Julie Bishop says China can take global leadership role

The PM’s top bureaucrat says China is unwilling to be a global leader, but Julie Bishop contradicted the claim.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop says China can take a global leadership role.

Tony Abbott denies it was provocative of his top bureaucrat to say China was not willing or able to be a global leader.

Prime Minister and Cabinet department secretary Michael Thawley said Australia still needed to depend on America because China gets in the way or out of the way when it comes to global problem solving.

Asked if China was willing or able to play a global leadership role, Mr Thawley replied: “The answer is no, it’s not willing or able to play a serious global leadership role.”

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Mr Thawley also said China was not ready to take on its responsibility “economically or politically or security-wise” in the G2 forum with the US and warned against “hysterical” debates about the Asian country’s rising power.

It sparked an apparent contradiction from Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, who said Asian nation was a “very significant player”.

Mr Abbott also tried to downplay Mr Thawley’s comments.

“What we want to do is encourage China to assume a role commensurate with its strength,” Mr Abbott told reporters in Williamtown, in NSW, adding that the China-led Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank was a good illustration of what China could achieve in a rules based international order.

Labor foreign affairs spokeswoman Tanya Plibersek said Mr Thawley’s comments were telling.

“To have this sort of comment expressed by the prime minister’s most senior policy adviser perhaps gives us an insight into why the prime minister made those strange comments to (German Chancellor) Angela Merkel that Australia’s relationship with China was governed by fear and greed,” she told ABC TV today.

It also helped explained the federal government’s poor handling over whether Australia would join the infrastructure bank, she said.

Ms Bishop addressed Mr Thawley’s comments that Australia still needed to depend on America’s international leadership because China either blocked actions or failed to step up.

Mr Thawley said China was not ready to take on its responsibility “economically or politically or security-wise” in the G2 forum with the US and warned against “hysterical” debates about the Asian country’s rising power.

While Ms Bishop noted Mr Thawley’s remarks and conceded they “reflect the views of a number of people in Australia”, she said there was also a counter argument.

“With the extraordinary rise of China as an economic power, with power shifting from the West to the East, China is a significant player,” Ms Bishop told Sky News.

“It is the number one trading partner for about 120 countries around the world. While its economic power does not eclipse that of the United States it’s nevertheless a very significant economic regional and global player.”

Ms Bishop said she was “not at all” frustrated by the secretary’s remarks and that he was an “experienced” diplomat as a former ambassador to the US with good public servant credentials.

However, later in the interview she said Australia and other countries needed to try and engage China in the international rules based system through initiatives like the Free Trade Agreement and Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, with the hope it becomes a “responsible global player”.

“Australia is able to facilitate engagement with China at many levels and I believe that that’s the rule we should continue to play in the hope that China does become a responsible global player,” Ms Bishop said.

“I don’t buy into the debate about whether Australia has to choose between China and the United States; I don’t envisage a circumstance where we’d be asked to choose.

“So we maintain very positive and strong relations with both.”

Opposition immigration spokesman Richard Marles said he wasn’t “exactly sure” where Mr Thawley’s comments led but reiterated Ms Bishop’s comments that Australia needed to continually look at ways to engage with China.

“China is very relevant right now globally and if you project forward you can only see China becoming more relevant ... economically and more relevant in a security sense,” Mr Marles said on Sky News.

“We need to be finding as many avenues as possible for China and America to be talking with each other in the context of East Asia affairs.”

ADDITIONAL REPORTING: AAP