Peter Costello laments ‘strained’ ties with China

Peter Costello says a lack of senior government figures at a key forum points to “strained” relationship with Beijing.

Peter Costello hopes Australia can “patch things up again” with China. Pic: Stuart McEvoy

Former treasurer Peter Costello has labelled Australia’s relationship with China as “strained”, using as evidence the lack of senior government officials at the annual Boao Forum for Asia conference.

Mr Costello said in the 10 years he had attended the forum Australia had always had high level ministerial representation, which has included prime ministers, foreign ministers, finance ministers and trade ministers.

“Australia has always taken the Chinese relationship very seriously and it still does but the lack of ministerial contact does show the relationship is strained at the moment,” he told The Australian on the sidelines of the conference.

“We go through these periods. It was strained during the Rudd years and we managed to patch things up again and it is strained at the moment and I hope that we manage to patch things up again.”

Finance Minister Mathias Cormann is in Washington, Tourism Minister Steve Ciobo is at the Commonwealth Games and Treasurer Scott Morrison is preparing for the May budget.

Mr Costello said he attended the forum each year as it was important to have a close eye on China. Either the Chinese president or premier also attended.

“You have the opportunity of high-level dialogue with people from the government and from the private sector and I find it valuable from that point,” he said.

Former foreign minister Bob Carr, who is also at the conference in Hainan province, took aim at the lack of senior Australian government officials at the economic forum.

“Why are we dealing ourselves out of the Chinese economic narrative?” he said.

“Australian leaders have gone out of their way to sound negative about China. We have positioned ourselves as being the most adversarial to China of any of America’s allies.”

Mr Carr added that a senior Chinese diplomat had asked him why Australia kept pushing China.