Tony Abbott falls in line on Vladimir Putin G20 trip

TONY Abbott’s threat to “shirt-front” Vladimir Putin has been overtaken by a global geopolitical imperative.

TONY Abbott’s threat to “shirt-front” Vladimir Putin at next week’s G20 meeting has been overtaken by a global geopolit­ical imperative from the White House, Japan and the EU.

No matter how personally frustrated or authentic the source of the Prime Minister’s anger towards the Russian President over the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, with the death of 38 Australians, he could not escape the global demands beyond Australia’s domestic political, commercial and trade outlook.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte revealed yesterday that more human remains had been found at the site of the shooting-down of MH17.

Abbott said Putin couldn’t escape the conversation about the airline disaster, which is expected to take place next week in Beijing rather than at the G20 in Brisbane.

But the “blunt advice” from the White House, from Germany, as the lead EU nation, and from Japan, our “best friend in Asia”, to Australia on Putin’s attendance at the G20, was that there could be no “Balkanis­ation” of the leaders summit in the Queensland capital.

Australia was given no choice from our US, European or Asian allies but to welcome Putin to Brisbane and drop all thoughts of barring him from the global summit or diplomatically embarrassing him.

The advice to Australia was that, amid growing fears of a new Cold War and, more importantly, the new “relationship of convenience” between Russia and China, Abbott had to accept Putin’s attendance to keep the “lines of communication open”.

What the Prime Minister’s office, Joe Hockey, and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop were all being told was that the G20 had to be kept as much as possible as an economic summit — which it was envisaged to be at its first full meeting in Pittsburgh, in 2009, at the height of the global financial crisis.

What’s more, the success of the US financial sanctions against Russian banks over Putin’s involvement in Ukraine and the success of the Russian counter-sanctions against Europe meant Russia was doing financial deals with China and the EU was being forced to finance Russia’s supply of gas to Ukraine this winter.

In the past three weeks, Russia and China have signed a three-year deal for $24.5 billion to mutual­ly buffer their central banks in a financial crisis and financ­e Russian banks and energy companies for projects blocked by US financial sanctions.

“What we are seeing is Beijing and Moscow in a relationship of convenience, which is alarming,” said a senior government source.

Aware of the dangers of a growing financial relationship between China and Russia, as China becomes financially dominant in the Asia-Pacific, the US, EU and Japan are seeking not to ostracise Putin.

Senior government sources told The Australian that after the shooting-down of Flight MH17, in which the Prime Minister led the world outcry and accused Russian-backed separatists of being responsible, there were “views” in Australia, including from Queensland Premier Campbell Newman and the federal ALP, that Putin would not be welcome.

But Abbott’s office, the Treasurer and Ms Bishop were all bluntly told from the White House that the “G20 is an economic forum and we don’t want to see any Balkanisation of the G20 and that is hugely important to keep the communications lines open with Russia”.

After “appropriate consultations with our friends”, senior government members said that it was decided on a consensus basis to ensure that Putin was invited.

Part of the Australian plan to have Abbott and Putin meet next week at the Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation forum summit in Beijing was to ensure the first meeting occurred “offshore”.