Therefore, the agitation for some kind of approach only comes from one side, that of China. And the new Australian leader has, in effect, declared two preconditions: withdrawing the 14 lawsuits and removing trade bans.
The response from the Chinese office? Ambassador Xiao told The Australian Financial Review that Beijing could not abandon the trade boycott because “it was not a political decision”, but that each boycott of each product was imposed “on the merits of individual cases”. This is nonsense. Trade bans are pure politics.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles. Credit: James Brickwood
And although he has not been publicly asked about the 14 lawsuits, Xiao has told Australian interlocutors in private that this had been a “serious misunderstanding”. However, he will not publicly dismiss the lawsuits or do anything to clarify this alleged “misunderstanding.”
At the same time, Beijing has been stepping up pressure on Australia. Recall that two Australian writers are detained in China’s political “justice” system. Blogger Yang Hengjun was arrested in 2019 and reports that their eyes were blindfolded and they were glued to a chair daily and interrogated for hours, among other ill-treatment.
And Cheng Lei was arrested in 2020. Last week, his partner, Nick Coyle, said he was not allowed to contact his children or other family. His only contact with the outside world, a monthly video conversation with Australian consular officials, had now been suspended. Because of the COVID-19, supposedly. Apparently, you can now see it via a video link. Asked about her case, Xiao said it was a legal issue and “should not be a problem” for relations with Australia.
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And now we learn that the Chinese air force aggressively sounded an RAAF surveillance plane on May 26th. The Australian plane was on a totally routine flight in the international airspace over the South China Sea.
Thus, while Chinese officials publicly present a conciliatory face, they maintain existing political, economic, and military pressures while adding new layers in less visible ways.
Pretending to offer the hand of friendship, they are, in fact, demanding full reverence. Offering public clichés and private pressure, they are looking at whether a new Australian government will break. It’s a test.
This is a surprisingly amateurish misreading of Australia. Why would Albanese make unilateral concessions? It is under zero pressure from anyone other than the Xi Jinping regime. The industries under the Beijing boycott have largely adjusted and certainly do not expect the Albanian government to capitulate.
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The Australian people strongly support the Australian challenge, as polls show. New opposition leader Peter Dutton on Sunday vowed to support the government by taking “all the steps it needs to take to keep our country safe”. And countries around the world look to Australia as an inspiration to resist the coercion of the Chinese Communist Party.
Last week, the Chinese government threatened New Zealand with trade boycotts. Jacinda Ardern had dared to express her concern about Beijing’s strategy in the Pacific and China’s human rights violations. Beijing would consider it a tremendous victory for Australia, an example for countries around the world. It is not offering anything, demanding everything.
The Albanian government has no intention of giving in and has no conceivable political gain from doing so. However, it intends to take a changed approach.
While in opposition, Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles often said that the Morrison government accepted Theodore Roosevelt’s advice – that countries should “speak softly and carry a big stick” – and applied it to the reverse. Dutton spoke of “preparing for war,” but had not equipped Australia with any long-range attack capability to keep an enemy at bay. Everything is in order, there is nothing on hand.
Now a defense minister, Marles is part of a government that plans to implement the adage as Roosevelt put it: refrain from inflammatory rhetoric while rushing to acquire a serious capacity. That would be a sincere reply to the insincere openings.
Cut to the chase of federal politics with Jacqueline Maley’s news, opinion, and expert analysis. Subscribers can subscribe to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter here.