From Left,US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin,Singaporean Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen,and his counterparts,Australia’s Richard Marles and China’s Wei Fenghe.Credit:AFP
A meeting that did not take place under three Australian prime ministers,took only minutes to formulate over the dinner on Friday. (Incidentally,Australian white wine was on the menu.)
By Saturday,the wheels were in motion - crucially on the proviso that there would be no conditions attached to the meeting or immediate expectations from either side.
On Sunday,Wei and Marles met,this time for an hour in a private space where they could be honest about the deep political,diplomatic and defence differences between the two countries.
Neither side wanted to be the first to formally request to reopen ministerial dialogue. More than 30 months of bitter dispute over foreign interference,national security,hostage diplomacy,human rights,trade sanctions and COVID-19 had made both Beijing and Canberra stubborn. But sitting opposite each other - in a neutral venue - made the conditions right for the two defence ministers to come to terms without losing face.
“We agreed it was important that our two countries meet,” Marles said on Sunday.
Australia’s list of disputes with China is long and well established,so too areBeijing’s 14 grievances with Canberra,but the logistical limitations of two years of pandemic diplomacy have made a bad situation worse. Attempts at remote contact have been bogged down in a bureaucratic maze,technical problems and an atmosphere of distrust. China blocked Australia’s phone calls,Australia angered China’s embassy in Canberra. Xi Jinping has largely kept his emissaries - except for Wei and Foreign Minister Wang Yi - at home.