Donald Trump isn’t the troublemaker, PM – that’s China’s Xi Jinping
Anthony Albanese says he will use Australian power and influence to advance peace and security in the region rather than be dictated to by any great power.
They seem to be sensible words that most Australians would agree with. There is nothing wrong with the Prime Minister visiting China, prioritising the pursuit of peace and security or insisting that Australia will choose its own path.
But even using Albanese’s own metrics for success, loose facts and wrong assumptions are leading him to failure.
There is a narrative forming that Albanese seems happy to encourage: while the Australian government is pursuing a stabilisation agenda with China, the Trump administration is up-ending global trade and demanding loyal allies such as Australia offer unrealistic guarantees that it will use US-made nuclear-powered submarines to join a hypothetical defence of Taiwan.
False or unbalanced narratives lead to poor assessments and responses. Consider one of Albanese’s key positions that he is a champion of free and fair trade.
The championing of the latter has arisen largely because of Donald Trump’s predilection for tariffs. Back in April, Albanese admonished the US that imposing tariffs on Australia was not the “act of a friend”. I can’t remember Albanese saying the same thing about the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, which will affect Australia and impose a carbon tariff on certain goods imported into the EU from countries with lower carbon reduction emission standards.
Put aside the measures China imposed on Australian exporters several years ago that were explicitly for coercive purposes to change our domestic and foreign policy settings. Although scathing of Trump’s tariffs, Albanese has never admonished China for its industrial policies that are far more distortive than any Trumpian economic policy.
For example, a recent OECD report on industrial subsidies, covering almost 500 of the world’s largest manufacturing companies from more than 50 countries, found that Chinese subsidies given to local firms surpassed the assistance other governments offered by a considerable margin.
In many cases, Chinese subsidies in sectors considered critical to national prosperity and strength, and in which global competition was fiercest, exceeded 15 per cent of revenue. The companies that made the largest gains in market share in key manufacturing sectors since 2005 were all heavily subsidised Chinese firms.
The point is that Albanese has accepted without contestation the false narrative that Trump’s America, and not China, is the greater threat to economic peace and stability in the world.
This misrepresentation is even more apparent in strategic and military matters.
The highly relevant and parallel issue is reporting that the Americans want to know what Australia’s response will be if there is a war over Taiwan and the US is involved. This is being assessed as part of a review of AUKUS. The Labor government’s reaction is to resent the question as an imposition. China still may be identified formally as the strategic threat, but Albanese seems to be relieved that Beijing is not forcing Australia to make impossible choices.
As mentioned, false narratives lead to poor responses. Trump is not the most serious disruption to the strategic order. China’s Xi Jinping comfortably holds that title.
Albanese may be technically correct that Chinese live-fire exercises are within the letter of international law. The question is why China is doing it.
The US, Japan, The Philippines, Australia and other countries do not conduct exercises to perfect the seizure of Taiwan, the occupation of Japanese-owned islands or to consolidate the occupation of illegal artificial islands in the South China Sea. Only China does that.
When the US wants to know what we will do in a Taiwan crisis, it is a matter of due diligence. If Australia sold a regional power some of our most potent military weapons that we believe will be needed in a possible contingency, would we not inquire what they intend to do with those weapons?
Albanese is free to decide what he thinks is the best policy for the country. But all decisions have consequences. Australia has every right to define and limit the extent to which it will be involved in a Taiwan contingency in terms of the joint infrastructure we offer to allies and our sovereign military assets we offer to the fight.
We also have the right to remain tight-lipped about what we might, let alone will, do in the event of war. But the US has every right to react to subsequent assessments about our intentions and capabilities (or lack of it) as it sees fit.
It is hardly fair to label Trump as the troublemaker. It is Xi who will be the harbinger of disruption and possibly destruction.
This is the problem with Albanese’s visit to China and his willingness to meet Xi halfway but not Trump. The US is responding to instability created by China and is not the cause or agent of it.
Albanese’s visit to China is troubling because he is ignorantly or willingly reaffirming false facts and narratives.
John Lee is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington. He was senior adviser to the Australian foreign minister from 2016 to 2018.
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