it helped promote friendship at a human level where neither party was competing to advance a fixed position.

For more on this topic, P&I recommends:

Restoring appropriate equilibrium between our two countries

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