Foreign Minister Penny Wong speaks of balance, equality and a new regional order – yet Australia’s China policy still carries Cold War assumptions that risk strategy, prosperity and peace.

Senator Penny Wong’s 17 November keynote speech to the Australian Institute of International Affairs confirmed, “The change in the regional landscape is permanent.”

Painting a “grim picture”, she took the opportunity to don the role of architect. Burnishing Australia’s credentials, the Minister reflected on Australia’s ambitions as a “resilient middle power” supporting a “new normal” within an inclusive new regional architecture.

This “new architecture” is to sit on “the foundation of a relationship of equals.” The stabilising of the Sino-Australian relationship is an ongoing part of this.

Her calm, cerebral rejection of a “false binary” in this relationship was noteworthy, but the qualitative scale of enhanced Sino-Australian cooperation lacked a full explanation.

In a likely indirect swipe at Morrison’s failed China policy, she said: “Australia cannot afford to stand still while tectonic plates are shifting around us – because in these circumstances, that would mean going backwards.”

Is not standing still enough? Perhaps it is more self-indulgent “cake-ism.” Beijing would regard statements on balance and equality within a “new normal” as both positive and familiar, but would ask whether China, as a maligned outlier, has ever been treated fairly on an inclusive basis of nicely balanced equality.

Australia’s predicament is well known. Despite recent interest in economic diversification, its economy remains heavily reliant on China. Security policy still relies on the US as the keeper of balance and “great builder of alliances”. Balance against whom? Chinese “architects” think alliances create imbalance through inequality, whereas “architecture” in the West presumes that China, as the Cold War enemy, works against the “rules-based” order.

Was Wong’s focus on Pacific engagement a masked containment? The Minister promised that Canberra would “prioritise dialogue with China at every level.” Towards what end? Australian democracy must still be defended against the unnamed “others who would tear at the fabric of our cohesion.” Australia “plays by the rules”, but China does not? Australia, however “must pave the way in rule-making otherwise the world will be more deferential to authoritarians.”

The Minister’s speech was an impressive tour d’horizon, but at the end of the day it appears to perpetuate the ‘China Threat’ as existential. “Whack-a-mole” intelligence insists that the US is “indispensable” as “our closest ally”, that today’s times are “the most dangerous times” and that China is to blame for this.

Is China to be denied influence, participation and leadership in the new regional architecture? Does it matter that China is not a proven “threat”? China refuses to participate in the “rise and fall of great powers” and sees imperial overreach as a severe drain on resources that ultimately undermines national interests.

Has anyone in Canberra noticed that China has for years endorsed “a region in balance where sovereignty is respected?”

Foreign Minister Wong broached “common ground and shared interests” as if it were a new idea originating in Australia’s good intentions. She did not explore the latter’s potential compatibility with 70-year-old Chinese policy such as the “the five principles of peaceful coexistence” and its corollary, qiu tong, cunyi (seeking common ground while reserving differences). The latter reiterates mutual respect and equality between states with different systems.

Australia’s predicament does not appear to be going away any time soon. The incorrect identification of an enemy has a hugely determining influence on the budgeting for updated force structure and appropriate strategy in a time of radical economic change. Anti-China polemics is poor strategic thinking that can drag down Australia’s economy.

China is a self-professed “golden mean” state. Tradition legitimises principles such as “seeking common ground while reserving differences.” On the basis of such policy idealism, China moved from a low state of development through to today’s extraordinary economic miracle. Chinese modesty animates policy as it warns that when it comes to the international relations of war and peace, no country is perfect, hence the idiom, “wu shi bu xiao bai bu” (The soldier who retreats 50 yards laughs at the soldier who retreats 100 yards). Words and actions are to form a consistent unity. China transitioned to modernity without engaging in a series of wars. China invested in balance and equality that insisted that states with differences need not go to war. That China is neither “hegemon”, nor “superpower” is now reinforced in the reiterated traditional principle of “harmony”. China considers itself a major country, has growing influence, the world’s largest army, not to mention potentially the world’s largest economy. In the context of fabulous growth, it has not threatened its neighbours with conquest. Has China done anything but support the UN? China has officially dropped its UN standing as a ‘developing state’, but still highlights the equality and mutual respect between developing and developed states as well as the “harmony” of civilisations that contribute to humanity. This “harmony” is likely more supportive of global solidarity than intimidating transactional unilateralism.

Australian policy extols new architecture, while accepting old Cold War assumptions that ignore the real history of Chinese policy relating to war and peace. In 1949, the clever Monkey King, Mao Zedong, commanded an army of five million. Mao did not have a ‘Bismarkian moment’. He emerged from Civil War with a massive army. Notwithstanding CIA prediction, China’s red flag was not planted everywhere in weak bordering counties.

Hong Kong was a case in point. Worried US joint chiefs agreed with their British colleagues that there was no way to stop the PLA from moving into Hong Kong. But Hong Kong was not invaded. The PRC preferred development to war, and despite huge systemic differences, even tolerated British colonial rule to focus on Hong Kong’s trade and financial importance.

China, despite a massive military presence, did not help itself to Korean territory in the 1950s. In 1962, China did not press its military advantage on the border with India. China unilaterally declared a ceasefire and withdrew to former lines of military control. Hostilities ceased on the basis of status quo ante bellum (no territorial change).

Citing the “five principles of peaceful coexistence”, the Chinese and Soviets almost immediately agreed to a ceasefire in the Ussuri River in March 1969 again based on the status quo ante bellum. When preparing to play ping-pong with Nixon, Mao insisted that China’s army would not move beyond its own borders to support Vietnam. To progress normalisation, real differences concerning Vietnamese liberation and the Taiwan issue were taken off the table. The 1979 “punitive expedition” into north Vietnam to pre-empt Cambodia’s annexation witnessed the unilateral Chinese withdrawal of forces. In each of these cases, if the border was hot, it was not changed.

Short-sighted strategic thinking, focusing exclusively on China as the source of region-wide danger reduces China policy to a game of Whack-a-Mole. China’s belligerence in the South China Sea is overstated as an epic East-West struggle over the “rules-based international order”. Although very old, this dispute has not produced a war.

Deng Xiaoping originally pushed back against leftists who claimed that he would turn China into a “raw materials base” for the West. Deng invited Western companies to explore the hydro-carbon potential of China’s continental shelf. Despite the multi-country complexity of this territorial dispute, it has never become a casus belli. Indeed, the Chinese have constructed runways in the South China Sea. This does not compare to Nazi Germany’s invasion of most of Europe.

As for the “rules”, in 2023, ASEAN and China agreed to finalise negotiations over a maritime code of conduct by July 2026. Regardless of anxiety over China’s military modernisation, the Philippines, as the upcoming ASEAN chair, supports completing this negotiation on time. More than any other rising power China eschews war.

Australian policy needs to drop the ‘China Threat’ and enthusiastically support the progressive engagement of China within the new regional architecture. There is no existential need to accelerate AUKUS-led military modernisation to contain China. China subscribes to the Law of the Sea. Australia also subscribes. The US does not. China wants a code of conduct. Its future economic development requires that the sea-lanes be kept open.

Penny Wong declared to the world: “We are architects.” Her speech heralded Australia’s developing middle power independence. The latter should address whether China is, indeed, innately aggressive. They do take military action. They will not be bullied, but they have made an unprecedented economic leap without the necessity of war. Their principled tough mindedness, in tandem with patient flexibility, has supported the long-term success of “strategic ambiguity.”

Given the magnitude of the Taiwan issue it is surprising that the PRC has not already invaded. Japan’s new Prime Minister Takaichi, who admires Margaret Thatcher as the ‘Iron Lady’ who so fiercely fought communism, has recently caused a commotion on the Taiwan question. She might recall Deng Xiaoping ran circles around Thatcher in the negotiations over Hong Kong. Unlike in the Falklands, Hong Kong made the transition without war.

Can Australia’s “new architecture” support peace over war? Wong’s “resilience”, which may mirror Chinese “self-reliance” (zili geng sheng), needs more cooperation and less containment. The Albanese government is not “going backwards”, but policy revision in slow motion is not an effective response to systemic change. “Shifting tectonic plates” require more than an undertaking “not to stand still”.