{"id":38750,"date":"2018-04-23T06:00:26","date_gmt":"2018-04-22T20:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=38750"},"modified":"2018-04-20T14:24:10","modified_gmt":"2018-04-20T04:24:10","slug":"big-chill-china-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/big-chill-china-australia\/","title":{"rendered":"Big chill between China and Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

The fifth icy age has descended on China\u2013Australia relations\u2014cooling business, frosting diplomacy and chilling strategic perspectives.<\/p>\n

China has put Australia into diplomatic \u2018deep<\/a> freeze<\/a>\u2019.<\/p>\n

China speaks of \u2018a growing lack of mutual trust\u2019<\/a>, accusing Australia of \u2018systematic, irresponsible, negative remarks and comments regarding China\u2019. Australia concedes \u2018tensions\u2019 while blaming \u2018misunderstandings and mischaracterisations<\/a>\u2019.<\/p>\n

Australia\u2019s former ambassador to China, Geoff Raby, sees \u2018incoherence\u2019 in the way Australia is dealing with China, judging that the relationship is at its lowest since the Tiananmen Square massacre.<\/a> The Tiananmen reference brings us to the lessons of the four previous icy ages.<\/p>\n

The climate-change saga begins with the foundation of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) in 1949. When China stood up, Australia turned away.<\/p>\n

First icy age (1949\u20131972)<\/strong>: Siding with the US, Australia refused to give diplomatic recognition to the People\u2019s Republic for 23\u00a0years. After long and arid coldness, the Whitlam government\u2019s recognition of the PRC in December 1972 created an era of warm optimism. The return of a Coalition government in 1975 made the warmth bipartisan, especially as Malcolm Fraser\u2014a pragmatic panda hugger<\/a>\u2014saw China as an ally in confronting the Soviet Union.<\/p>\n

Second icy age (1989\u20131991)<\/strong>: Bob Hawke\u2019s tears flowed after the Tiananmen Square massacre on 4\u00a0June\u00a01989. Australia bashed at China, suspending ministerial visits, aid and loans, and stopping military contacts. The action that had the most profound effect\u2014and turned out to be hugely beneficial\u2014was Hawke\u2019s decision that Chinese students and citizens in Australia didn\u2019t have to return to China<\/a>. Combined with family reunions, that saw 100,000\u00a0Chinese settle here, the biggest wave of Chinese migration<\/a> since the 19th-century gold rush.<\/p>\n

The reset during the second icy age was sharp. The Oz Sinologist and first ambassador to China, Stephen FitzGerald, said Australia had been guilty of naive euphoria about China\u2014\u2018we have seemed to lose all perspective\u2019\u2014arguing that Tiananmen marked the end of \u2018official intoxication with China\u2019.<\/p>\n

By early in 1990, Australia\u2019s ban on ministerial visits was lifted. China was too important to shun. The history of Australia\u2019s relations with Asia<\/a> says the \u2018hiatus in relations\u2019 ended in 1991. Emerging from the Tiananmen pariah period, China joined APEC in 1991 simultaneously with Taiwan and Hong Kong, a moment of equivalence unimaginable today.<\/p>\n

Third icy age (1996): <\/strong>China put the sword to John Howard\u2019s government, which had been elected in March\u00a01996. Ministerial visits froze and Oz businesses in China screamed that they were being punished. The new government had offended on numerous fronts. Howard\u2019s ministers criticised Beijing\u2019s missile-test menacing of Taiwan<\/a>. Beijing saw Howard\u2019s call to reinvigorate the US alliance as Australia embracing a containment policy. Chinese commentators fretted that Japan and Australia were to be \u2018crab claws\u2019 gripping China. Perceived Oz sins piled up: cutting aid loans, a ministerial visit to Taiwan and Howard meeting the Dalai Lama. As Howard conceded in his memoirs, it was \u2018a rocky start<\/a>\u2019.<\/p>\n

The thaw was achieved at the 1996 APEC summit when Howard had a bilateral meeting with China\u2019s leader, Jiang Zemin. Howard was deeply pragmatic, conceding China\u2019s prerogatives<\/a>, promising \u2018mutual respect\u2019 (respect for China\u2019s power) and seeking to focus only on the economic relationship. It worked marvellously. The China boom lifted Australia\u2019s boat and sailed it serenely into a golden economic era.<\/p>\n

Fourth icy age (2008\u20132009)<\/strong>: Beijing thought the new Mandarin-speaking leader, Kevin Rudd (Lu Kewen), understood and loved China. Trouble was, Lu\/Rudd knew China\u2019s complexity and duality and spoke truth to power.<\/p>\n

The Rudd sharpness on China shaped the 2009 Defence White Paper<\/a>. His offerings on China were bookended by significant speeches, two years apart, in Beijing and Canberra. The Beijing University speech<\/a> in April 2008, four months after taking office, was the opening, hopeful effort to dance with China. The 70th Morrison Lecture<\/a> in Canberra in April 2010, delivered two months before Rudd was cut down by caucus, showed the lingering frostbite of the fourth icy age.<\/p>\n

In Beijing, speaking in Mandarin, Rudd offered honest criticism and sought to be a zhengyou<\/em>\u2014a true friend who \u2018offers unflinching advice and counsels restraint\u2019 on contentious matters. He proposed \u2018a straightforward discussion\u2019 about \u2018significant human rights problems in Tibet\u2019. China decided it had problems with Lu Kewen.<\/p>\n

Two years later, in the Morrison Lecture, reflecting on the icy age, Rudd described three chilly scenarios: (1)\u00a0China as threat; (2)\u00a0China as direct competitor with the US for control of the international system; or (3)\u00a0China as self-absorbed mercantilist bully.<\/p>\n

The diplomatic pressure Beijing applied to Rudd threw up a notable document: the terms of the ceasefire negotiated in the Australia\u2013China joint statement<\/a> in October 2009.<\/p>\n

The ceasefire embraced a \u2018comprehensive relationship\u2019, acknowledged \u2018differences of one type or another\u2019 and pledged to \u2018properly handle differences and sensitive issues in accordance with the principles of mutual respect, non-interference and equality\u2019. Back then, I offered this translation of that truce language<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The evidence of the last three icy ages\u2014under Hawke, Howard and Rudd\u2014is that today\u2019s cold period will pass when both sides decide that enough is enough. An icy age is a diplomatic device to inflict damage and denote displeasure. Eventually, other purposes must be served. A balance between row and kow-tow will be restored.<\/p>\n

Canberra and Beijing will have to agree the terms of the thaw. That requires agreement on what the argument is about and the magnitude of the fifth icy age. To be continued …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The fifth icy age has descended on China\u2013Australia relations\u2014cooling business, frosting diplomacy and chilling strategic perspectives. China has put Australia into diplomatic \u2018deep freeze\u2019. China speaks of \u2018a growing lack of mutual trust\u2019, accusing Australia …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":38751,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[52,285],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nBig chill between China and Australia | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/big-chill-china-australia\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Big chill between China and Australia | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The fifth icy age has descended on China\u2013Australia relations\u2014cooling business, frosting diplomacy and chilling strategic perspectives. 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