Cool heads must prevail
In the business world that I come from, I have always held the position that you treat your buyer with kid gloves because if you mistreat them, they will go elsewhere.
More than 100 countries have joined Australia and the EU for an enquiry into the origins of COVID-19, with no mention of China or Wuhan in the draft document. The call has struck a chord. However, the early handling could have been more sensitive. And with somewhere from 34–38% of our exports going to China, Australia is particularly vulnerable.
We, in the West, must not forget that we are beholden to China for much of our comfortable lifestyle. Iconic businesses are Chinese-owned. Chinese companies manufacture our everyday consumables, cars, trains, you name it. The Chinese buy our education services. They visit our shores by the millions to holiday. They built the technology to which we are addicted. In short, we are in a dependent relationship. And perhaps never more so than now, as we plummet into recession, the relationship needs careful tending.
The Hon. George Christensen calling China’s imposition of tariffs ‘a bastard act’, is certainly not the way to treat a good customer or foreign power. His suggestion we threaten China with rescinding the lease on the Port of Darwin is, to put it mildly, rough and unprofessional, if not inciting racism. He also attempts to take the high moral ground on China. Yes, there are human rights and other issues there, but which country is totally clean? And who would replace them? India perhaps? If we talk about human rights as a factor in trade decisions, we are in for a shock there too. Besides, promises made by Narendra Modi to Tony Abbott when he visited India in 2014 remain mostly unfulfilled. Human rights must be dealt with in the appropriate forum, not by a xenophobic backbencher. There is no place for such comments in trade, and it has understandably put China’s back up. I am not a Chinese sympathiser, but the Chinese Ambassador’s reaction was not surprising.
On the Port of Darwin, we should remember that in 2015, no one was interested in buying it for the price paid by China. Then, after much negotiation, the Australian security establishment approved China’s Landbridge Corporation to lease the facility. We were fortunate to find a buyer.
Now, we face the barley tariff dispute, which the Federal Government this week says, began 18-months ago. China’s decision on tariff’s to coincide with the COVID-19 enquiry call is purely coincidental, we are told. If this is the case then our government could have made the timeline clear; perhaps somewhat tempering local reactions to China’s decision this week.
In the barley dispute, the Australian business lobby are being labelled traitors for doing their job of looking after our business interests. Losing Australian export revenue and jobs does not help us. Only a week ago, Australia was receiving calls to remove the hurdles on foreign property ownership and lending so that the Chinese could buy Australian property to help lift us out of recession. There are so many mixed messages.
It’s no doubt there is a fine line to tread here, where trade, diplomacy, and our military relationships with allies must be fire-walled to achieve the best outcomes in each sector. The invaluable Five Eyes alliance saves Australia tens of billions of dollars annually that we don’t have to spend protecting ourselves from global threats.
At the base of much of this confusion is the fear that we are too reliant on Chinese money. Decades of Australian Government policies have made us heavily-reliant on exports, leaving our economy at the mercy of our buyers. And China has been there to buy from us. If we wish to change that and be more in control of our destiny as a manufacturer, then it’s our responsibility to change. Our position is certainly not China’s fault.
When asked if his Chinese counterpart had returned calls, Trade Minister Simon Birmingham (ABC Insiders, 17 May) avoided answering the question directly – several times. The last thing we need now is for communication lines at the highest levels to be down.
Now both sides of this dispute are on tenterhooks. Cool, realistic heads must prevail, and we must use language that ensures open dialogue. We must all dispense with unhelpful phrases, such as Australia calling ourselves America’s ‘deputy sheriff’, and as China has called us, the US ‘errand boy’.
Julia Gillard addressed the COVID-19 enquiry dilemma with intelligence last week, on her appointment as Chair of the Wellcome Trust: “If a major health challenge for the world started anywhere, in any country on earth, then it is good to have a process which enables us to learn every lesson so that we can keep humanity safer for the future.”
If everyone had employed diplomatic norms from day one, we might have avoided this diplomatic chaos, and the high stakes trade war we now face.