Tug of forelock what Xi expects

Former PM Malcolm Turnbull is stunningly candid about Chinese President Xi Jinping in his new book.

If you back down from a bully ‘you’ll be mightily diminished’: Malcolm Turnbull snaps a Selfie with Donald Trump and Xi Jinping. Picture: Facebook

The ghost of Malcolm Turnbull still haunts Beijing.

“I knew, from years of experience of dealing with bullies, that if you take a strong position on something and then back down under pressure, you’ll be mightily diminished,” writes the former prime minister in his new autobiography in a stunningly candid chapter about President Xi Jinping’s China.

His successor Scott Morrison seems determined to continue that approach as he lobbies world leaders to support an independent review into the origins and handling of COVID-19.

The Chinese government is predictably unhappy.

“The so-called independent review proposed by the Australian side is political manoeuvring,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng ­Shuang at a press conference in Beijing.

“We advise the Australian side to put aside ideological bias and political games,” Geng added as he answered a question that, like most at the Foreign Ministry’s daily press conferences, was asked by a journalist employed by China’s state- controlled media.

Before Turnbull was prime minister, unhappy comments by the Chinese government sent Australian politicians and business people into a frenzy.

It has become routine.

Five minutes later at Thursday’s Beijing press conference came another reprimand after Xinhua, another state-­controlled news agency, asked about a China-triggered tiff at the Wagga Wagga City Council.

“China welcomes and commends Wagga Wagga’s correct decision,” Geng said of the mayor of Wagga Wagga’s public apology after some of his fellow councillors criticised the Chinese government’s handling of the new coronavirus.

“Facts have proven once again that a few Australians’ ­attempts to smear China and undermine bilateral friendly relations are deeply unpopular and will never succeed.”

To live in China is to be constantly reminded that there ­actually is a lot of goodwill ­between people in the two countries. My hairdresser tells me how beautiful Sydney is. My Mandarin teacher talks about Australia like it is paradise on earth. The only place I’ve heard a bad word said about Australia is in China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Turnbull wasn’t being entirely disingenuous when, after the bilateral relationship ruptured in late 2017, he said in a personal letter to Xi: “China and Australia are good friends.”

But as he outlines, China has changed profoundly under Xi, a leader who in Turnbull’s assessment sees “himself as a man of destiny”.

An interesting new profile in Bloomberg Businessweek outlined a similar adjustment in the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s thinking on China. (Biden’s) goal, the person says, is to keep China from bullying other countries,” Bloomberg reported.

As with Turnbull, Bloomberg noted Biden had changed his mind as Xi’s China has become more assertive, less tolerant and entirely unapologetic.

That is the case inside China, even within the Communist Party, which last weekend announced an investigation into a vice-minister at China’s Ministry of Public Security, Sun Lijun, a graduate of the University of NSW.

A publicised list of Sun’s crimes against the party ­included displaying a lack of “awe” — interpreted as disloyalty to Xi.

And it is the case overseas where, in Turnbull’s assessment, China now conducts more espionage “than anyone else, by far” and notes “they’re not ­embarrassed by being caught”.

He recalls discussing this “industrial scale” cyber intrusion with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang along with China’s militarisation of the South China Sea, which flared up again this week.

“Surely China should want to be seen as more of a cuddly panda than a scary dragon?” Turnbull recalls asking Li.

Three years after that conversation, China shows no sign of changing its answer.