David Penberthy: The way China is behaving is nothing short of a disgrace
The way in which the Chinese Communist Party has responded to calls for an inquiry into COVID-19 says an awful lot about the political character of China as a nation, writes David Penberthy.
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I am not a China basher and think that a lot of the flak that gets directed to our most powerful Asian neighbour often stems from fears and suspicions that are rooted in prejudice.
The modern-day economic success of Australia has been inextricably linked to the economic growth of China and our shared commitment to free trade.
The balance is skewed heavily in our favour, too, with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade recording that in 2018-2019 Australian exported $134 billion in goods and services to China and imported just $78 billion in return.
That’s a handy differential for our miners, our farmers, our wine makers and our universities, in having access to a vast market that barely existed 30 years ago.
But the growing tensions between Beijing and Canberra over our government’s support for an independent inquiry into the origin and management of COVID-19 in China’s Hubei province should serve as a reminder of an important truth. Australia is a democracy, China is not. Australia values transparency. China does not.
And when it comes to these values, some things matter more than money especially when you’re talking about a pandemic that has killed more than 200,000 people worldwide.
The manner in which Beijing has responded to the very suggestion of an inquiry says a fair bit about the political character of the nation. The way China is behaving right now is nothing short of a disgrace.
It is eminently possible that China is responsible for destroying Australian lives and much of the Australian economy on account of its handling of the coronavirus outbreak, and now audaciously threatens to do us more harm as a result of us simply supporting an independent inquiry into how this pandemic started. If ever you needed a demonstration of the political values guiding our two countries, this is it.
China’s diplomats have engaged in the opposite of diplomacy when it comes to the mooted coronavirus inquest, opting instead to bully us with dark threats that the beef industry and the wine industry will be targeted if Australia “singles out” China for scrutiny.
The idea of “singling out” China is a bizarre one. No-one is “singling out” China for any other reason than the virus actually originated there, in circumstances that deserve thorough and independent scrutiny.
Beyond the question of its origins, there are also questions to be asked over the manner in which the disease spread. Again, this is not a device to shame or persecute China, but to get a better handle on what steps were taken to limit and contain the disease, as the world will again be tested by such an outbreak. It is obviously in China’s interest for an inquiry to be held so that it can protect its own citizens better in the event of a future outbreak.
There is a real risk that China might find itself isolated as a result of its actions if it continues to behave in its current belligerent fashion. Talking to exporters this week who may be affected by any retaliation towards Australia for our supporting this inquiry, many said to me that maybe one of the economic lessons from the pandemic is that our nation has paid a price for putting all its eggs in the China basket. The people who are doing the most damage right now to China’s standing are its own representatives.
Chinese ambassador to Australia Cheng Jingye has massively overplayed his hand by threatening retaliation against Australian farmers, winemakers and tourism, and against the education exports provided by our universities to overseas students.
It is offensive and tasteless stand-over stuff that does him or his nation no benefit. Cheng is not alone, either. There have been instances this past month in Brazil, Iran, Singapore and in a number of European countries where Chinese diplomats have been acting like a bunch of Twitter trolls, bagging their host nations for having the temerity to question China’s management of this outbreak.
It has been good to see the extent to which Canberra is sticking to its guns on this question.
Trade Minister Simon Birmingham is to be commended for calling the Ambassador to give him a gentle clip behind the ears after he casually suggested a ban on Australian beef and wine.
“Surely Australians would expect our Government has determined that the death of hundreds of thousands of people around the world warrants transparency and investigation to prevent it from happening again,” Mr Birmingham said in interviews after making that call.
His comments put this issue in its proper context. Until such a time as China is a democracy, or at the very least a more benign one-party state, its hostility towards criticism and opposition to transparency will be a recurring challenge in our economic relationship.
I was lucky enough to visit the nation when it was just taking off as an economic powerhouse, visiting the Great Hall of the People in Beijing to cover the 1997 meeting between our then Prime Minister John Howard and the then Chinese Premier Li Peng.
For all the feel-good economic vibes of that get-together, it was an eerie feeling wandering over Tiananmen Square to cover the meeting, especially given that Li Peng played the lead role advocating the use of brutal force against the students in 1989.
Mr Howard made a good point that day that in the relationship with China it was important that both nations respect our differences. That respect will be shredded if China continues to use those differences to pose further threats to our economic wellbeing, simply for wanting answers into a crisis that has already done us intergenerational economic harm.