No kiss and make up as China pushes Huawei line

Australia ‘connived’ with the US in an ‘unethical, illegal, immoral suppression of Chinese companies’, Chinese diplomat Wang Xining says.

Chinese embassy spokesman Wang Xining greets moderator Laura Tingle at the National Press Club on Wednesday. Picture: Gary Ramage

China’s deputy ambassador, Wang Xining, has made clear that Australia must allow Huawei to participate in the nation’s 5G network if it wants the relationship between the countries to improve, attacking the 2018 ban on the telco as “immoral” and damaging to his country’s national interests.

Mr Wang told the National Press Club that Australia’s decision and its lobbying of other countries to follow suit had caused the company “to suffer a lot”, and bilateral relations would improve only if Australia provided a “non-discriminatory business environment”.

He said former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull’s claim to have influenced Donald Trump to harden the US position on Huawei showed Australia was a “whisperer” or a “charlatan”.

“Australia even persuaded others to follow suit,” he said at the launch of ANU’s 2020 China Story Yearbook.

“By doing so, Australia connived with the US in very illegal, unethical, immoral suppression of Chinese companies.”

Mr Wang denied Huawei equipment poised any security threat, and challenged Australian Signals Directorate spies — who advised Mr Turnbull to ban “high risk” vendors from the 5G network — to debate Huawei engineers. “I wonder why your intelligence and security operators have the guts to claim that they know what the threat is posed by Huawei,” he said.

“It was (the) US, UK, Australia partially, that has a strong tradition of eavesdropping into others and digging into others’ houses.”

He said China would not tolerate threats to its national interests by countries that sought to take advantage of its economic rise.

“China is not a cow. I don’t think anybody should fancy the idea to milk China when she’s in her prime and plot to slaughter it in the end,“ he said.

“So we are open for collaboration and co-operation, but we'll be very strong in defending our national interest.”

Mr Wang said the Huawei decision had left Australia with substandard technology, comparing Australia’s internet speeds unfavourably with those in developing countries that used Huawei equipment. “As far as I know, there’s not a single Australia tech communication equipment company that’s on the par with Huawei, or any other internationally renowned company in terms of technological advancement and sophistication,” he said.

“And Australia ranked the second from the bottom in term of market digitisation among OECD countries and broadband speed here is much slower than some developing countries.”

China slapped trade bans of $20bn of Australian exports — including barley, beef, coal, cotton, seafood, wine and timber — after Australia called for an international inquiry into the origins of COVID-19. The move was a violation of the Australia-China Free Trade Agreement, and Australia has lodged a World Trade Organisation complaint over the barley ban.

Mr Wang, however, suggested Australia was in breach of the FTA, saying “we should all observe the principles … in the ChAFTA, which does provide for a fair and just and non-discriminatory environment to our businesses … Certainly we should value our friendship between our peoples and no obstacle should be laid intentionally to obstruct ­people-to-people exchange programs,” he said.

“It is very simple — as long as the Australian side will be able to do that, I don’t see any obstacle for the resumption of a normal state of our relationship.”

Chinese government ministers have refused to take calls from Australian counterparts for more than a year.

The Huawei ban, foreign interference laws and the COVID inquiry call topped a list of 14 grievances provided by the Chinese embassy last year.