{"id":73252,"date":"2022-06-16T15:00:56","date_gmt":"2022-06-16T05:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=73252"},"modified":"2022-06-16T14:52:00","modified_gmt":"2022-06-16T04:52:00","slug":"peaceful-words-aggressive-actions-why-beijings-thaw-with-australia-looks-temporary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/peaceful-words-aggressive-actions-why-beijings-thaw-with-australia-looks-temporary\/","title":{"rendered":"Peaceful words, aggressive actions: why Beijing\u2019s \u2018thaw\u2019 with Australia looks temporary"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

Echoing Russian President Vladimir Putin\u2019s description of his war in Ukraine, China\u2019s Xi Jinping has released a directive that licenses his armed forces to conduct \u2018special military operations\u2019<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This involves the People\u2019s Liberation Army using force<\/a> outside circumstances that other nations would consider as war. The guidance is consistent with Beijing\u2019s recent coastguard law, which allows that well-armed organisation to use lethal force wherever China claims jurisdiction (as it does in the South China Sea\u00a0despite its claims being comprehensively rejected under international law). It seems likely to apply to the Taiwan Strait if Xi persists<\/a> in attempting to assert that the strait is Chinese waters<\/a>, not a key international waterway.<\/p>\n

Xi\u2019s new directive has clear implications for the people of Solomon Islands, as it tells the PLA to use force where required to protect Chinese nationals and Chinese projects and\u00a0investments. Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare\u2019s deal<\/a> with Beijing talks about this too, so what Xi is now doing with his military will be applied in the \u2018security assistance\u2019 that China\u2019s authoritarian forces provide in and around the Solomons. Like with the Sogavare\u2013Beijing pact, Xi has not released the text of his directive, just had it reported in state media.<\/p>\n

Chinese Defence Minister Wei Fenghe, who said at last weekend\u2019s Shangri La Dialogue that he wanted a new positive relationship<\/a> with his Australian counterpart, Richard Marles, will implement Xi\u2019s direction. The result will be in an even more aggressive PLA in the South China Sea, around Taiwan and Japan, and on the India\u2013China border.<\/p>\n

What does all this mean for the prospects of a sustained positive \u2018reset\u2019 in the bilateral relationship between Australia and China? All bad things.<\/p>\n

It looks very likely that the reset has been gazumped by a more outwardly focused, increasingly aggressive PLA that seeks to define its use of force as \u2018not war\u2019.<\/p>\n

Definitions that deny reality may work in the land of the Chinese Communist Party. But as Putin is experiencing with the\u00a0international reaction\u00a0to his \u2018special military operation\u2019 in Ukraine, just calling\u00a0something what it is not doesn\u2019t prove convincing anywhere in which there\u2019s freedom of expression and media that\u2019s not closely supervised and censored.<\/p>\n

The Marles\u2013Wei meeting was a positive development because it\u2019s the only ministerial-level contact between the two countries since China began its diplomatic freeze and then its continuing campaign of economic coercion against Australia in 2020.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also a positive that the meeting happened without Australia needing to show major policy change beforehand. China had demanded that Australia change its policy decisions and directions to resume dialogue\u2014notably in Beijing\u2019s list of \u201814 grievances\u2019<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So, what does Beijing want as the price for resuming dialogue?<\/p>\n

Beijing may want the warmer tone and senior meetings to make it harder for Australia to oppose China\u2019s growing military presence<\/a> in the South Pacific, and harder for Marles to end the Chinese port operator\u2019s lease over the strategic Port of Darwin<\/a>. There\u2019s leverage there because that would give Beijing a pretext to claim Australia had ended the \u2018thaw\u2019.<\/p>\n

Wei\u2019s continued line in speeches and dialogues is to assert that China\u2019s approach is one of peaceful cooperation and win\u2013win outcomes, and that anyone noticing anything aggressive or negative in Chinese military or broader government behaviour is smearing China, hurting the feelings of the Chinese people, and adopting a destructive Cold War mindset\u2014usually by being a slave to the US.<\/p>\n

Wei\u2019s Shangri-La speech takes this position. That creates a credibility gap for him in dialogue with counterparts like Marles because the PLA he directs is not behaving in any way that could be characterised as peaceful cooperation in pursuit of win\u2013win outcomes.<\/p>\n

Instead, the PLA\u2019s aggression in international airspace and waterways is growing, to the extent that mid-air collisions and crashes and on-water incidents are becoming likely as China tries to enforce rights it just doesn\u2019t have.<\/p>\n

A broad warming of the Australia\u2013China relationship cannot occur while Beijing persists with unilateral economic coercion across several sectors of our economy; while the PLA behaves increasingly dangerously and aggressively in the South China Sea, around Taiwan and near Japan (all places where the Australian military operates along with partners); or while Beijing accelerates its direct military presence in Solomon Islands and potentially in other parts of the South Pacific.<\/p>\n

Marles clearly understands this, using his speech<\/a> at Shangri La to say: \u2018What is important is that the exercise of Chinese power exhibits the characteristics necessary for our shared prosperity and security. Respect for agreed rules and norms. Where trade and investment flow based on agreed rules and binding treaty commitments. And where disputes among states are resolved via dialogue, and in accordance with international law.\u2019<\/p>\n

So, the new Australian government\u2019s tone may not be the same as its predecessor\u2019s, but the structural policy directions\u2014on security risks in foreign investment (notably from Chinese entities) and the priority on countering foreign interference in Australian politics, countering traditional and cyber espionage, and working with allies and partners to confront the now overt strategic partnership between Russia and China\u2014all mean that the foundations and differences between Australia and China persist. In fact, the differences are growing as Xi leads China down the path he has chosen.<\/p>\n

Given Xi\u2019s latest policy directions to the PLA and the growing gap between General Wei\u2019s words and the PLA\u2019s actions even before this, we should expect resumed government-to-government dialogue to be broadly disappointing to Australia.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because Beijing wants us to compromise but intends to make no significant compromises itself. (This is not unusual or particular to the China\u2013Australia relationship. Wei<\/a> made it clear that for US\u2013China relations to improve, for example, the US had to make positive moves to reset the relationship. That\u2019s a line many of us hear in our dealings with Beijing, and one Beijing\u2019s foreign ministry has already returned to<\/a> since the Marles\u2013Wei meeting.)<\/p>\n

We should expect Beijing to accelerate its plan to have a direct military presence in the South Pacific and to conduct the newly minted \u2018special military operations\u2019 Xi envisions there. This will be a sufficiently grave and adverse development for Australia that the already strong public opinion that assesses China under Xi to be a threat to Australia\u2019s security will harden. And in a democracy, that drives policy.<\/p>\n

A collision in the South China Sea, on the water or in the air, would have a similar effect\u2014and it would reverberate well beyond the Australia\u2013China bilateral relationship.<\/p>\n

With all this, the Albanese government is likely to continue a more positive, more engaged approach to other key partners in our region. That\u2019s good news for bilateral relationships like the growing ones with Japan, South Korea, India and Indonesia, as well as for minilaterals like the Quad and the Australia\u2013US\u2013Japan trilateral, all underpinned by the military advantages Australia, the US and the UK will bring to the region through AUKUS.<\/p>\n

These partnerships and the military power and advantages that come from them seem even more needed considering Xi\u2019s latest move with the PLA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Echoing Russian President Vladimir Putin\u2019s description of his war in Ukraine, China\u2019s Xi Jinping has released a directive that licenses his armed forces to conduct \u2018special military operations\u2019. This involves the People\u2019s Liberation Army using …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":766,"featured_media":73254,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2212,52,1414,228,471],"class_list":["post-73252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-australia-china-relations","tag-china","tag-pla","tag-solomon-islands","tag-south-china-sea"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nPeaceful words, aggressive actions: why Beijing\u2019s \u2018thaw\u2019 with Australia looks temporary | 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\/peaceful-words-aggressive-actions-why-beijings-thaw-with-australia-looks-temporary\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Peaceful words, aggressive actions: why Beijing\u2019s \u2018thaw\u2019 with Australia looks temporary | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Echoing Russian President Vladimir Putin\u2019s description of his war in Ukraine, China\u2019s Xi Jinping has released a directive that licenses his armed forces to conduct \u2018special military operations\u2019. 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