Scott Morrison issues new Beijing warning after Andrew Forrest says suspicion of Xi Jinping’s China now a thing of the past

Scott Morrison and billionaire Andrew Forrest have engaged in a stunning war of words over China, with the former PM saying the Chinese Communist Party will be pleased with the Fortescue chairman’s attacks on his Liberal government’s handling of Beijing.

Mining magnate Andrew Forrest with Anthony Albanese in Shanghai, China, earlier this month. Picture: AAP

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Scott Morrison and billionaire Andrew Forrest have engaged in a stunning war of words over China, with the former prime minister saying the Chinese Communist Party will be pleased with the Fortescue chairman’s attacks on his Liberal government’s handling of Beijing.

Dr Forrest writes in The Australian on Thursday that Anthony Albanese is showing the world that it no longer needs to be suspicious of Xi Jinping’s regime, and that Australia and China as friends can teach US President Donald Trump that “respect triumphs over fear.”

As well as effusively praising the Prime Minister and Labor over the China reset, Dr Forrest accused the Morrison government solely for the deterioration of relations with China during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“China has not just been a partner to me personally, but to the company I founded, Fortescue, and to Australia as a whole,” Dr Forrest writes.

“Three of Australia’s top five taxpayers are iron ore majors. Yet, for reasons that had little to do with facts and everything to do with politics, an Australian government chose to sow fear over fostering respect.

“Fast forward to last week and it’s remarkable how far our bilateral relationship has come in such a short space of time.

“When Anthony Albanese sat down with Xi Jinping, we saw something we haven’t seen for years: two leaders talking as equals, with mutual ­respect.”

Just before the former PM appeared before a US Congressional panel probing the CCP where he warned that Australians risked being “asleep” to the strategic threat from Beijing, Mr Morrison hit back at Dr Forrest.

“I’m sure Dr Forrest’s comments would have been well received by the CCP in Beijing,” he said on Capitol Hill on Thursday.

During Mr Albanese’s China visit, Mr Morrison warned that China was “charming and flattering” his successor in an effort to isolate Australia from the US.

Morrison issues China warning

Addressing the hearing, Mr Morrison warned that China’s objective was the “subordination of a rule of law based on universal human rights to one arbitrarily defined by the state and to draw an equivalence between their regimes and freedom-based societies”.

“This will not change. Nor can it be negotiated away,” he said. “Rather than opening up their society, during post-cold war globalisation the CCP used China’s newly granted access to global trade, capital markets and legitimacy in international forums to build the economic, diplomatic, technological and military capacity to one day challenge the global order in an attempt to make it more favourable to their regime security. That day is now.”

Mr Morrison said he was “pleased that our government provided the example of resistance and resilience” by standing firm against Beijing’s coercion “rather than acquiescence and appeasement”.

“Throughout this period, we moved to work with our allies and partners in the region to deepen our ties and strengthen our co-operation,” he said.

Mr Morrison also sounded the alarm on the recent change in tactics from Beijing.

“The PRC took advantage of the change in government following the 2022 federal election to effect a reset and adopt a different tactics,” he said.

“This included abandoning their economic and diplomatic bullying and coercion for more inductive engagement, laced with charm and flattery.

“That said, the PRC still continues to engage in intimidatory behaviour by their military against Australia when it suits them without remorse.”

Former Australian prime minister Scott Morrison addresses the US government’s bipartisan Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party. Picture: YouTube

Dr Forrest is ­effusive in his praise for Mr Albanese’s efforts to improve ties with the nation’s biggest trading partner amid tensions between the Trump administration and Beijing over tariffs and defence

He writes that Mr Albanese had shown the right way to build respect and ties with China, and understood that the relationship between Beijing and Canberra could not return to “old ways of suspicion and division”.

“It is time for Australia and China to show the world – particularly my friends in North America – what is possible when respect triumphs over fear, and when ambition for a world no longer reliant on fossil fuels triumphs over complacency,” he said.

“We must choose a clean, pollution free, peaceful world, where energy can no longer be weaponised. We owe it to the next century to get this right.”

Dr Forrest’s comments come as he pushes the Albanese government to ramp up its support for green steel production in Australia.

The billionaire’s lauding of China’s commitment to clean ­energy comes after he previously celebrated the Biden ­administration’s Inflation Reduction Act policies pumping trillions of dollars into green projects.

Dr Forrest in Shanghai this month. Picture: AAP

Mr Albanese last week spent six days in China, meeting with President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang, visiting the Great Wall and a panda enclosure, and joining a roundtable discussion with Australian iron ore producers, including Dr Forrest, and Chinese steelmakers.

The visit was labelled “indulgent” by opposition finance spokesman James Paterson, and Opposition Leader Sussan Ley said she was disappointed by Mr Albanese’s failure to adequately address China’s recent live-fire exercises off the coast of Australia.

But Dr Forrest praised Mr ­Albanese for his “deliberate, rational and values-based leadership” that had helped deliver a “remarkable” turnaround in the bilateral relationship.

He also ­lamented the “terrible lows” in the Australia-China relationship of five years ago, when China imposed a host of tariffs on Australian export industries including wine, barley, beef and lobsters.

Dr Forrest built one of Australia’s largest fortunes off the back of China’s rapid economic growth, with his iron ore miner Fortescue creating a fortune for him and his former wife Nicola worth well over $20bn. The vast majority of Fortescue’s iron ore exports end up in China.

After his pitch to create a hydrogen industry attracted support and investment from governments around Australia and the world but with little to show for it, the focus of Fortescue and Dr Forrest has increasingly shifted towards “green iron” and “green steel” – which rely on renewable energy, rather than coal, to process iron ore.

The Albanese government in February unveiled a $1bn green iron fund, half of which was earmarked for the Whyalla steelworks in South Australia.

The Australia-China relationship began to deteriorate after Australia banned Chinese telecommunications companies from providing 5G technology in 2018, and China began rolling out the tariffs after then-prime minister Mr Morrison questioned China’s role in the origins of Covid early in the pandemic.

Dr Forrest wrote that he had feared at the time of the Australia-China trade war that Australia’s actions could turn China into an “enemy”.

“Ever since I was at school, I have found that if you treat someone like an enemy for long enough, eventually they will become one,” said.

“Human nature is such that if you box someone in, back them into a corner and paint them as a threat, sooner or later they will see themselves that way too.

“As I watched Australia’s relationship with China deteriorate to the terrible lows of five years ago, this was one of my greatest fears.”

Dr Forrest said the roundtable of Australian and Chinese leaders, iron ore miners and steelmakers in China was one of the “defining moments” of Mr Albanese’s visit – although he took what appeared to be a dig at BHP.

Fortescue and Dr Forrest were joined at the roundtable by senior representatives from Rio Tinto, Hancock Iron Ore and BHP.

“Most of those in that room for the steel decarbonisation roundtable – those with their heart truly set on building a future for Australia and China, together – could see what green iron and green steel could deliver,” he said.

“They knew, like me, there wasn’t a snowflake’s chance in hell that China wouldn’t send its cities green and its skies blue, and that Australia was in the box seat to enable it to do so.

BHP Australia president Geraldine Slattery. Picture: AAP

“Those who didn’t have their hearts in it exposed themselves, and that’s OK.

“For more than two decades Fortescue has put its head above the parapet on issues we believe are critical to the future of our company and our country, and that will never change.”

Those comments are believed to stem from a social media post by BHP Australia president Geraldine Slattery soon after the roundtable, in which she said BHP’s strategy was not to produce green iron or steel itself.

“The economics of doing so in Australia simply do not stack up,” Ms Slattery wrote.

“Even with generous policy support, the cost of production would be double that of the Middle East and China – and customers many thousands of kilometres away.”