Wang warns Wong: Don’t smear China over Ukraine

China’s Foreign Minister warns Australia and other G20 members not to link Russia’s invasion with Beijing’s threats to Taiwan.

Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong. Picture: Johannes P. Christo / POOL / AFP

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi has warned Australia and other G20 members against linking Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with Beijing’s threats to Taiwan, hours before he meets with Penny Wong.

Foreign Minister Wang issued the warning on Thursday in a bilateral meeting in Bali with India’s External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar on the sidelines of the G20 foreign ministers’s summit.

“It is obviously double standards. Beijing rejects any attempt to compare the Ukraine crisis with the Taiwan question and will firmly safeguard its core interests,” Mr Wang said.

Beijing’s position on the war — refusing to condemn Russia and offering propaganda support for Vladimir Putin — is one of a host of disagreements that will be on the crowded agenda for Foreign Minister Wong’s meeting with Mr Wang on Friday afternoon.

Mr Wang’s warning was made a week after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese drew a parallel between Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s menacing of Taiwan, saying Vladimir Putin’s failed bid to take Ukraine showed “attempts to impose change by force on a sovereign country meets resistance”.

Those comments by Mr Albanese — delivered during a NATO summit in Madrid — provoked an eruption from Chinese state media, which accused him of a “lack of diplomatic nous and poor grasp of political realities“.

The China Daily, in its first personal attack on the new Australian Prime Minister, warned of consequences.

China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi. Picture: AFP

“Last month, when Albanese’s Labor Party came to power, there were high hopes in both countries that it offered the opportunity to reset Australia’s ties with China. Those hopes are diminishing by the day,” the Beijing mouthpiece editorialised.

On Thursday, Mr Wang conducted bilateral meetings with countries including India and Indonesia that have also not explicitly condemned the invasion.

China’s envoy also met with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov.

Before leaving Bali, Mr Wang is scheduled to hold bilateral talks with the US, France and Australia, all countries that have criticised China’s position on the war.

On Thursday, Ms Wong said Russia was conducting an “illegal, unjust and immoral war in Ukraine”.

In a keynote address in Singapore before the Bali conference, the Foreign Minister urged Beijing to use its influence as a “no limits” partner to Russia to end the war.

Ms Wong also linked Beijing’s position on the war to its assertive behaviour in the region, although she did not directly mention Taiwan.

“The region and the world is now looking at Beijing’s actions in relation to Ukraine. But this has also been true in respect of its regional actions, as its strategic outreach has intensified,” Ms Wong said.

“Regardless of the character of leadership Beijing chooses to demonstrate, we all have our own choices to make, and our own agency to exercise.

“We are more than just supporting players in a grand drama of global geopolitics, on a stage dominated by great powers.

“It is up to all of us to create the kind of region we aspire to – a stable, peaceful, prosperous and secure region,” she said.

Friday’s meeting between the Australian and Chinese foreign ministers is the first in almost three years after Beijing froze all ministerial communication.

Analysts in both countries have cautioned that any improvement in the bilateral relationship will be modest.

Liu Xiaobo, an international relations expert in China, told The Australian he was not “optimistic” about the outlook.

“It takes a lot of effort, and so far I haven’t seen many such signs,“ said Mr Liu, a senior researcher of Grandview Institution, a Beijing-based think tank.