We’ve vilified China as an ‘enemy’; Anthony Albanese is right to make friends

It’s time Australia and China shows 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.

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

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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.

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. Here was a country that I had been coming to for 36 years – a country where I have made lifelong friends, done business in good faith, and seen incredible economic transformation for both the benefit of Australia and China.

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

Iron ore – a $138bn industry supporting more than 60,000 full-time jobs – was untouched, showing how deep the economic ties still run. But sectors such as wine, barley, beef and seafood were hit hard.

President Xi Jinping shakes hands with visiting Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

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.

The bond that helped transform China into the modern, dynamic, fast-moving place it is today, while delivering Australia an unparalleled economic windfall, was back. And it was wonderful to see. I congratulate the Prime Minister for his deliberate, rational and values-based leadership. He gets it – he understands China and how to build partnerships. Today that is more important than ever.

While the prosperity of modern Australia has been deeply tied to China’s remarkable growth, what comes next will matter even more. It is why the renewed trust that I witnessed matters.

The next chapter in the Australia-China relationship will define our shared futures for the next century. It was significant that one of the defining moments of the Prime Minister’s visit was one I had not experienced on the more than 50 occasions I have been to China: the leaders of our respective countries, the leaders of Australia’s largest iron ore miners, and the leaders of China’s biggest steelmakers, together in one room.

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.

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.

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.

What is clear is that both the Australian and the Chinese governments are taking this very ­seriously. The establishment of a new ­Policy Dialogue on Steel ­Decarbonisation shows a welcome determination to take this forward.

Andrew Forrest

This is not a pipe dream. As Ross Garnaut, an economic adviser to former prime minister Bob Hawke, told The Sydney Morning Herald, Albanese’s trip was “as important as Bob Hawke’s trip to China in 1984 that set up the iron ore trade – it’s the future of the Australian economy”.

Australia has what the world needs to make green iron – abundant renewable energy resources, and a world-leading mining industry with the know-how to turn ideas into action. China has what the world needs to scale green steel solutions at speed – manufacturing might, engineering expertise and the capacity to deploy green technologies on a scale no other nation can match.

At Fortescue, we are already proving it can be done. Our 1500 tonne per annum green metal project at Christmas Creek will soon be up and running, marking the first step on a journey that will revolutionise our business.

But we cannot do it alone. We need bold partners – governments willing to back ambition with policy certainty, and companies in China and around the world willing to make big bets on the future.

The Albanese government has shown it understands that we cannot afford to drift back into the old ways of suspicion and division. If we do, we will both lose. Australia’s future prosperity and China’s blue skies, green cities dream are intertwined – and so too are our responsibilities to every child who will inherit this planet.

Treat a friend like an enemy, and one day they may well become one. But treat a friend like a partner, and together you can achieve the extraordinary. China’s modernisation has been a beautiful evolution to both witness and in a very small way, be part of. But this next chapter can surpass it all.

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. 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.

Andrew Forrest is executive chairman and founder of Fortescue.