Richard Marles as bad as ‘extremely anti-China’ Peter Dutton claims Beijing

China warns that Australia’s new Defence Minister is imperilling the future of relations between the two countries.

Richard Marles (L) meeting with China's Defence Minister Wei Fenghe on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue summit in Singapore. Picture: AFP.

Beijing has accused Richard Marles of becoming indistinguishable from his “extremely anti-China” predecessor Peter Dutton and warned that Australia’s new Defence Minister was imperilling the future of the Australia-China relations.

In a bombastic editorial, the party-state masthead Global Times said “Marles did not only degrade himself, but actually belittled the whole of Australia” during his recent trip to Washington.

The Beijing mouthpiece said the Australian Defence Force was becoming a “plug-in of the US” and warned that China would see Australia as a “forward base of the US military”.

Only a month after Mr Marles met PRC Defence Minister Wei Fenghe on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, the Global Times said Beijing’s image of him was “becoming blurred”.

Beijing has compared Richard Marles with Peter Dutton. Picture: Jonathan Ng

“The Australian Defence Minister has become one of Canberra’s most aggressive actors against China,” the party-state masthead wrote in its lead editorial on Monday.

“From Tokyo to New Delhi to Washington, Marles’ string of comments on the so-called China threat make it increasingly difficult to distinguish him from his extremely anti-China Liberal predecessor Peter Dutton.

“In less than two months, Marles has rushed to reverse the outside world’s impression of him as being ‘rational’ toward China, and it has also raised more doubts about the willingness of the new Australian administration to improve relations with China,” it wrote.

The comments underline the huge structural tension in the relationship that continues despite the Xi administration’s claims that all problems in the relationship were the fault of the Morrison government.

Beijing’s party state media attacks began days after the new Australian government was elected, but have become increasingly personal and vitriolic.

China's Defence Minister Wei Fenghe attends the Shangri-La Dialogue summit in Singapore. Picture: AFP.

This was the Global Times second editorial personally criticising Mr Marles and came days after the masthead said “anti-China forces” were manipulating Prime Minister Albanese.

Three weeks ago, the Chinese party-state’s other English language masthead China Daily accused Mr Albanese of a “lack of diplomatic nous and poor grasp of political realities”, after he made a link between Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Beijing’s threats to Taiwan.

China’s Foreign Minister — President Xi Jinping’s second most senior envoy — met his Australian counterpart in Bali in early June, ending his almost three-year communication freeze.

Mr Wang told Foreign Minister Penny Wong that China was now willing to “re-examine and recalibrate” the bilateral relationship “based on mutual respect”.

He also gave her a list of four requirements to improve the relationship: Australia must treat China as a “partner rather than a rival”; the two countries must seek “common ground while shelving differences”; Australia must reject “manipulation by a third party”; and both countries must build “public support featuring positiveness and pragmatism”.

Following that meeting, rumours spread among Chinese financial commentators and industry that Beijing was preparing to end its unofficial black-listing of Australian coal.

“No further information is out yet, but the trajectory is towards it,” one industry source in China told The Australian.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers has encouraged China to end the suspension.

“The removal of sanctions is a critical part of restoring relations between Beijing and Canberra,” he said on Sunday.

Opposition leader Peter Dutton said he welcomed China’s resumption of dialogue with Australia, but said he wanted to see “concrete evidence Beijing is sincere”.

China’s coal industry has been summoned for a meeting in Beijing on Friday. The industry – a big employer with strong political leverage – has benefited from the Australia ban, which has allowed further mining of lower quality coal.

Chinese steel and energy industries have been lobbying for the end of the ban, which was the major strike in Beijing’s more than $20bn-a-year trade campaign against Australia.

On Friday, China reported its weakest economic performance since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.