{"id":46585,"date":"2019-03-30T06:00:28","date_gmt":"2019-03-29T19:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=46585"},"modified":"2019-03-29T18:05:37","modified_gmt":"2019-03-29T07:05:37","slug":"australia-china-relations-effort-must-reflect-strategic-reality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/australia-china-relations-effort-must-reflect-strategic-reality\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia\u2013China relations effort must reflect strategic reality"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

Foreign Minister Marise Payne\u2019s announcement<\/a> of a $44 million \u2018National Foundation for Australia\u2013China Relations\u2019 to harness efforts of the private sector, cultural organisations, NGOs, state and federal agencies, and the Chinese-Australian community \u2018to turbo-charge our national effort in engaging China\u2019 is a good idea.<\/p>\n

While there are mutually beneficial parts of the Australia\u2013China relationship, we can\u2019t hide from the fact that there are also increasingly stark differences\u2014mainly on security and strategic issues.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s unsurprising, given that President Xi Jinping is an authoritarian leader of a one-party state who enjoys near-absolute power.<\/p>\n

As a result, Australian government policy\u2014and communication with the Australian public about the Australia\u2013China relationship\u2014needs to be able to manage both the panda and the dragon.<\/p>\n

Experience shows that, for the new foundation to work, its board will need to include voices who can speak about all aspects of the relationship.<\/p>\n

To ignore the security and strategic elements would make it like the Gillard government\u2019s 2012 Australia in the Asian century<\/a><\/em> white paper, which ignored obvious security risks and spoke glowingly about economic opportunities.<\/p>\n

That initiative died because it simply didn\u2019t describe the world we live in, in which security and economics and cultural issues are all intertwined.<\/p>\n

So the board of this new foundation will need to have at least one defence and national security voice on it\u2014which we\u2019ll hopefully see when the government decides on its appointees.<\/p>\n

The time of the Chinese state \u2018hiding and biding\u2019 under Deng Xiaoping is over. Now the dragon of the Chinese state under Xi is using its national power assertively and aggressively.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s true about its military power; a prime example is the South China Sea, where the Chinese military is aggressively seeking control of areas and features that it doesn\u2019t own and which others claim.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also true about its economic power. The extensive soft loans made under the auspices of Xi\u2019s Belt and Road Initiative are already succumbing to corruption problems<\/a> and leaving unsustainable debts<\/a>. Beijing has also shown a willingness to use economic measures as punishment\u2014for example, in its ongoing refusal to take Australian coal imports<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And in cyber power, the large-scale intellectual property theft and cyber intrusion into other nations\u2019 systems for state and corporate purposes continues unabated.<\/p>\n

Add foreign interference\u2014including covert interference in the political systems of other countries\u2014and technology like 5G communications (which Xi sees as a source of both strategic and economic power), and there\u2019s a long list of Chinese actions that are causing problems in the relationship with Australia.<\/p>\n

Unless the goals, policies, practices and actions of the Chinese state change, Australia, along with many other governments and nations, will need to balance mutually productive engagement with growing strategic differences.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s wrong to fall into the trap of talking about troubles with China simply as a bilateral issue for Australia to manage.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s even worse to talk about the problems in the relationship as stemming from the Australian government\u2019s responses, when the root causes are the actions of the Chinese state.<\/p>\n

The European Union has just \u2018reset\u2019<\/a> its own relationship with China. And that\u2019s not to focus on harmony and speak more softly about differences. Instead, it is making \u2018a further EU policy shift towards a more realistic, assertive, and multi-faceted approach\u2019.<\/p>\n

The EU needed to rebalance its relationship with China because, among other things, it now recognises the Chinese state as \u2018an economic competitor in the pursuit of technological leadership, and a systemic rival promoting alternative models of governance\u2019.<\/p>\n

So, it\u2019s certainly worthwhile emphasising the harmonious, mutually beneficial elements of our relationship with China. But we know that more tough decisions will be required of future Australian governments because of the way the Chinese state is using its power in the world.<\/p>\n

Examples include deciding what foreign investment to approve or knock back (we\u2019ve already reached critical mass for Chinese investment in our nation\u2019s vital infrastructure, as indicated by the rejection of a bid<\/a> that would have given Chinese entities control of gas distribution along Australia\u2019s east coast); stopping work in our universities that advances China\u2019s military or state security capabilities\u2014something that\u2019s just not in our national interest<\/a>; and responding to further punitive economic measures against Australian exports to China.<\/p>\n

As the national foundation for Australia\u2013China relations takes shape, it must develop in a way that mirrors reality and so take into account the connections between the security, economic and cultural issues that affect the relationship.<\/p>\n

Not doing so will severely limit the foundation\u2019s utility in helping to manage and communicate this important relationship to the Chinese and Australian people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Foreign Minister Marise Payne\u2019s announcement of a $44 million \u2018National Foundation for Australia\u2013China Relations\u2019 to harness efforts of the private sector, cultural organisations, NGOs, state and federal agencies, and the Chinese-Australian community \u2018to turbo-charge our …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":766,"featured_media":46587,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[17,2212,52,294],"class_list":["post-46585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-australia","tag-australia-china-relations","tag-china","tag-diplomacy"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nAustralia\u2013China relations effort must reflect strategic reality | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link 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