10 tips for how Anthony Albanese should approach Xi Jinping China talks

Chinese President Xi Jinping. Picture: Getty

When Anthony Albanese’s predecessor Gough Whitlam visited China 50 years ago, he described it as “a sentimental as well as a ­diplomatic journey”.

That was another world, and while diplomacy continues to dictate mutual respect, today’s sentiments are starkly different.

The leaders of 1973 included Richard Nixon, Leonid Brezhnev and of course Mao Zedong, who was then well into his devastating decade-long Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution with which he waged war on both his sane peers in the Chinese Communist Party and on the long-suffering Chinese people.

Even then, Whitlam’s sentiments about his Chinese peers were misplaced.

Since that visit, China has risen as a power – thanks largely to the hard work of a couple of generations, given the space to rebuild family prosperity – but is now treading water in the face of ­policy-driven negative economic and demographic tides.

Anthony Albanese’s imminent visit to China will climax a hectic year of international travel – and of genuine achievements, in comparison with his more mixed domestic scorecard.

So expectations of the visit are high for the Australian government, which has in part driven them itself. But being able to declare it a success without ceding ground to the globally ambitious Chinese Communist Party will be challenging.

That the Prime Minister will be heading there at all is the result of pain­staking diplomatic efforts, disciplined public remarks and subjugation of other connections and policy options deemed potentially upsetting to Beijing.

The visit will cap 18 months of foreign policy focus on “stabil­ising” relations with the People’s Republic of China, though it will not necessarily result in a new Australia-PRC road map for the future beyond Albanese’s sensible formula: “To stay the course that we’re on, which is to seek co-operation and positive relations with China where we can but stand up for Australian values and Australian national interests where we must.”

Stabilisation is elusive with such a volatile party-state, whose foreign and defence ministers have simply disappeared in the past few weeks without explanation. Political risk will remain real with Xi’s China however ­cordial this visit, something that pragmatic businesspeople well comprehend.

Albanese is no normal traveller but he may notice that the ­Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s advice to Australians going to China remains wary, explaining starkly that they “may be at risk of arbitrary detention or harsh enforcement of local laws, including broadly defined National Security Laws … if you’re sentenced to death, it’s unlikely that Chinese authorities will grant you leniency”.

The department summarises: “We haven’t changed the level of our advice, exercise a high degree of caution.”

That’s not bad advice for the Prime Minister, either: exercise caution.

From the perspective of Xi, his host, it’s one of a succession of leader visits, whose framing is on a different plane.

As former foreign minister Qian Qichen said, for the PRC “foreign policy is an extension of domestic policy”.

Xi’s core role is as general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, which is avidly eating the Chinese state, taking over from the government vast areas of ­responsibility.

After a decade in the job, Xi ­remains focused on reshaping China, on making it fully responsive to the needs and vision of the party ideologically, culturally, administratively and economically.

And Albanese’s visit is part of a pattern of drawing foreign leaders to Beijing rather than travelling to see them.

Xi’s prime international aim is to make the party safe, to make the wider world adapt to it, rather than having to adapt itself to international values, laws or trends.

Recently, the party-state has extended its diplomatic vision to encompass a Global Security Initiative, Global Development Initiative and Global Civilisational Initiative, alongside the economically focused Belt and Road Initiative, spearheading the PRC’s contribution to what Xi has spoken of as “an intensifying contest of two ideologies”, which he views as “a matter of life and death”.

The last China trip by an Australian prime minister was by Malcolm Turnbull in 2016 – to Beijing and Shanghai, the same cities as Albanese will visit – when the world still held hopes of the PRC becoming a “responsible stakeholder” in the established global structures.

But this was a role it never coveted, and today shuns.

After becoming national president in 2013 through to 2019, Xi was eager to travel, making an average of 14 annual overseas trips.

But since Covid-19, he has changed his strategy.

This year, his only travels have been to Moscow in March to ­demonstrate Ukraine-war-framed solidarity with the comrade he calls “my best, most intimate friend”, Vladimir Putin, and then to Johannesburg in September for a summit of the BRICS grouping, which the PRC is seeking to promote as a rival to democratic partnerships. There is conjecture about one further trip this year, to fellow communist but not-so-comradely Vietnam.

Instead of travelling, Xi hosts visits from a stream of foreign leaders, including in recent months German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, welcomes German Chancelor Olaf Scholz at the Grand Hall in Beijing. Picture: AFP

He met many leaders when opening the Asian Games in Hangzhou in September, and a further 24 – including Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo and Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister James Marape – when they came to Beijing earlier this month for the third Belt and Road Forum – albeit the latter attendance was below the 2019 forum, which had been attended by 37 leaders, and the inaugural 2017 forum, which was attended by 30.

Albanese first talked with Xi as leader a year ago, on the sidelines of the G20 meeting in Bali. Here are 10 top tips for their grander meeting in Beijing:

1 The TV optics naturally help determine how viewers in Australia and elsewhere, including in China itself, will assess the trip. The prime event of most such visits, the encounter with Xi, is usually staged at the Great Hall of the People, on the west side of Tiananmen Square with the Forbidden City looming to the north, to awe visitors with the PRC’s mighty power. An inspection of People’s Liberation Army troops, on the square just outside the building is a sign of particular respect.

How Albanese greets Xi there matters. It’s hard to gain his eyeball-to-eyeball attention – as Richard Maude, one of Australia’s most acclaimed international affairs experts, now heading the Asia Society’s Policy Institute here, says, Xi’s customary expression on such occasions is one of “weary forbearance”. Handshakes are safe. But on no account bow. When this happens, Xi never reciprocates, conjuring up images of emperors offhandedly receiving tributaries.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese meets China's President Xi Jinping in a bilateral meeting during the 2022 G20 summit in Nusa Dua, Bali. Picture: AAP

2 In the formal discussion, which will be held in one of the many Great Hall meeting rooms, gamble in your opening remarks on trying to engage Xi’s personal interest, perhaps by referring to his visits to each of the Australian states, and noting the strong contributions that Chinese-Australians make to our society, as well as the commitments by Australian Nobel Prize-winners to Chinese involvements.

3 Avoid expressing gratitude for Beijing releasing Cheng Lei – who should not have been arrested at all – or for dropping barriers to imports from Australia that should never have been imposed. Argue for the release of Yang Hengjun, and an end to the obnoxious $HK1m ($204,000) bounty placed on the heads of Australian citizen Kevin Yam and resident Ted Hui by the Hong Kong regime which is fully responsive to Beijing.

4 Seek a formal recommitment to abide by the general goals and comprehensive details of the free trade agreement that entered into force almost eight years ago. Offer to consider supporting China’s bid to negotiate joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership and, importantly, also Taiwan’s application.

5 Place on the table some practical proposals for joint programs, including green(er) energy options, intensified medical research including on ailments of the elderly and infectious diseases, and perhaps a pilot health or agricultural project in the Pacific islands, where the intensified competition between the PRC and democracies including Australia is failing to produce substantially improved development outcomes.

6 Speak plainly about the dangers of the intensified militarisation of the South China Sea, and of the threat level to Taiwan. Deterrence is crucial, and the “black box” surrounding Xi in terms of how decisions are made and who advises him underlines the importance of ensuring that he hears directly Australia’s case, and that of our regional partners, for peace, stability and the status quo. Avoid joining criticism of the US, which the PRC identifies as its great ­adversary. Do not enter discussion about what Beijing calls “the one-China principle” or policy. Canberra has its own policy about how to relate to both the PRC and Taiwan, and it is free to engage with the latter as it chooses, short of official diplomatic recognition.

7 Seek a return to the full range of annual dialogues between the countries that were placed in abeyance during the deep-freeze period that mostly coincided with Covid. But do not go beyond agreeing to “consider” returning to formal human rights dialogues, which would enable the PRC’s discourse-power to prevail over Australia’s agency to speak out.

8 Play a straight bat to flattering remarks about how Labor – but not the Coalition – truly understands the PRC. A Beijing narrative says that in voting for the ALP 18 months ago, Australians were also voting “for China”. A ­return to bipartisanship is crucial to prevent the Chinese party-state gaining ground by wedging our main parties.

9 Support discussion – although earlier rejected by Beijing – on what were formerly called “guardrails” but are now dubbed “risk reduction” to limit the prospect of military, or political, mistakes triggering escalating conflict in our region. Offer the involvement of Australian experts in such a task.

10 Call up a former Labor prime minister for advice. Not the one who lives in Sydney; the one who now lives in Washington, who maintains a well-researched, current understanding of what is driving Xi, and of how to make the most of a meeting with him.

Rowan Callick is an industry fellow at Griffith University’s Asia Institute.