Culture clash: has Australia miscalculated in its feud with China?

When Scott Morrison met with about 10 of his hawkish backbench colleagues for a “fireside chat” at Parliament House in the middle of May, he had a clear message: Australia would stand up for its values and not blink in the face of pressure from China.

That conversation took place a few days after China launched the first of a series of trade strikes against Australia, imposing punishingly high tariffs on barley exports.

The backbenchers were pleased with Morrison’s resolute tone. But the prime minister’s resolve is increasingly being tested in the face of what observers have called the lowest point in Australia’s relationship with its largest trading partner in decades.

Those tensions were on full display last week after the government helped two Australian journalists flee China after sheltering them in diplomatic compounds for several days and negotiated to remove a ban on their exit if they agreed to be interviewed by Chinese authorities. There are now no longer any accredited Australian journalists for Australian media in China.

The episode triggered anger from Beijing, which revealed Australian security officials investigating alleged foreign interference had also questioned four Chinese journalists from state media outlets in June. The Australian government has also cancelled two Chinese scholars’ visas over security concerns. The Chinese foreign ministry accused Australia of displaying “superiority, hypocrisy and double standards”.

It has become an open question in foreign policy circles: has Australia, a middle power that is heavily economically reliant on a rising China but retains a strong security alliance with the US, miscalculated in its handling of the relationship?

Some analysts certainly hold that view. But others see it as important to hold firm given the increasingly assertive positions taken by China under the leadership of Xi Jinping. The views do not cut neatly along party lines.

“If there is a China strategy, I’m not sure what it is, and I actually think the China strategy is lurching from one thing to another,” admits one backbencher from the governing Liberal party.

But a Labor opposition MP counters: “I think it’s a lot more coherent than what it looks like.”

‘Economic coercion’

While Labor has sought to maintain bipartisanship on foreign policy, it has accused Morrison and senior ministers of failing to show leadership in publicly setting out the terms of Australia’s relationship with China, leaving a void filled by outspoken backbenchers.

Coalition backbencher George Christensen, for example, has accused China of “economic infiltration” and committing a “bastard act” by punishing Australian exporters, and thundered about summonsing the Chinese ambassador to a parliamentary inquiry. Liberal senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells has echoed Donald Trump’s language in talking about the “Wuhan virus” and wants Australia to “decouple” economically from China and seek reparations.

Those making the most forthright public comments – such as Christensen and Fierravanti-Wells – were not invited when the prime minister organised the fireside chat on 12 May.

Those invited included Andrew Hastie, the chair of parliament’s intelligence committee, and David Fawcett, who heads the joint standing committee on foreign affairs, defence and trade. Others were Tim Wilson, James Paterson, Dave Sharma, Vince Connelly, Sarah Henderson, Eric Abetz and Jason Wood, a junior minister.

Morrison said he knew the group had a strong interest in the China issue and he wanted to give them an insight into his thinking.

He was joined by the foreign affairs minister, Marise Payne, who angered the Chinese government several weeks earlier by calling for an independent international inquiry into the origins and early handling of Covid-19.

The message from the backbenchers was to congratulate Morrison and Payne for taking a stand on the inquiry. “Well done,” one said. “That was a proud moment for Australia.”

They were also pleased that the government had declared it would not succumb to “economic coercion”, after China’s ambassador warned in late April a souring of ties might prompt the Chinese people to stop buying Australian beef and wine or visiting Australia for tourism or university.

Chinese authorities had already announced they were proposing an 80% tariff on Australian barley imports, something that would wipe out the most important market for that product. Days later those tariffs were locked in. China has also suspended import permits for some beef processing plants and launched a trade investigation into Australian wine.

Morrison told the backbenchers that he regularly thought about the issues at stake in the China relationship, but was somewhat constrained in what he said publicly because the Chinese Communist party grades comments based on seniority.

“He really emphasised the importance of being consistent, being clear, being unapologetic for asserting our interests,” says a person who was at the meeting.

In line with the Coalition’s free-speech traditions, there was certainly no impression given that backbenchers needed to stop their public commentary altogether, although they were urged to stay in touch with officials – an implicit request that any remarks be well-informed.

Friction with Beijing

Under the leadership of Xi – who took over as president in 2012 and later pushed through the abolition of term limits – China has become more assertive and authoritarian.

The increasing militarisation of the South China Sea, the crackdown on Uighurs and other minority groups in Xinjiang province, and the recent imposition of a wide-reaching national security law in Hong Kong, have alarmed Australia and its international partners.

“This has been some years in the making,” says Richard Maude, a former senior official at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, who headed a taskforce involved in preparing the Turnbull government’s foreign policy white paper in 2017. “It’s really been a series of policy decisions that Australian governments have taken because of the way in which China is changing.”

The Australian government’s decision under former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull to ban “high risk” vendors such as the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei from its 5G network remains a source of friction with Beijing.

Turnbull’s 2017 laws against foreign interference – driven by security concerns about the Chinese government’s covert activities in Australia – were used in this year’s investigation into alleged secret attempts by the Chinese government to influence a New South Wales Labor politician, which led to the questioning of four journalists with three Chinese state media outlets in late June.

Those journalists have since returned to China, with the foreign ministry in Beijing accusing Australia of “damaging mutual trust”. Chinese authorities have also defended their “lawful investigation” into Cheng Lei – an Australian citizen and journalist for Chinese state media who was taken into secretive detention in China last month.

What is the strategy?

Morrison has publicly stressed China’s economic growth as a net positive for Australia and the region – but he has also insisted Australia will stand up for its sovereignty and not “trade away” its values.

While the Trump administration has sought to contain China’s rise, the Australian position does not champion containment. But Morrison has sought to deepen alliances within the region as a counterweight to Beijing’s growing hegemony, and to assert Australia’s role in the Pacific.

The Morrison doctrine is understood to be “strategic patience”, with the government ultimately hoping China understands Australia will consistently stand up for its values and interests and won’t be deterred by economic pressure.

But that realisation hasn’t happened yet. Senior Australian ministers have been blocked in their attempts to arrange talks with their direct Chinese government counterparts. The diplomatic freeze has caused frustration in Canberra. Both sides claim they want a mutually beneficial relationship, although they sharply differ on what that means.

“Australia’s headache is not just that China has become much more powerful, but also that it has become more authoritarian, ideological and nationalist,” says Maude, who is now a senior fellow with the Asia Society Policy Institute. “This will keep driving a clash of interests and values.”

The Covid inquiry

One of the decisions that infuriated the Chinese government was when Payne went on the ABC’s Insiders program on 19 April to publicly call for an independent global investigation into the origins and early handling of Covid-19.

Wang Xining, the deputy head of China’s embassy in Australia, told reporters last month the Chinese people had seen the inquiry call as “shocking” because it seemed to single out China at a time when Wuhan had just come out of a restrictive lockdown.

Allan Behm, the head of the international and security affairs program at the Australia Institute, a progressive thinktank, is critical of Australia for pushing for the inquiry without China’s input.

“How do you think the United States would feel if somebody were to jump up and say we need an independent international inquiry into how badly President Trump has mishandled the coronavirus leading to nearly 200,000 American deaths? Everybody would think that was a very high-handed thing to do.”

Despite the backlash, China ended up supporting the European Union-drafted, Australia-backed, heavily negotiated motion that sailed through the World Health Assembly the following month. But the diplomatic dispute shows no signs of abating.

Who is making the decisions?

The key decisions affecting the relationship with China are made by the national security committee of cabinet, chaired by Morrison. Apart from Payne, the committee brings together the ministers for defence, home affairs and finance, along with the treasurer and the attorney general. The deputy prime minister and Nationals leader, Michael McCormack, whose party seeks to represent farmers who may bear the brunt of trade tensions, also has a seat at the table.

The hardening outlook towards China has sparked debate about whether the hawks have taken over Australia’s foreign policy framework. Michael Pezzullo, who is head of Peter Dutton’s Department of Home Affairs, rejects that view as simplistic. He insists the national security committee makes each decision on its merits.

Other influential figures include Payne’s hawkish chief of staff, Justin Bassi, who was previously at the Office of National Intelligence and is a former national security adviser to Turnbull.

Morrison’s own team of advisers includes national security adviser Michelle Chan, a former diplomat who served as ambassador to Myanmar, and the cabinet secretary, Andrew Shearer. Shearer is a long-time foreign policy hawk who was a national security adviser to John Howard and Tony Abbott. He has previously written that “China’s authoritarian leaders have no respect for weakness and are quick to pocket gratuitous concessions”.

Dfat, traditionally a voice for cautious diplomacy, also appears to have hardened its assessment of trends in the China relationship. Its secretary, Frances Adamson, who was ambassador to China from 2011 to 2015, told the Australian that Beijing’s more assertive approach to diplomacy had undermined trust and Australia must hold firm because “the institutions we take for granted … really are at stake now”.

Where next?

There’s no shortage of advice for the government about how to manage the turbulence. The former prime minister Kevin Rudd says to put down the megaphone. Turnbull says not to bow to the “confected outrage that you regularly see from Beijing”.

But there’s no serious doubt about the shifting power balance in the region. China’s power and influence, explains Maude, is likely to continue to grow relative to both the US and Australia.

“So the best time to put in place policies that respond to some of the particular challenges that China throws up is now,” Maude says. “It’s likely to be harder and more costly – economically and politically – if we try to do this further down the track.”