Keep China dialogue open

Australia will never return to a settled, ‘positive’ relationship with China. The interaction is too complex.

When, oh when, will Australia return to a settled, “positive” relationship with China?

Answer: never.

Our relationship has become so broad and deep, across so many parts of our societies and economies, that it can never now be characterised crudely as merely “good” or “bad”.

The Australian’s front page yesterday was dominated by stories about the relationship, which might be interpreted as “negative”.

Some business leaders in Australia in their entirely understandable frustration, keep urging our politicians to return to a halcyon era of positivity where every element of the relationship was a win-win.

But times have changed, and the relationship is now more complex, and can no longer be summed up so simply.

At the political level, differences will keep surfacing — with President Xi Jinping’s restructuring of Chinese governance and China’s global ambitions prompting rearrangements of relationships throughout our region.

Graeme Kraehe, a former chairman of BlueScope — which is probably Australia’s biggest investor in China — said last week: “I think we need to form whatever relationships and arrangements we can with China.”

The scope for those is broad, but that doesn’t mean any arrangement is necessarily net beneficial.

Excellent fresh opportunities, however, are emerging by which people-to-people links can provide platforms for helpful conversations — as happened with the footy game between Port Adelaide and Gold Coast in Shanghai last weekend.

It’s important to define terms. “China” means more than the communist party state that rules it, just as “Australia” is not confined to our federal government.

Australia’s links with that broadly categorised China keep growing. That’s inevitable, given the increasing appetite of Chinese people to travel, invest, study and migrate abroad, with Australia a popular destination for all.

From Australia’s side, we haven’t, unfortunately, been paying the attention we should. China has been changing rapidly these past couple of years.

All who wish to take China’s party-state seriously need to consider “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” — a blueprint for change in China — which has been written into both party and national constitutions.

Xi’s China is supremely purposeful. It seeks to ensure not only that the Chinese diaspora is on-message, but that it advances that message abroad. It believes that security comes not only from the military, but also from ensuring the right ideas prevail.

As prosperity becomes more widespread in China, Xi has needed to identify a fresh channel of legitimacy for party rule — China’s international role, which can be audited readily by the hundreds of millions of Chinese who travel internationally.

Xi wants China’s economic heft to be reflected in international influence and respect, and in a capacity to transform global institutions to better suit its ambitions. That makes sense.

This may involve bringing into play the economic interdependence through which China has become the main partner in trading goods of most of the world.

But China is guarded about using its economic heft to achieve other goals, despite the warnings made by Australians that “criticising China” will trigger economic catastrophe. Trade is by definition mutually advantageous, and deploying it as a weapon can cause unintended self-harm.

Last year’s campaign of “unofficial” sanctions against South Korea, like the previous year’s scaling back of group tourism to Taiwan — both intended to achieve political outcomes — did not achieve the desired results.

In Australia’s case, the government’s Foreign Policy White Paper published six months ago was a judicious document that broadly welcomed China’s rise while noting differences.

The discussion has taken an unpleasantly emotive twist this year, often hinged off a few injudicious phrases on each side.

The claimed governmental attacks on China comprise chiefly two remarks: Malcolm Turnbull’s phrase last December claiming “the Australian people have stood up” — referencing a phrase attributed to Mao Zedong at the founding of the people’s republic; and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop’s speech last March saying: “While non-democracies such as China can thrive when participating in the present system, an essential pillar of our preferred order is democratic community.”

Neither remark advanced Australia internationally, and both are probably now regretted. China has had its say too, with ambassador Cheng Jingye lambasting “systematic, irresponsible and negative remarks”.

But it’s time to progress mutual interests, speaking in a mutually respectful manner, while ensuring our eyes are open.

That AFL game, the second in Shanghai, provides a classic example. For whatever reason it had been too long since an Australian minister had visited China.

Would Trade Minister Steve Ciobo be welcome again? The extensive contacts between Port Adelaide and Chinese officialdom that are necessary to organise such an event provided an excellent opportunity to test the acceptability of Ciobo’s partici­pation there.

The green light ensured no loss of face on either side, and his graceful keynote speech in Shanghai marked something of a restabilisation of relations at the official level, for now at least.

Differences are inevitable. But predictability is good. Respect is good. Communication, not only in public but also behind the scenes, is also good.