Anthony Albanese follows in the footsteps of Gough Whitlam in China tour

Anthony Albanese spent most of Wednesday leading a Gough Whitlam tribute mission. The Chinese government was more than delighted to assist.

Anthony Albanese and partner Jodie Haydon at the Great Wall of China near Beijing on Wednesday, left, and Gough Whitlam at the Great Wall in 1971. Picture: AAP/News Corp

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After his big day in the Great Hall with Xi Jinping, Anthony Albanese spent most of Wednesday leading a Gough Whitlam tribute mission.

The Chinese government was delighted to assist. A huge section of the Badaling section of the Great Wall – about 80km northwest of Beijing and normally heaving with tourists – was closed off for the Australian Prime Minister, his fiancee Jodie Haydon and the travelling media, diplomatic and security entourage.

As opposition leader, Whitlam, one of the Labor PM’s political ­heroes, had visited this same chunk of Ming dynasty-era Great Wall back in 1971, the year before he won government, severed official relations with Taipei and switched recognition to Beijing.

“There is no question that Gough Whitlam made the right decision in 1971 and that Australia has benefited from that,” Albanese said on Wednesday. “It’s certainly understood in China that that was an early decision. And it was a decision that took courage.”

Labor Party history presents Whitlam as a visionary global leader, but you need to be pretty parochial to think recognising Beijing in 1972 was “early”.

By then, more than 60 countries had done so.

The flurry of recognition in the late 1960s and throughout the ’70s had a lot more to do with Mao Zedong reorienting China’s foreign policy after Beijing’s rupture with Moscow than the long-sightedness, or otherwise, of other world leaders at the time.

Washington, which did not officially recognise the People’s Republic until 1979, did not rush its formal recognition because it did not want Taiwan and its population to come under the rule of the Communist Party. (Whitlam, as one of his China advisers, Ross Terrill, has recorded, had no such qualms.)

The Chinese government is more than happy to endorse the ”Whitlam as visionary” Labor version of Australia’s history with the PRC.

Picture: NewsWire / Joseph Olbrycht-Palmer

The PM has lent into the legend. In Shanghai, he gave a speech to the Australian business community in the Peace Hotel where, he told his audience, Whitlam spent his 55th birthday on his brazen trip as an opposition leader, pursuing recognition of Beijing despite the then Australian government’s reservations.

On his first trip to China as PM in November 2023, Albanese included a visit to Beijing’s Temple of Heaven to recreate a photo from Whitlam’s 1971 trip.

China’s ambassador Xiao Qian could not have looked happier as he watched that day of politically loaded sightseeing.

China claims not to interfere in Australian domestic politics. Yet it is hard to square that with much of what its spokespeople and official mouthpieces say.

In a tone-setting editorial before Albanese’s more than two hours with Xi, the government-controlled China Daily repeated Beijing’s line that all the problems in the relationship were the fault of the Coalition. “Albanese’s visit shows that the Australian side has a clearer judgment and understanding of China than it had under the previous Scott Morrison government,” the influential masthead purred.

Up until 2020, it was former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull who China blamed for all the “twists and turns” in the bilateral relationship.

At Wednesday’s press conference on the Great Wall, I asked ­Albanese if he was worried about the Australia-China relationship being politicised?

The Prime Minister during his press conference on the Great Wall. Picture: NewsWire / Joseph Olbrycht-Palmer

“My job is to be Prime Minister of Australia – to represent the Australian government. That’s the capacity I am here in,” he said.

”I continue to do so to the best of my ability each and every day. Each and every day, I don’t think about any interests of a political party.

“What I do is I think about the national interest and I continue to do that each and every day.

“And I would encourage everyone in the parliament to do the same, including those commenting on international relations,” he said.

Albanese is clearly enjoying himself on this trip.

Wearing his white Rabbitohs cap and accompanied by his fiancee, he was in high spirits as they were given a tour of the Great Wall.

The weather was majestic: blue skies and a gentle breeze. The section we walked along was constructed in the Ming dynasty, with much of it dating back to 1505 (although there was a significant restoration done in the 1950s).

The PM’s verdict? “Just extraordinary,” he told me. “This is an infrastructure project!”

The PM was having such a good time that, with his fiancee by his side, he joked about adding another item to the day’s agenda. “Would there be a celebrant here?”

After the opportunity to press Australia’s interests for hours with Xi and his top deputy, Premier Li Qiang, the trip is now clearly going into holiday mode.

Beijing is thrilled by the length of the PM’s visits. Not many world leaders spend six nights in China.

New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s trip in June was about half as long.

On Wednesday afternoon, the PM and accompanying journalists headed for the final leg, Chengdu, the panda capital of the world.

Along with nearby Chongqing, it is the most economically important city in China’s west and home to Australian hearing aid manufacturer Cochlear’s Chinese ­factory.

The Sichuanese provincial capital is also one of the most delicious cities in China.

The PM will make a stop at the city’s main tourism draw card, China’s panda breeding centre, where Xing Qiu, one of the two now at Adelaide Zoo, was raised before being shipped to Australia just in time for Premier Li’s visit last year.

Also on the PM’s itinerary in Chengdu: a spot of tennis. Even Whitlam wasn’t audacious enough to do that in China.