ASEAN Australian summit ends with watered-down statement on China

Visiting South-East Asian leaders have rejected Australian efforts to forcefully push back on Beijing’s growing assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific, stripping any mention of Taiwan from a final communique and watering down calls for China to rein in its activities in the South China Sea.

Underlining deep divisions in the region about how to respond to China’s rise, the joint statement issued by leaders on the final day of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN)-Australia special summit in Melbourne removed or softened several passages proposed by the Albanese government last year, including one demanding Russia withdraw from Ukraine.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese with all other leaders for the ASEAN “family photo” at Government House in Melbourne on Wednesday.Credit: Joe Armao

The release of the so-called “Melbourne Declaration” came as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese backed Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s warnings about Chinese destabilisation in the South China Sea, rejecting the latest attacks on Wong by former prime minister Paul Keating.

Albanese declared that the summit, which drew the leaders of nine South-East Asian nations to Melbourne, had taken Australia’s relationship with South-East Asia to new heights and would boost Australian investment in the region’s rapidly growing economies.

Albanese insisted that Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin had not raised any concerns with him about the federal government’s proposed new vehicle emissions standards, even though a Thai summary of their bilateral meeting on Tuesday said Srettha had asked for the standards to be gradually implemented to allow Thai auto companies to adapt to the new rules.

Tensions in the South-China Sea were highlighted during the summit when the Philippines accused China’s coast guard of carrying out “dangerous manoeuvres” that led to a collision between its coast guard ship and a Chinese vessel during a Philippines resupply mission.

The lengthy communique issued by Australia and the ASEAN leaders on Wednesday afternoon said they “recognise the benefits of having the South China Sea as a sea of peace, stability, and prosperity”.

“We encourage all countries to avoid any unilateral actions that endanger peace, security and stability in the region,” the declaration added.

An original draft proposed by Australia late last year went significantly further, saying: “We remain concerned about serious incidents in the area, including actions that put the safety of persons at risk and that have the potential to erode trust and confidence, increase tensions, and undermine peace, security, and stability in the region.”

A proposed passage calling on China and the Philippines to abide by a “legally binding” 2016 arbitration ruling – which ruled overwhelmingly in favour of the Philippines’ territorial claims in the South China – did not appear in the final text.

Crucially, a proposed passage saying the leaders “are committed to maintaining the status quo across the Taiwan Strait” and which urged against the “threat of force or coercion” was also removed from the final text.

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim underscored divisions within ASEAN in an interview with this masthead in which he said the risk of conflict in the South China Sea had been exaggerated and that it was not up to other nations to dictate whether Beijing seeks to unify the self-governing island of Taiwan with mainland China.

South-East Asian nations such as Cambodia and Laos are close to China, while countries such as the Philippines have more aggressively rejected its activities in the South China Sea.

Australian officials have noted they expected their preferred language to be watered down after negotiation because ASEAN operates by consensus and requires all parties to agree on the wording of joint statements.

Albanese said leaders “were able to reach a consensus across a full range of issues”, noting that “people have to compromise because in order to get a statement from Australia and ASEAN, it isn’t the same endpoint that any one country would have if they went away and wrote a statement”.

A line from the so-called “zero draft declaration” proposed by Australia, and originally reported by the ABC, calling for Russia’s “complete and unconditional withdrawal from the territory of Ukraine” did not appear in the final text.

The statement did note previous United Nations resolutions deploring “in the strongest terms the aggression by the Russian Federation against Ukraine”.

Keating, whose benign views of Beijing are increasingly isolated within the Labor Party, distracted from the second day of the summit by calling for the sacking of ASIO boss Mike Burgess and accusing Wong of being overly critical of China in a speech on the summit sidelines.

Cambodian Foreign Minister Sok Chenda Sophea shakes hands with Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong following a meeting at the ASEAN-Australia Special Summit.Credit: AP

“I know Paul and respect him,” Albanese told reporters after the summit concluded. “On Penny Wong, I think, quite clearly, he is wrong.”

In comments that did not directly name, but were clearly aimed at, China, Wong said in her Monday speech: “We face destabilising, provocative and coercive actions, including unsafe conduct at sea and in the air and militarisation of disputed features.

“We know that military power is expanding, but measures to constrain military conflict are not – and there are few concrete mechanisms for averting it.”

Keating said that Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim had “dropped a huge rock into Wong’s pond by telling Australia not to piggyback Australia’s problems with China onto ASEAN”.

Wong insisted she had not lost any sleep over Keating’s remarks, adding that “it was a new position to be lectured about … whether or not I understood the country of my birth in Malaysia”.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers, who completed a PhD on Keating’s prime ministership and considers him a mentor, said he appreciated his friendship with the former prime minister, “but it doesn’t mean he is always right”.

“I think Paul is wrong about Penny and I think he is wrong about Mike, and I’m prepared to say that publicly and clearly,” he said.

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