China Daily praises Anthony Albanese for not being ‘under the sway of Washington’
Chinese media applauds Anthony Albanese for resisting ‘outside interference’ unlike his ‘confrontational’ predecessor, as new poll finds most people in China have a positive view about Australia.
Beijing has praised Prime Minister Albanese for not being “under the sway of Washington”, as China’s propaganda machine has tried to explain away Australia’s high levels of distrust towards its rising power.
As Chinese Premier Li Qiang was given a ceremonial welcome in Canberra on Monday, Mr Albanese was applauded in an editorial in Beijing’s most authoritative English language masthead, China Daily, for “taking steps in the right direction” and demonstrating that “Canberra can balance relations with Beijing and Washington”.
China Daily contrasted Mr Albanese’s approach with his “confrontational” predecessor Scott Morrison, who it accused of being “under the sway of Washington”.
“The fast recovering curve of Sino-Australian ties over the past two years should prompt both Beijing and Canberra to foster a more mature, stable and fruitful partnership that is resistant to outside interference,” the China Daily said.
The masthead also claimed Canberra had “already demonstrated that it is not willing to unreservedly follow Washington’s lead having expressed critical views on the US’ tariff attack on Chinese goods and export restrictions targeting Chinese technology development”.
It is not clear which comments the Chinese masthead was referring to.
Beijing is worried about the increasing number of countries imposing tariffs on Chinese made electric vehicles after the European Union last week followed similar tariffs imposed by Washington.
Canberra, with no domestic car industry to protect, is not contemplating such measures, a welcome respite for Chinese officials.
In the lead up to Premier Li’s visit, Chinese media has reported on the huge increase in Chinese EV sales to Australia, as consumers benefit from falling prices as firms in China ramp up production even as domestic demand remains sluggish.
China’s fellow English language masthead, the Global Times, on Monday published select findings from a poll it had commissioned on Chinese and Australian attitudes towards each other.
The survey of 1,200 people in China and 1,075 people in Australia was done by the Global Times’s research institute and researchers at Beijing Foreign Studies University’s Australian Studies Centre of Beijing Foreign Studies University. The Australian has requested a copy of the full survey, but was still to receive it late on Monday.
The Global Times poll found that Chinese attitudes towards Australia remain far more positive than the attitudes of Australians towards China, a consistent finding since the survey began in 2020.
It found 69 per cent of people in China had a favourable perception of Australia, up 7 points from the last survey in 2022.
However, it found Australian attitudes towards China were much cooler, with a goodwill score of 41. Recent polling of Australian attitudes towards China done by both the Lowy Institute and UTS’s Australia-China Relations Institute have found Australia sentiment is even worse that level.
The Chinese poll found most Australian respondents viewed China as a “security threat” or “competitor”. Less than 40 per cent viewed China as an “economic partner”.
Chinese academics told the Global Times these results revealed manipulation by the United States and “misperception” by Australians.
“Data show that Australia’s foreign strategy is influenced by the US,” said Liu Qing, vice president at the China Institute of International Studies.
“China has never seen Australia as a threat, and there are significant differences in security perceptions between the two sides,” he said.
Fellow Chinese academic Chen Hong said the Morrison government had worsened sentiment by calling Beijing’s trade strikes on Australian exports previously worth $20 billion a year “economic coercion”.
“Trade problems should not be subject to political manipulation. The previous Australian government tended to escalate trade quarrels to the political level and smeared China,” said Professor Hong, director of Australia studies at Shanghai’s East China Normal University.
As Premier Li visits Canberra, Chinese media is full of retired Australian diplomats, sympathetic Australian academics and authors from niche Australian news websites celebrating the departure of the Morrison government and agreeing that America is now the main impediment to relations.
Warwick Powell, an adjunct professor at the Queensland University of Technology, on Monday told readers of China’s nationalist masthead Guancha that Australia remained an “anxious nation” that was easily manipulated.
“Australia’s attitude toward Asia in general, and China in particular, will unfortunately be closely tied to Washington’s every move,” wrote Mr Powell, a researcher at Beijing’s Taihe Institute, who worked with Kevin Rudd in the Queensland state bureaucracy in the mid-1990s.
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