Dialogue with China needs to be worthwhile for Australians

Transactional rather than stability has been the defining feature of Australia’s bilateral relationship with China, placing hard limits on its development.

Although not announced at the time, China pledged in 2013 to strengthen the framework for bilateral discussions with Australia Annual Leaders Meeting It was Canberra that agreed to make the relationship a strategic partnership in return, just like the finalization of the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement a year or so later was what we agreed to upgrade Designated as a comprehensive strategic partnership.

Ten years on, and against the backdrop of the possible resumption of the annual leaders’ meeting following talks between Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Chinese counterpart Wang Yi last December, it’s worth reflecting on what Australia has achieved so far from leaders’ meetings and how they have worked for us better.

Looking back at the early days of strengthening the bilateral architecture, the then newly installed President Xi Jinping would have valued the labels strategic partner and comprehensive strategic partner as they told others about Australia’s strategic trajectory and he was probably happier than we were at the thought of paying for improved market access , Several meetings between Premier Li Keqiang and the Australian Prime Minister also conveyed this message.

In short, China immediately got what it wanted out of this arrangement.

Today, while the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership and Free Trade Agreement remain, the bilateral relationship is defined by economic coercion and an aggressive Chinese government that until recently refused to talk to anyone at any level in the Australian government about anything.

The enhanced bilateral architecture clearly did not have as much of an impact on Australia in 2013 as we thought it would, and I don’t think there was even one area where it had a lasting positive impact on the development of the bilateral relationship.

We didn’t get what we wanted.

To make it worthwhile for Australians, resuming the leaders’ meeting will require more than photo opportunities and other mechanical gestures that might signify respect or at least signal improved relations on the Chinese side. If they become Beijing’s annual drill suggesting it has done Australia a favor by talking to us then we are in debt to it then we shouldn’t bother to show up.

Nor should we participate if there are strings attached.

While it is not worth paying anything to resume negotiations that are of no use to us, negotiations based on a genuine exchange of views on an unlimited range of issues will be very valuable to Australia, and we should make that clear to China.

One way to show Beijing that we want more meaningful dialogue is to initiate it. In the context of the leaders’ meeting, that means prioritizing what we want to know, not what we think Chinese leaders want the meeting to talk about about the state of the bilateral relationship.

We can and should ask questions about issues that interest us, and that we think we would benefit from knowing more about, than just those that get us talking about topics in the post-meeting press release x and yes Been proposed.

The Australian government, for example, presumably wonders whether Chinese leaders are surprised by the ineffectiveness of trade sanctions in changing Australia’s strategic calculus, what has driven China’s long-term aggressive global diplomacy, and how successful they think it has been.

why not ask? What’s the worst?

In any case, the Chinese leader’s response is instructive. If they’re dismissive, then they’re dismissive. But if they provide thoughtful answers, that invites us to talk more openly and honestly about our strategic intentions, something that we haven’t done enough with China, often but not always through no fault of our own.

When signing the enhanced bilateral architecture in 2013, Prime Minister Julia Gillard Say, naturally, the new structure will not do the work for us, nor will it make the difficult issues in our relationship any easier. It’s all about elevating existing habits of dialogue and collaboration, she said.

The stark reality of bilateral relations, then and now, is that the habits of dialogue and cooperation that foster respect, listening skills, and the ability to compromise have never been cultivated between the two countries. One of the main reasons is the transactional nature of the relationship.

The challenges facing both countries require more open and effective forms of communication than we have been able to develop thus far. Using the resumed annual leaders meeting to foster a more genuine and curious exchange of ideas will really make our time worthwhile.