Beijing-Canberra Relations?

Australia’s and China’s flags Mike Bowers/The Guardian

"[Australia had been a great beneficiary of China's economic growth, but] as countries develop they have a responsibility to uphold a stable, prosperous strategic balance in our region."

"China's economy is stronger because they have access to high quality energy, resources, agricultural goods and increasingly services from Australia." 

"And our economy is stronger because we have access to high quality manufactured goods from China."

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison

"Chinese companies do not buy Australian commodities, goods or services because they want to do this struggling little island nation a favour -- they do it because it's good value, good quality."

"So much of the Australian business community, faced with criticism or a difference of opinion between Australia and China, will side with China."

"[But], there has been an awakening."

Former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull

"Obviously he [Australian home affairs minister Peter Dutton] must have also received some instructions from Washington requiring him to cooperate with the US in its propaganda war against China … [calling for an international inquiry into China's handling of the SARS-CoV-2 virus] Some Australian politicians parroted what those US forces have said and followed them to launch political attacks on China. Their move reveals the former’s ignorance and bigotry as well as a lack of independence, which is sad."

"It is well known that recently some people in the US including high-level officials have been spreading anti-China ‘information virus’. Their aim is to shift blame and deflect attention by smearing China."

Chinese Embassy official

 

"I think in the long term ... if the mood is going from bad to worse, people would think, ‘Why should we go to such a country that is not so friendly to China?’ The tourists may have second thoughts. The parents of the students would also think whether this place which they found is not so friendly, even hostile, whether this is the best place to send their kids here. It is up to the people to decide. Maybe the ordinary people will say, ‘Why should we drink Australian wine? Eat Australian beef'?"

China’s ambassador to Australia, Cheng Jingye

People walk past a tree with a mask and eyes stapled on it, in Melbourne, on 20 April 2020. (William West/AFP)

 Australia has a free trade deal with its largest trading partner to which it exports substantial amounts of coal, natural gas, wine and agricultural products, China's prosperity affects Australia's as it exports its goods to the number two economy of the world. The two countries had good diplomatic relations and two-way trade was robust. Not so much in the diplomatic sphere right at the moment, however, and as for trade, it remains integral to both countries' ongoing march into the future, but it's wobbling slightly. 

Among other things, China's aggression toward its neighbours and its assertions of geographic hegemony have startled those neighbours, Australia among them as it debates around the cabinet table how best to preserve sovereignty while fending off efforts on China's part to interfere in Australian politics. Australians have been warned of an increase in cyberattacks, and a national security test for foreign investments has been introduced accompanied by a dramatic rise in defence spending with a focus on the Indo-Pacific region.

The government of Australia is decidedly nervous over Beijing's efforts to undermine democracies through its disinformation campaign, and the Chinese Communist Party's move to impose its security law on Hong Kong has done nothing to reassure Canberra. What has set China and Australia on a collision course however, was the move by Canberra to lobby world leaders for an inquiry into the origins of the global pandemic. Within the UN 137 member-nations saw fit to co-sponsor a resolution at the World Health Assembly for an investigation.

 

Beijing's immediate reaction was trade diplomacy in the form of sanctions on Australian products, suspending beef imports on a technicality and blocking barley trade with Australia; a process very well known to Canada which also mightily displeased Beijing with its adherence to an extradition request by the U.S. for Chinese technology giant Huawei's CFO. China's foreign ministry called on Australia to "abandon the Cold War mentality".  At stake is the two-way trade with a value of $172 billion annually, and a $51 billion trade surplus for Australia.

Iron ore has not yet been slapped with any inappropriate protectionist trade measures as punishment and for a good reason, with the ore-hungry behemoth receiving 60 percent of Australian iron ore, critical to support an economy struggling to get back to full capacity. "China is never going to impose any economic measures against Australia which damage its own interests", pointed out former Labour prime minister Kevin Rudd, also realistically admitting that Beijing can target imports beyond iron ore, unessential to China. An example: Cheng Jingye's threat to boycott Australian wine, beef and tourism.

Australian public sentiment toward China has been sourly diminished as pointed out by an annual Lowy Institute poll which found trust in China plunged to 23 percent in comparison to a 2018 survey when it stood at 52 percent. Not helped when Beijing refused recognition of a 2016 international court ruling that it had no historical claim over disputed islands in the South China Sea -- when the Turnbull government rebuked China alongside Washington. And nor does a growing awareness of Chinese infiltration of Australian business interests.

When Australia became the first country to officially ban Chinese tech giant Huawei from its next-generation 5G telecom network based on grounds of national security it signalled other countries in the 'Five Eyes' western alliance of Great Britain, the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, to do likewise. Only one now remains to make its decision public.

“Australia is always there, making trouble. It is a bit like chewing gum stuck on the sole of China's shoes."

"Sometimes you have to find a stone to rub it off."

Hu Xijin, the Global Times editor

Royal Australian Navy helicopter frigate HMAS Parramatta (top right) conducts officer of the watch manoeuvres with amphibious assault ship USS America (top middle), guided-missile destroyer USS Barry (top left) and guided-missile cruiser USS Bunker Hill (right) in the South China Sea, as pictured in this photo taken on 18 April 2020. (Australia Department Of Defence/Handout via Reuters)