Peta Credlin: Why Xi hit jackpot with re-election of Anthony Albanese

China’s Xi Jinping must really think he hit the jackpot with the re-election of Anthony Albanese at the same time as he plans to drag Taiwan into the communist orbit, writes Peta Credlin.

It’s not hard to duchess our Prime Minister, is it? A couple of his fave Aussie hits played by a Chinese military band, an invite for his girlfriend to attend the official lunch, a walk along the Great Wall, throw in a couple of pandas and he’s yours. President Xi Jinping must really think he’s hit the jackpot with the re-election of Anthony Albanese at precisely the same time as he plans to realise his life’s ambition to drag Taiwan into the communist orbit and overtake the US as the world’s economic superpower.

It is hard to overstate the significance of the PM’s pilgrimage to China, which at every level has damaged our national interest. It’s especially telling that this visit coincided with the biennial Talisman Sabre exercise in northern Australia involving some 40,000 troops from 19 countries, plus two aircraft carriers, USS America and HMS Prince of Wales.

The contrast between the prime ministerial fawning in Beijing and the Australian-led military exercises here, designed to counter Chinese imperialism, could hardly be more striking.

Beijing would have deliberately timed its Albanese love-in to make the point that while Australia’s military might be worried about the China threat, Australia’s leader was very happily ensconced in the bosom of the dragon.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and partner Jodie Haydon at the Great Wall of China. Picture: AAP Image/Lukas Coch

Ask yourself this.

Is China our economic salvation or our strategic threat? Because, in the end, it can’t be both. And every time senior figures in Australia try to deepen the economic relationship, they are making us more vulnerable to economic blackmail, like China’s boycott of some $20 billion a year in trade as punishment for our call for an independent inquiry into the Wuhan virus.

One of three Chinese warships which completed live-fire drills in the Tasman Sea. Instead of taking Xi Jinping to task, the PM was making excuses.

Right now, we have way too many eggs in the Beijing basket and Albanese wants more.

Instead of also broadening trade ties with India, South Korea, Indonesia and Japan, he’s fixated on China, which appears consistent with the history of other Labor leaders making millions out of the relationship once they leave office.

But, be warned Australia.

Trade isn’t commerce with China, it is a weapon that they use to get us into their thrall and withdraw it to get us to capitulate as Albanese did when elected in 2022. Almost all of Beijing’s infamous list of 14 demands have been met in some way by Labor. And what hasn’t been given away is simply not raised any more, or we make excuses.

Just look at Albanese’s defence of the Chinese military; deliberately injuring Australian navy divers and the recent Chinese navy live fire exercise off the NSW coast. Instead of taking Xi to task, the PM was making excuses, saying that the Chinese were simply doing what Australia does in exercising freedom of navigation on the high seas. But when was the last time Royal Australian Navy ships conducted engaged in live fire scarcely 300km off the Chinese coast?

Gough Whitlam, head of an ALP mission to China in 1971, visits the Great Wall.

Part of the PM’s trip was plainly homage to Gough Whitlam with frequent references to the places he had visited in 1971 and to his “courage” in formally recognising the Beijing communist government. Part of it was a not-very-subtle attempt to lock-in the Chinese Australian vote that has swung strongly to Labor in the past two elections and is thought to be sympathetic to Beijing.

Certainly, Beijing is “proprietorial” towards ethnic Chinese abroad and is hyperactive in monitoring their activities and attempting to use them as agents of influence. But mostly, the PM’s trip was a calculated attempt to reposition Australia closer to China and more distant from the US.

The fact that our PM was eager to have his second visit to Beijing and his fourth meeting with Xi before his first ever in-person meeting with the leader of the free world is a clear indicator of this Prime Minister’s comfort zone. He’d rather be patronised in Chinese state media as a “handsome boy” than risk being berated in the Oval Office for not increasing defence spending. As a lifelong leftist, perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising if the PM felt more naturally at home in Beijing than in Washington.

While the PM was peppered with questions about whether Australia would help Taiwan in the event of Chinese attack, the bigger question is whether we’d help America. This explains the recent US request that Australia participate in joint planning for a Taiwan contingency and for assurances that any US-supplied AUKUS submarines would be there to help. It says that despite being their ally under the ANZUS treaty, the US are no longer sure of us. And that’s a grave concern because in the event of a crisis, we have no capacity to defend ourselves without US support.

Large swathes of the Labor left have never liked the AUKUS deal because how can you oppose nuclear power on land while supporting it at sea? Deep down, the PM would like to walk away from AUKUS but have someone else to blame – hence his actions to antagonise a transactional and status-conscious president.

Likewise, Beijing would like nothing more than the end of AUKUS and are feting Albanese because they know he’s vulnerable. Having failed in his first term legacy project, to entrench an Indigenous Voice in the constitution, he might have more luck with his second term legacy project, to turn Australia into a neutral country, because that doesn’t require a popular vote.

Meanwhile, don’t bet on this government honouring its election commitment to bring the Port of Darwin back into Australian ownership.

THUMBS UP

Vale John Stone – former head of Treasury and a Nationals senator, a big thinker and a great Australian.

THUMBS DOWN

Childcare – We have a crisis in childcare centres in this country with more sex abuse charges laid against workers last week. And yet not one law has changed to protect our kids. Just talk and reviews.

Originally published as Peta Credlin: Why Xi hit jackpot with re-election of Anthony Albanese