Australia can never agree to the deal China really wants | Alexander Downer

There are two possible ways Australia should view China. It’s worth thinking about which is best for our national interest, writes Alexander Downer.

The Prime Minister’s recent long trip to China is cause for reflection.

Stripped of rhetoric, there are two possible ways Australia should view China. It’s worth thinking about which of these judgments is best for our national interest.

First, we could focus on the commercial relationship – trade as well as investment – with the world’s second biggest economy.

What is more, China is by far Australia’s largest trading partner and the potential to increase that trade is a realistic ambition. China imposes substantial restrictions on trade and investment and we could work to have more of those restrictions removed.

In terms of jobs and above all the prosperity of Australia, these are objectives worth pursuing. To succeed, there needs to be an element of reciprocity.

We allow most Chinese exports into Australia duty-free but we have imposed various restrictions on China’s investment in our critical national infrastructure.

The current debate about ports in Darwin and Western Australia is a case in point.

Does it really matter if China owns a container port within eyesight of a submarine base?

Should we continue with the ban on Chinese companies investing in our telecommunications?

Should Huawei be allowed to invest in the NBN infrastructure?

In both these cases, China’s government will be urging the Australian government to lift restrictions and there is no doubt they will apply a principle of reciprocity.

The more we lift restrictions on China’s investment in our infrastructure, the more China will grant Australia commercial preferment in their own market.

This strategy requires two other geo-strategic characteristics.

We would have to distance ourselves from our traditionally close alliance with the United States and project a greater degree of neutrality between China and America.

A concomitant of that strategy would be a requirement imposed by Beijing that we no longer complain about China’s support for Russia’s war in Ukraine and for Iran.

We would also tacitly accept China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea and recognise that the status of Taiwan is a matter for China not for us.

This approach is based on a heroic assumption that China is a benign power uninterested in great power competition, benign towards the Indo-Pacific region and disconnected from foreign wars.

The second approach makes harsher judgments about China’s role in the world, it’s ideological disposition and a quite different definition of Australia’s national interest.

According to this scenario, China is using its huge economic weight and it’s technological prowess to undermine the power and authority of the world’s liberal democracies, in particular the United States. Let’s just take the Ukraine war.

China is giving solid diplomatic support to the Russians, is certainly providing dual use technologies – that is technology that can be used for both civilian and military purposes – and may be providing direct military support for Russia via North Korea.

When Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, visited Beijing last week, the Chinese President, Xi Jinping, brazenly reaffirmed China’s support for Russia by stating that China and Russia had to “strengthen their mutual support”.

The Chinese foreign minister earlier this month told a senior EU official that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was “a blessing … because it diverted the West’s attention away from the Pacific to Europe”.

Russia’s economy is heavily dependent on oil exports and two-thirds of its oil exports go to China and India. Last year, Russia’s oil exports earned around $US190 billion.

So that finances its war.

In the South China Sea, China has blatantly disregarded international law by claiming and militarising a number of reefs which are not within Chinese territory.

And then there’s Taiwan. The Chinese leadership is continually threatening Taiwan.

Globally, the Chinese leadership wants to undermine the power and influence of the liberal democratic world, led by America.

According to the second policy choice, Australia could declare itself a fierce defender of the liberal democratic order and make its displeasure known to the Chinese leadership in polite but no uncertain terms.

What is more, we should remind China that we are welded to the Western alliance, in particular but not exclusively, through our alliance with the United States.

Beyond that, fine.

We’re happy to trade with China but a country which is hostile to the liberal democratic world will never be able to invest in our critical strategic infrastructure.

And we know we have to coexist with China but we would tell them face-to-face that their support for hostile regimes like Russia, Iran and North Korea will be a severe restraint on our political and strategic collaboration.

For me, the idea that somehow we should be neutral between the US and China is preposterous. The first model is ugly and selfish policy.

We leave the hard issues to others so we can flog stuff. We’ve been better than that over the generations.

We’ve always been prepared to stand by our mates in the cause of freedom. But now? I’m not so sure.

Originally published as Australia can never agree to the deal China really wants | Alexander Downer