Wong’s linking climate, Pacific security is off beam

One of South Australia’s finest wineries has been visited. And the photogenic panda diplomacy at Adelaide Zoo, where Chinese Premier Li Qiang said two incoming pandas would be “beautiful, lovely and adorable”, has been concluded. Now the business end of China’s second-most powerful politician’s visit is under way in Canberra, with plenty of goodwill evident on both sides, at least on the surface. Regrettably, however, Foreign Minister Penny Wong showed naivety and short-sightedness on Sunday. Endeavouring to score a political point over a resurgent Peter Dutton, Senator Wong claimed on ABC television that the Opposition Leader’s plan to ditch Australia’s 2030 climate target would alienate Pacific nations and strengthen Beijing’s hand in the “permanent contest” in the Pacific. The Coalition had “abandoned the field in the Pacific, and others have filled that space”, she claimed.

Nobody with Australia’s interests at heart could deny that Chinese ambitions in the Pacific are problematic. But Senator Wong’s claim, made on Mr Li’s first full day in Australia, that Mr Dutton’s “abandoning climate change’’ would mean higher energy prices at home and “yet again abandons the field in the Pacific”, leading to “a diminution of Australia’s influence … in the region’’, stretches credulity too far.

The International Energy Agency, Greg Sheridan wrote on Saturday, reports that: “Global coal consumption reached an all-time high in 2022, and the world is heading towards a new record in 2023.”

China’s leading role in that trend does not suggest Pacific Island nations will gravitate towards it, rather than Australia, as a result of islanders’ concerns over global warming and potential rising sea levels.

Advanced economies such as the US and the EU are using less coal, the IEA noted, but “the growth in China and India, as well as Indonesia, Vietnam and The Philippines, will more than offset these decreases on a global level”.

In March last year, we reported that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s synthesis report on climate science and political ­responses over the preceding eight years had concluded that China, the world’s biggest greenhouse gas-emitting nation, was accelerating the expansion of its coal fleet.

In view of such trends, a government led by Mr Dutton would be entitled to campaign on putting Australia’s interests first, and make the call that it would seek to overhaul Labor’s legislated 2030 emissions reduction target of 43 per cent if doing so helped families with the cost-of-living crisis.

Senator Wong appears to be framing the coming election, due by May next year, as “a battle over climate change with national security implications”, Ben Packham and Rosie Lewis report. If so, that would not serve Australia’s economic interests, nor our regional security. It could even open up a risk a one-upmanship if some island nations sought the most advantageous financial support to offset the effects, or perceived effects, of climate change.

The government must be cognisant of where the nation’s economic advantages lie. The price of coal, a healthy $US140 a tonne as Sheridan wrote, is good news for Australia. It helps fund the government’s expanding social policy agenda and green economic infrastructure, and, over time, should help fund defence improvements. Mr Li’s visit does not negate that priority.

In meeting Mr Li, Anthony Albanese must be upfront on issues of serious concern. He must insist that no further force be used against the Australian Defence Force and our allies operating legally, such as the Chinese warship that used its laser on an Australian patrol aircraft in 2022 and the sonar incident in Japan’s exclusive economic zone late last year.

The Prime Minister must also raise the appalling treatment of Australian citizen Dr Yang Hengjun, who is now gravely ill. He must insist on no further use of malware to damage the economy and that China cease attempting to undermine AUKUS. Such frankness, more than pandas, is a sign of a mature relationship.