Why? Because the bullying wasn’t working. And because Beijing realised that it had overreached so much that it had alienated and alerted many countries at once in its “wolf warrior” phase. It wants us to relapse into our customary stupor so it can work towards dominance without disturbance.
Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton with Chinese Premier Li Qiang at Parliament House yesterday.Alex Ellinghausen
To show its munificence,it’s generously removing the illegal trade bans on Australian products – as if trade is some kind of favour rather than an exchange for mutual benefit – and giving us a pair of therapy pandas.
You’d imagine that the Albanese government won’t fall for it. To the prime minister’s credit,he did raise directly with Li Qiang several of Beijing’s more egregious harms to Australia. These include the People’s Liberation Army’s dangerous and deliberate harassments of the Australian Navy in international waters,the CCP’s illegal interference operations against Australian citizens on Australian soil,the imprisonment of Australian citizen Yang Hengjun under sentence of death,and the last remaining trade bans on Australian abattoirs and lobsters.
Australian companies have been smart enough to learn from the. Australia’s export dependency on China stood at a staggering 40 per cent before the bans,the greatest exposure to a single nation since Australia’s naive dependency on Mother Britain in the 1950s and 60s. Today,Australia’s export dependency on China is down from an idiotic 40 per cent to an imprudent 25 per cent.
Some Australian business people have learnt more than others. The Future Fund’s chief executive Raphael Arndt said last week that the fund was keeping its $200 billion in assets more diversified and more domestic because the world “looks much more like the world of the 1930s than recent decades”.
The world is heading towards a great crisis as the US braces for a confrontation with the. China’s President Xi Jinping has himself warned of a dire outlook. He addressed a top-level national security meeting last year with these words:“We must be prepared for worst-case and extreme scenarios,and be ready to withstand the major test of high winds,choppy waters and even dangerous storms.”
A week later he urged China to prepare to operate the economy “under extreme circumstances”. We can’t say he hasn’t warned us. Curiously,Australia claims to be gripped by the importance of the China relationship yet somehow fails to report,to discuss or even to comprehend the speeches of its leader.
And there are more troubling signs that Australia is turning a blind eye to critical areas where Beijing is encroaching on Australian sovereignty and rights.
Why would Albanese go easy? Because the government has adopted a policy of “stabilisation”,a self-imposed trap. If your stated aim is “stabilisation”,you don’t want to do anything that might roil relations. The moment there’s a sign of destabilisation,your policy has failed.
The Chinese Communist Party doesn’t feel so constrained. And we’re indebted to the protester on the lawns of Parliament House on Monday who tried to burn a Chinese Communist Party flag. He didn’t succeed – the police took the flag away – but he reminds us of the vital distinction between China and the Chinese Communist Party;Australia has no quarrel with the people or nation of China,but it has very deep differences with the Chinese Communist Party.
What are the troubling signs of Australian wilful blindness? Most alarming was the disturbing news that agents of CCP influence are threatening the physical safety of Australians,in Australia,as the authorities watch on.
On Saturday,my colleague:“Federal police told prominent critics of the Chinese Communist Party they were suspected targets of a foreign interference operation,warning them to avoid adopting a predictable daily routine to prevent putting themselves in danger.”
The Australian Federal Police issued these warnings to Drew Pavlou and Vicky Xu 10 months ago,urging them to keep the information secret. The pair decided to speak to Knott “out of frustration that no arrests had been made,or charges laid”.
Pavlou,a former Senate candidate,and Xu,a prominent journalist,are people with high profiles and access to resources. We can only imagine what the party is getting away with among the more vulnerable members of the Chinese Australian community. These are the prime targets of the party and its United Front operatives;they need vigilant protection from Australian authorities.
Seven years since the parliament passed laws against foreign interference,it’s obvious they’re not getting it. The CCP evidently still threatens our people. Is this a condition of “stabilisation” – tolerating aggressive and illegal harassment by a foreign nation’s covert agents? When Knott quizzed Albanese about this at a press conference on Monday,the prime minister dodged.
There are others;ANU’s Elizabeth Buchanan has alerted us to the fact that the CCP has built three research stations on Australian Antarctic Territory,bases with dual civilian and military functions. What is Canberra doing about it? “Missing in action”,says Buchanan.
Matt Golding
It took a major CCP security deal with the Solomons to wake Australia to Beijing’s intrusions into our northern approaches. What will it take to get Australia active on its intrusions into our southern territories?
Finally,the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s annual report on nuclear warheads reported on Monday that “for the first time China is believed to have some warheads on high operational alert”. Not much Australia can do about that,but it should keep us from relapsing into our traditional stupor.
The mask is back on and the tactics have changed,but Beijing’s strategy has not.
Peter Hartcher is international editor.
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