It’s a busy time in Beijing – this autumn has already hosted a major Belt and Road forum, international dignitaries, and a security summit. But an upcoming visit by the Australian prime minister has also prompted a flurry of preparations and discussion.
Anthony Albanese’s three-day tour of Shanghai and Beijing, the first prime ministerial visit to the country in seven years, is being warmly welcomed. He is expected to meet with the premier, Li Qiang – the host of the official visit – and the president, Xi Jinping, with whom Canberra has said Albanese will raise tough issues.
Chinese state media reporting on the upcoming visit have characterised the trip as a new chapter of the turbulent Australia-China relationship, a thawing of a frost which had hardened over recent years. Many reports have lauded the return to higher trade. On Thursday, a lengthy interview in the People’s Daily with the former trade minister, Andrew Robb, was glowing about the economic relationship and hope for the future.
The official outlet China Daily described the trip as politically and economically “ice-breaking” after dialogue halted in 2016 “because of the previous Australian government’s adversarial stance toward China”.
Reports and Chinese officials who spoke to the Guardian cited Australia’s Huawei ban, early calls for a Covid-19 inquiry, and the 2020 Asio raid on Chinese state media reporters. Several said a key point of tension was Canberra’s strengthening of regional partnerships which appear targeted towards China – including Aukus, the Quad and strengthening ties with Japan – and its “interference” in the South China Sea.
Beijing has characterised much of Australia’s actions as blindly following the US, China’s major rival. “For most of its history, Australia has been reluctant to exercise independence and to partner with the countries in its region,” said a China Daily editorial.
“I don’t think Australia should pick and choose between China and the United States,” said Victor Gao, chair professor at Soochow University, in a video op-ed published by the Global Times.
“Australia is not a competitor for China – militarily, politically speaking, economically speaking, in terms of trading relations.”
In Beijing, a senior analyst at a Chinese thinktank told the Guardian that Australia needed to think “more independently”.
Several concessions were made before the visit. Tariffs on wine and other Australian imports have been lifted in return for Australia easing restrictions on Chinese windtowers. The Australian journalist Cheng Lei was released from detention after almost three years on undefined national security charges, although it was officially explained as the conclusion of criminal justice processes.
Last month, a small group of Australian journalists, including this reporter, were invited to China. The tightly managed trip was the resumption of a decade-long exchange program between the Australia Pacific Journalism Centre and the Chinese Communist party-linked All-China Journalists Association. The program had paused because of the pandemic, but its resumption remained on ice amid the souring relations.
It was suggested the week-long trip was both a gesture of goodwill ahead of Albanese’s visit, and something of a test. No Australian media outlets have had correspondents in China since the ABC’s Bill Birtles and Michael Smith from the AFR fled in 2020 after being interrogated by security services.
Under the authoritarian rule of Xi, candid conversations with people inside China has become increasingly difficult and – if opinions are critical of the CCP – dangerous. Voices from outside the tour spoke of a chilling of critical conversation, and a suspicion that there was little if any critical information reaching Xi from fearful subordinates. One noted that leader-to-leader meetings like Albanese’s were increasingly crucial as the only way to guarantee Xi was receiving a complete message.
In discussion about the decline in relations, party officials, thinktankers, state media journalists and business people supported a common state media narrative that the blame lay entirely with the Morrison and Turnbull governments – nevermind that the Albanese government has largely stuck to the same foreign policy stance.
“Sensational” Australian media reporting about the threat of China was also noted, as was domestic concern about levels of foreign investment in Australia’s property market. Australian concern over China’s human rights abuses in Xinjiang was rejected, but there was surprising acceptance of the reputational damage done by its crackdown in Hong Kong. Objections to Beijing’s threats to Taiwan were roundly dismissed as not the world’s business. Few would speak about the release of Cheng Lei, either declining or answering a completely different and unasked question. None would talk of Yang Hengjun, still in prison.
Additional research by Chi Hui Lin
