Managing Australia China relations

Comments on Mark Dodd “Beijing gives Ferguson cold shoulder on LNG trip”, 21/08/2009, http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25959288-601,00.html

It has suddenly proven to be a challenge for the Rudd government to manage Australia's relationship with China, even though Kevin Rudd seemingly has considerable expertise in Chinese and China affairs. It seems that the government in both countries have been surprised by the other and that their relations have deteriorated significantly in recent few months. There are quite a few issues hanging in the air at the moment and need to be resolved.

It is a time for both governments and both nations to reflect on what has been going on, where things have worked well and where they haven’t. For Rudd and Australians, it is important to realise that China has changed a lot over the last 3 decades, also since Rudd was left his Beijing posting. It’s economy is much stronger and larger and firmly market driven. It is now a world economic powerhouse and will remain so for a long time to come. Its political system has shown remarkably successful in terms of leadership succession and power transition.

For the Chinese government and the Chinese people, they need to understand and accept that Australia differs in some values from China and that will remain so for a very long time, even though the economic links between the two countries are strong and will become stronger over time.

There is no question that the two countries have a lot of common interests and are strong partners bound by extremely strong complementariness. The 21st century is an Asian century and the relations between Australia and China will be very important in that context.

There are some issues that are sensitive either to one side or to both. They need and must be handled with extreme political care and diplomatic skills.

Both sides need to be more mature and skilful in understanding the other and managing the bilateral relations.