Kicking goals for diplomacy with China
MA Financial’s Richard Colless was in his element as he hosted the second annual Duanwu lunch at the Steve Waugh Room at the Sydney Cricket Ground before the Swans’ AFL game against Geelong.
MA Financial’s Richard Colless was in his element as he hosted the second annual Duanwu lunch at the Steve Waugh Room at the Sydney Cricket Ground before the Swans’ AFL game against Geelong on Sunday afternoon.
The former long-time chair of the Sydney Swans and chairman of asset management at MA Financial, Colless was at his acerbic best as he introduced a range of speakers at the Duanwu “friendship through sport” pre-game lunch timed to coincide with the annual dragon boat festival, making no bones about his support for the Swans.
Attendees included MA Financial founder and Swans chair Andrew Pridham, Team Global Express chief executive and Collingwood board member Christine Holgate, Penfolds chief executive Tom King, Australia China Business Council national president and international director of law firm King & Wood Mallesons, David Olsson, HSBC Australia CEO Antony Shaw, and former Australian ambassador to China and director of Yancoal, Geoff Raby.
In the blue and white corner was Geelong Football Club president and chairman of Transurban and the Australian Foundation Investment Company, and former Medibank CEO Craig Drummond, who found a fellow traveller in Defence Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles, another Cats supporter.
The event was founded by Colless, whose global asset management company has been actively involved with China and others in promoting “friendship through sport” at a time when the political tensions between Australia and China were spilling over into negative attitudes towards the Australia-Chinese community.
Colless managed to keep the speeches on track – despite the Penfolds’ wine being poured over lunch – with a trusty bell.
There was an air of expectation when Marles spoke, given tensions between Australia and China over interactions in the South China Sea, which Marles raised last week when he met Chinese Defence Minister Dong Jun in Singapore.
But Marles gave a diplomatic speech looking at the role of the Chinese diaspora in Australian rules football in Australia, which dates back to games played by Chinese in the early days of the gold fields in Victoria, a history recorded in a book published last year by journalist Patrick Skene, called Celestial Footy.
Marles astutely stayed away from any sensitive political issues, opting to celebrate the role of the Chinese community in the game.
In short, the lunch achieved what Colless and others have set out to do – to have a gathering of the Australia-Chinese community to promote friendship through sport, aka watching footy – making a clear distinction between any political issues between Australia and China and the role of the China-Australia community, all of whom will have very different political views. Along the way are ongoing business connections that have underpinned the Australia-China relationship despite political tensions.
Others in the business community are quietly doing their bit for sports diplomacy, including National Rugby League commissioner, New Zealand-born Sydney businessman Gary Weiss, who sees the NRL as a way to promote ties between Australia and the South Pacific Islands.
But the AFL has been at the forefront of looking to connect with the Chinese diaspora in Australia, having hosted several matches in China before the pandemic, but also having focused programs in areas with a high percentage of Chinese residents, such as Hurstville in Sydney.
The lunch comes as the business community is gearing up for next week’s visit to Australia by Chinese Premier Li Qiang – the most high-level Chinese political visit since his predecessor, Li Keqiang, came to Australia in 2017.
During that visit, the Chinese premier attended a Swans game with then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and donned a red and white Swans scarf.
A more low-key visit planned for next week taking in Canberra and Perth, with plans for Li Qiang to meet business leaders in Perth at an event hosted the Business Council of Australia.
There are also rumours that Li might visit Adelaide, the home town of Trade Minister Don Farrell, which would allow a reference to Australian wine flowing back into China following the end of crippling tariffs.
ASX-listed MA Financial, which has $10bn in funds under management, has an active footprint in China, opening its first overseas office in Shanghai in 2018, followed by another in Hong Kong in 2022.
Andrew Martin, head of MA Financial’s group asset management, said the company had continued to expand in China when others had cut back.
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