In their meetings with Chinese counterparts,Prime Minister Anthony Albanese,Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong and Defence Minister Richard Marles have displayed a deft diplomacy that the.
The Turnbull and Morrison governments achieved big things:reorienting the China relationship to a more realistic footing;banning Huawei and other high-risk vendors from next-generation networks;enacting landmark foreign interference laws;and the AUKUS submarine deal. But the diplomacy wasn’t always strong enough to support their strategic intentions.
Look at the handling of the. Or Scott Morrison calling a. Or the way in which it handled the. Or its.
The way that Wong has approached the region has been a breath of fresh air.
In all of her speeches in the Pacific and South-East Asia,Wong has talked about shared “interests” much more than shared “values” such as liberal democracy. This is because the Morrison government’s constant talk of values went down like a lead balloon in South-East Asia. Most of these countries share our fear of a growing and more assertive China but don’t necessarily share our love for liberal democracy.
Wong is meeting audiences where they are at,and trying to build alignment from there. This shouldn’t be a surprise;Wong has always.
When she is talking to an American audience,as she did earlier this month in a speech in Washington,there is much more talk of shared democratic values. But in her speech in Singapore in July,shared interests won the day.
”We need to continue to build alignment together and with others to help shape outcomes in ways that support our collective interests,” Wong said in the speech that referenced the word “interests” eight times.
This is similar to a new approach outlined by Britain’s foreign secretary James Cleverly last week,which emphasised building new partnerships with
None of this is to say that Albanese and Wong have achieved anything substantive yet,apart from the
Meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Foreign Minister Wang Yi aren’t achievements in and of themselves. The return to normal relations with Beijing has to result in Australia’s interests being advanced in some way.
By next year,Xi needs to follow through on his promise to remove the billions of dollars in trade sanctions that have been imposed on Australian exports since 2020.
And Canberra must make some progress on securing the release of two imprisoned Australian citizens, The thaw in relations with Beijing has led to renewed hope that a breakthrough can be reached on the two cases,but there is a long way to go.
If there is no sign that Xi is willing to give Australia anything substantive,then Albanese and Wong need to respond accordingly.
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