China talks only if there are no conditions, Scott Morrison says

PM open to meeting Chinese President as he warns Beijing’s global outlook becoming ‘more inconsistent’ with Australia’s sovereign interests.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison with Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2019. Picture: Adam Taylor

Scott Morrison says he will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping only if there are no conditions for restarting dialogue, as he warned that Beijing’s global outlook had become “more inconsistent” with Australia’s sovereign interests.

The Prime Minister’s warning came as Foreign Minister Marise Payne said Australia’s and America’s relationships with China would be closely watched as US President Joe Biden began his four-year term in the White House.

Without specifically naming China, Senator Payne declared Australia would “support adherence to international rules and norms, promote transparency and stand against malicious behaviour such as economic ­coercion, human rights abuses and the use of disinformation’’.

After months of China slapping restrictions on Australian ­exports, Mr Morrison said he was open to meeting China’s leaders to work through problems in the relationship as long as there were no ­policy conditions to holding talks.

The Chinese embassy last year released a dossier of 14 grievances Beijing had with Australia, including negative media coverage of China, foreign investment decisions, foreign interference reforms and critical commentary on the CCP by Coalition MPs.

“We are always open to meet,” Mr Morrison said. “We are open to meet whenever but … it is a no-conditions meeting.

“I know what the 14 points are; so does everyone else. If they are the conditions then it will be a while before we meet. But we are happy to meet and work through these issues and discuss them.”

Mr Morrison said there had been a “slow turn” in the relationship with China and rejected claims it had deteriorated last year because of any single decision of his government.

“It has been happening for years,” he said. “The suggestion this has happened all on a dime I think is wrong. And we have seen these changes happen now for some years. The relationship has obviously changed, not over any one thing but over time.

“There have been changes where I think the sovereign position of Australia and the outlook of China, well those things have become more inconsistent.”

Labor has been critical of the Morrison government for leading calls for a probe into the origins of COVID-19 rather than waiting until there was a global consensus on the need for an inquiry.

The World Health Organisation inquiry into the pandemic was supported by more than 120 countries, eventually including China, but Beijing has voiced fury at the Morrison government‘s early demand for the probe.

China has progressively frozen out Australia during the Turnbull and Morrison governments — initially because of the exclusion of Huawei from Australia’s 5G network and the introduction of foreign interference laws — and refused to take phone calls from or meet cabinet ministers despite attempts to establish dialogue.

Mr Morrison said he was con­fident Mr Biden would support Australia in its handling of the China relationship, in much the same way as the Trump administration backed the government during the push for a probe into the origins of the ­coronavirus.

Writing in The Australian, Senator Payne appealed to the Biden administration by labelling the US an “indispensable partner” in efforts not only to maintain but to improve security in a region of free, sovereign and resilient states that banded together “when any country resorts to raw power over rules”.

Foreign Minister Marise Payne. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

“Australia will benefit in the long-term if there is a network of nations, with the US as a leading participant, that consistently and with strategic sagacity makes clear what constitutes legitimate behaviour under a rules-based system, even one that is evolving to take account of the interests of rising powers,” she said.

Senator Payne said America remained vital ­”because of its values and its history of idealism, but also because of its sheer practical advantages. This is America the innovator, the economic powerhouse, diplomatic leader and Australian ally.”

Senator Payne hailed the 2019 “competition without catastrophe” blueprint on the US-China relationship, written by the Biden administration’s new national security council members Jake Sullivan and Kurt Campbell, as a “constructive and intelligent approach”. While Mr Morrison has been criticised by Labor for failing to name Mr Trump as having provoked the Capitol riots this month and of pandering to the former president during his four years in the White House, Senator Payne said the federal government was “not blind to the fact that the US has gone through a difficult political period”. She conceded that the Biden administration had priorities at home as the US coronavirus death toll climbs above 400,000 but welcomed America taking steps to re-join the Paris climate agreement and the WHO. “The evolving set of international challenges – those that arise from the COVID-19 pandemic and those that existed before it and will continue beyond it – means that the way our two countries work together must also necessarily evolve,” she said.

Australian coal, barley, beef, lobster, wine, tourism and education are among exports Beijing has targeted in the past year with tariffs, bans and months-long ­delays at Chinese ports. While business groups were last year calling on the government to repair the relationship with China, Ai Group chief executive Innes Willox last week urged Australian companies to resist bullying from Beijing.