Making up with a superpower: Wong’s China visit and why it matters

Four years since an Australian foreign minister was last invited to Beijing, Wong is jetting off to the Chinese capital for a visit that could eventually be seen as a turning point in the China-Australia relationship.

It will be the first visit to China by an Australian minister in more than three years. Foreign Affairs Correspondent Matthew Knott and North Asia Correspondent Eryk Bagshaw answer the questions on the foreign affairs minister’s most consequential trip yet.

What does Wong need to achieve on this visit?

Wong needs to keep building on the Albanese government’s work to stabilise the relationship since it took office in May. This is a cumulative, long-term project. Wong’s initial two meetings with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi paved the way for Anthony Albanese to meet with Xi Jinping last month. In turn, the fact the Albanese-Xi meeting went well made it possible for Wang to invite Wong to China. It would be naive to expect any single meeting to result in an instant stream of concessions from China on trade sanctions or the release of Australian detainees Cheng Lei and Yang Hengjun.

Penny Wong’s initial meetings with her counterpart Wang Yi paved the way for Anthony Albanese to meet China’s President Xi Jinping at the G20 summit in November.Credit: AAP

A more realistic goal is for this meeting to formalise the thaw in tensions through the restoration of regular policy dialogues between China and Australia. The two nations need to get back into the habit of talking to each other, despite their fundamental differences. Dialogue, however, is not an end in itself.

By, say, this time next year Australians will be expecting improved relations with China to produce tangible outcomes. The government will also face increased pressure from the Coalition if it only delivers talk rather than results.

What does China want out of this visit?

For Beijing, the visit is laden with symbolism. It is attempting to project an image of being a responsible international actor by restarting dialogue with Australia. It is doing it on its own turf. And it has timed it for the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations - a natural reset point for a relationship that had become irritating, troublesome and counterproductive for the Chinese government.

The last visit to Beijing by an Australian foreign minister was made by Marise Payne, in November 2018. She is seen here, on the left, with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi at the end of a joint press conference at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing.Credit: Mark Schiefelbein

By getting Wong to Beijing, China can harness the symbolism without giving much away on the substance. China wants three things from Australia: support for its application to join the massive Comprehensive Trans-Pacific trade agreement (CPTPP); greater access to its natural resources; and for it to stop lobbying against China’s interests in the international arena.

Australia would be happy for China to start buying more coal again, but is unlikely to cede ground on the other two unless Beijing can demonstrate that it is not a diplomatic and economic bully. Wednesday’s meeting is the first step in a long optics campaign.

Eryk, can we talk about what has gone wrong in the relationship since the end of 2018? Why did it sour so swiftly?

Australia went out hard on laws and decisions that were world leading. The foreign interference legislation and Turnbull’s decision in 2018 to ban Huawei from building the 5G network created a model that the United Kingdom, United States, Canada and others would follow. China punished Australia by first limiting diplomatic contact and then hitting it with trade strikes after Canberra once again led other governments in calling for an inquiry into COVID-19.

By 2020, it was clear that China was making an example of Australia for challenging the world’s second-largest economy. This is a playbook that China has followed for decades against Japan, South Korea and others when disputes arise.

Australia, though clumsy in its handling of some of these issues, was aware of this and stuck to its plan to establish what officials called a new “landing pad” where Beijing would no longer be surprised if it was criticised by Canberra.

The cyclical nature of these disputes means that inevitably, when the costs of maintaining the sanctions (fewer resources, damaged diplomatic clout) outweighs the benefits (a warning to other nations not to follow suit), they are wound down at a convenient inflection point such as an election or an anniversary. That is what we are seeing play out now.

Matt, how can Wong placate China while Australia pursues the AUKUS alliance with the US?

The Albanese government is pursuing a clear two-track strategy on China: short-term diplomacy and long-term military deterrence. While Penny Wong is working to restore a productive diplomatic relationship with Beijing, Defence Minister Richard Marles is transforming the Australian Defence Force to prepare for a possible military conflict involving China. The unspoken but universally acknowledged reason for the AUKUS pact, including its promise of nuclear-powered submarines, is to keep the Chinese military as far away from our shores as possible.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Penny Wong and Defence Minister Richard Marles. Credit: AFP

At Albanese’s press conference following the meeting, I asked him whether Xi had raised any complaints about the AUKUS pact and he said no, the subject had not come up at all. This is despite Chinese state media and the Chinese Foreign Ministry regularly fulminating against AUKUS as a threat to regional peace and security.

China has also tried to use its sway at United Nations nuclear-non proliferation forums to rally opposition to Australia’s plan to acquire nuclear-powered submarines (with little success).

The fact Xi didn’t raise the topic with Albanese is a sign that while China does not like AUKUS, it knows it is a reality it is going to have to live with. Similarly, Australia will have to live with China’s extraordinary military build-up. The best that can be hoped for, as Kevin Rudd has argued, is that improved diplomacy helps prevent a “war by accident” between China and the AUKUS nations.

Does this meeting do anything to lower the regional military threat China poses in the next decade or so?

No, not really. China’s military buildup is advancing at rapid speed. Australia, Japan and the US will continue to try and match its strength in the Asia Pacific because if their capabilities fall short and deterrence fails, it will open the door to China attacking Taiwan.

I disagree slightly with Eryk here. Australia and China certainly remain military rivals in the medium and long-term but better diplomatic relations could play an important role in diffusing short-term tensions. For example, if a Chinese patrol vessel in the South China Sea accidentally comes too close to an Australian Navy ship it would be good for Richard Marles to be able to get onto the phone to his Chinese counterpart and sort it out without such an incident morphing into a wider conflict.

How important is the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries?

The Chinese Communist Party is big on anniversaries. It harnesses them to show its political legitimacy, burnish its legacy and establish targets for the next 10, 20 or 50 year marks ahead.

China has celebrated dozens of 50th anniversaries over the past year because it was admitted to the United Nations in October 1971, allowing countries to ratify diplomatic relations over the next year. Gough Whitlam’s visit to China as opposition leader in 1971 was significant because it came a week before secret negotiations between former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger and Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai, paving the way for President Richard Nixon to normalise diplomatic relations with Beijing. Whitlam went first, generating goodwill between Australia and China for much of the next 50 years.

Gough Whitlam on the Great Wall of China in 1971, as leader of the opposition.

Australia is less enthusiastic about anniversary symbolism but would be wise to use it as a mechanism to raise the release of imprisoned Australians Cheng Lei and Yang Hengjun. China has a history of authorising prisoner releases on historical milestones.

It may need to be prepared to negotiate symbolic easing of some of its own restrictions on Chinese business investment in non-sensitive areas for example (a key irritant for Beijing, with little cost for Australia) without giving up on national security legislation or human rights positions.

When colleague David Crowe and I interviewed the Chinese ambassador to Australia Xiao Qian a few months ago, it was clear China was eyeing the 50th anniversary as an important opportunity to reset the relationship.

So much attention over recent years has been on what divides China and Australia; the anniversary offers a chance to reflect on the benefits of the relationship. As Eryk says, the anniversary is a useful pretext for Wong to get in the room with her counterpart and press Australia’s case on trade sanctions and the detained Australians.

Does this mean discussion of human rights breaches in Xinjiang or Hong Kong will be muted?

Our Sunday Political correspondent Anthony Galloway made a good point on this on Sunday. Wong’s tone has noticeably shifted from “values” to “interests” in recent months. In public she is increasingly framing relationships in terms of shared interests or economic goals rather than differences.

People hold sheets of blank paper in protest of COVID restriction in mainland as police setup cordon during a vigil in the central district in Hong Kong, China.Credit: Getty

I don’t think we are likely to see any particularly strong statements on either Xinjiang or Hong Kong, mainly because the pattern has been that Wong will condemn incidents when they arise but will lower the tone during official statements from joint meetings. Australia’s overall position on both Hong Kong and Xinjiang is well known.

Sadly, the Chinese Communist Party has been so effective at brutally suppressing dissent in both areas in recent years that there is a risk that their plight becomes bogged down in diplomatic fatigue, like we have seen in Tibet. It is going to be a challenge for Wong to keep them at the top of the international agenda while continuing to have dialogue with Beijing.

Penny Wong is very hard-nosed and realistic about what Australia can and can not achieve when it comes to influencing other countries, especially one as big and powerful as China.

So far human rights groups have been disappointed by the Albanese’ government’s relatively muted approach to human rights abuses in China.

The government has not labelled the treatment of Uyghurs in Xinjiang as a genocide or applied Magnitsky-style sanctions on Chinese officials.

Wong will certainly raise human rights issues in her meeting with Wang but she is under no illusions about Australia’s power to single-handedly change China’s approach in Xinjiang or Hong Kong.

Given China is hosting this meeting, Wong will be careful not to embarrass Wang by railing publicly against human rights violations in China. She has a set of goals to achieve - encouraging China to reduce trade barriers; the release of Cheng Lei and Yang Hengjun - and that is where she believes she can make the biggest difference.

What does it mean for our relationship with Taiwan?

The real test of the Taiwan-Australia relationship is whether Australia formally supports Taiwan’s bid to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).

Australia’s diplomatic relationship with Taiwan has been muddling along in recent months. There has been lots of rhetoric but few concrete developments under either Labor or the Coalition.

Notably, Trade Minister Don Farrell has yet to visit Australia’s seventh largest trading partner and neither has the speaker of the House of Representatives or the president of the Senate.

All three could conceivably go without triggering an escalation from Beijing. Instead, backbenchers Barnaby Joyce, Libby Coker and Meryl Swanson visited last week and made sure to keep a low profile.

If a higher profile delegation visits, that will be a sign that Canberra believes the relationship with China is on surer footing. But it will take more than a single visit to Beijing by Wong to get to that point.

Australian governments have adopted a consistent and cautious approach on Taiwan, stressing they support the status quo.

That is to say, Australia doesn’t want Beijing to invade the self-governing island and doesn’t want Taiwan to declare independence from China. During the APEC summit last month in Thailand, Anthony Albanese was asked about Taiwan’s bid to join the CPTPP.

He said only nation states were eligible to join the pact, suggesting Australia would not support Taiwan’s bid.

This was factually wrong - economic territories such as Taiwan are eligible to join - and the Prime Minister’s Office later said Albanese had misspoken. But it was a revealing slip-up, showing how cautious Albanese was to not offend Beijing’s sensitivities over Taiwan. Australia’s focus at the moment is rebuilding a relationship with China, not deepening ties with Taiwan.

Will Australia’s relationship with China ever return to the close business and political ties we saw in 2014?

In two words: absolutely not. It now seems bizarre, given everything we know about China, that the Abbott government came so close to signing an extradition treaty with Beijing less than a decade ago.

China has changed under Xi Jinping, becoming more authoritarian at home and assertive abroad. Similarly, Australians’ views of China have changed dramatically in recent years.

In 2017 some 64 per cent of Australians had a favourable view of China, according to Pew research. That figure had plummeted to just 21 per cent by 2021. Surveys also show that most Australians now view China primarily as a security threat rather than an economic partner, a big turnaround from just a few years ago. Given this huge shift in public opinion, Australian governments will be far more wary of China. Also, more hawkish security officials and military leaders are increasingly influential in the China debate rather than businesspeople who prioritise the trading relationship.

Albanese’s oft-stated formulation on China - “Cooperate where we can, disagree where we must, and engage in our national interest” - points to a pragmatic and cautious relationship but hopefully a productive one.

The truth is there is no one in federal parliament with a deep relationship with a member of the Chinese Communist Party’s 24-member politburo, let alone the standing committee. Part of that is because of China’s own isolationsim, but part of it is also the atmosphere of distrust that has pervaded both sides since that visit by Xi in 2014.

Either way, Australia has few if any direct lines to its largest trading partners leadership outside of formal bilateral talks. Kevin Rudd is the last Australian prime minister to have any substantial networks inside the Party, so there is a trust and intelligence gap that will take years to fill. Xi also now has little need address joint sittings of foreign parliaments. In 2014 he was still building his domestic and international credibility, now he has just won a third term in office, eliminated his rivals and could remain president for life.

At the same time, China is still Australia’s largest trading partner and I think both sides may be happy to see it return to a more transactional relationship and away from some of the ideological disputes that have dominated the past few years. After four years of tension, they both recognise that their are fundamental disputes there and will not agree on many things, but there are ways they can make dialogue more efficient and continue to buy from and sell things to each other.

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