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Geoff Raby on China

Published 24 Mar 2017

On Thursday 23 March, former Australian ambassador to China, Dr Geoff Raby, addressed a packed house at Glover Cottages about the current state of Australia’s relations with China. His talk coincided with a visit to Australia by Chinese premier Li Keqiang.

Geoff said China is constrained from heading a new global order by its history, geography, its neighbourhood and its dependence on overseas resources. But we should not expect that India, the other emerging Asian great power, will soon catch up with China. They are vastly different economies with vastly different values.

China’s growth is staggering. Since completing his post as Australian Ambassador five years ago, Geoff has seen per capita incomes increase  60 percent. The top income deciles now exceed those of the United States. Foreigners simply cannot afford Beijing’s top restaurants which are continually packed with rich Chinese. Financial surpluses increasingly go into the military and infrastructure. China leads other late-comers in its space exploration program. China pursues a more muscular and assertive foreign policy, not least in the South China Sea. Its belt and road policy and its Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank – an alternative to the World Bank-  underlie Beijing’s increasing impatience with financial systems imposed by the United States after World War Two. But Geoff added that we should continue to remind ourselves that conflict between China and the United States is by no means inevitable.

China has tremendous civil engineering capacity and is building highways, fast train systems, power stations and urban conglomerates throughout China and increasingly in countries in South, South East  and Central Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

What does China fear? Internal dissatisfaction and disruption certainly. But beyond that, hostility on its borders; the madness of North Korea’s nuclear program which justifies the installation of American Terminal High Altitude Area Defence missiles in South Korea; the dissolution of the North Korean regime leading to an exodus of armed and unarmed Korean refugees into northern China.

How should Australia react to the new China? Geoff observed that it is easy for Canberra to see China, (as a large part of its foreign policy establishment does), as a competitor, a one-party state, a country bereft of democratic values, a regional bully seeking hegemony to Australia’s north. He noted that Foreign Minister Julie Bishop had just lectured an audience in Singapore inappropriately about the need for democratic values. In his view it is misguided to complicate our relationship by taking ideological positions. We should appreciate that the Chinese have a certain admiration for Australia and its past record of regional diplomacy – our creation of APEC, our peace-making efforts in Cambodia and Timor Leste. We should realise that Australia’s future prosperity lies in closer integration with China and its economic power, not less. We should not dither when offered Chinese investment, or invitations to join Chinese-sponsored regional cooperation projects.

Are we going to have to chose between the United States and China? Geoff, a self-confessed optimist, thought probably not. American economic engagement in and with China is vast, and some of the big American players – banks, high technology manufacturers, service providers – have very sophisticated lobbyists in Washington capable of modifying whatever ill-conceived impulsiveness President Trump might seek to pursue.

 

Richard Broinowski