Australia's strategic naivety must end and Albanese's six-day festival of flattery in China shows why

Sky News AU

19-07-2025

Whatever the failings of China's Communist government, its ability to roll out red carpets to foreign dignitaries is second to none.
Mr Albanese got the full treatment this week, beginning with the motorcade from the airport, light poles adorned with the Australian flag, a private tour of the Great Wall, a lavish banquet, serenades of Australian rock anthems, glowing coverage in the state press, and countless other choreographed gestures to make him feel honoured.
When China turns on the charm for foreign leaders, the recipients would be wise to maintain a healthy degree of scepticism.
What appears to be gracious hospitality is in fact a carefully orchestrated performance, an exercise in image control for both domestic and global audiences.
This is not just diplomacy - it is a ritualised assertion of symbolic superiority rooted in China's imperial past.
To resist the choreography is to risk awkwardness, tension, or even diplomatic reprisal.
What seems like an over-elaborate show of politeness is, in truth, a system of soft coercion.
It is a stage upon which foreign leaders are cast in subordinate roles, encouraged to reciprocate not only with courtesy but with political restraint.
It is both a performance and a test: imperious in tone, strategic in purpose and deeply psychological in effect.
Let us hope the Prime Minister received a full and frank briefing from officials at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade before embarking on this six-day charm offensive.
Let us hope, too, that he kept a cool head and did not mince his words behind closed doors.
Maintaining a functional relationship with Beijing is a legitimate objective.
But it must not come at the expense of Australia's vital national interests: the strength of the US alliance, support for Taiwan's democratic sovereignty and the security of our critical infrastructure.
The timing of the trip was less than ideal.
Accepting six days of Chinese hospitality ahead of a meeting with the leader of our closest ally sent mixed signals.
Beijing's red-carpet rollout was an opportunistic move, aimed at exploiting the perceived awkwardness between the ANZUS partners.
A more seasoned leader might have postponed the visit for a more auspicious moment.
China's propaganda machine wasted no time.
State media warned against "third-party interference" that could derail Australia's improving relationship with China - a thinly veiled swipe at the US.
In an editorial reproduced in other Chinese media, the 'China Daily' gushed that 'today's China-Australia relationship is like a plane flying in the 'stratosphere' after passing through the storm zone'.
Faced with this media wall of self-congratulation, the Prime Minister's task was to hold the line.
He needed to explain, firmly and politely, why the relationship is not as cosy as Beijing wishes to portray.
The unannounced dispatch of Chinese gunboats to conduct live-fire exercises off the Australian coast with Australia's exclusive economic zone is not the behaviour of a friendly nation.
We know the Prime Minister raised the issue and that President Xi Jinping told him that China would engage in exercises just as Australia does.
In other words, get used to it.
Equally, it was incumbent upon the PM to reassert Australia's sovereign right to revisit the 2014 lease of the Port of Darwin to Landbridge Group.
What appeared at the time to be a straightforward commercial transaction now looks like a concession of breathtaking naivety.
Landbridge is no ordinary private investor.
Its chairman is a member of a high-level Communist Party advisory body.
The company has an internal CCP committee, a "people's armed militia" linked to the PLA, and a structure that offers little insulation from state influence.
That such an entity holds the keys to a critical infrastructure node less than 25 kilometres from a US military facility would today be dismissed out of hand.
To its credit, the Morrison government recognised the shifting strategic environment.
It called for an inquiry into the origins of Covid-19, barred Huawei from Australia's 5G network, and enacted laws enabling Canberra to review and cancel foreign investments that threaten national interests.
The Darwin lease may have escaped scrutiny, but future projects should not.
What Australia needs now is a policy of clarity.
The Darwin lease cannot be allowed to stand while China continues to act with strategic belligerence, attempting to secure dominance in the Pacific.
Australia must be prepared to act decisively: by developing redundant military infrastructure or revoking the lease outright in the national interest.
China respects strength and exploits ambiguity.
To vacillate now is to invite pressure later.
Our policy must evolve with the times. Strategic naivety can no longer be tolerated.
Which brings us to Taiwan.
The Prime Minister's insistence that sensitive topics be kept behind closed doors is problematic in the face of potential misrepresentation.
Chinese state media claimed Albanese assured President Xi that Australia does not support Taiwanese independence.
If accurate, this would be a grievous distortion of Australian policy.
Australia's ambiguity on Taiwan stems from the December 1972 communiqué signed by Gough Whitlam, which recognised the PRC as the sole legal government of China, acknowledged Beijing's claim over Taiwan, and closed our embassy in Taipei.
It contained no reciprocal commitments and no statement of Australia's independent view.
By contrast, when President Nixon established ties with China earlier that year, the US acknowledged Beijing's position but also insisted on a peaceful resolution of the Taiwan question.
The difference between acknowledgement and acquiescence mattered then and matters even more today.
That foundational ambiguity has persisted for five decades, feeding a dangerous cycle of strategic vagueness.
In the 1970s, this may have seemed inconsequential: China was a marginal trading partner, Taiwan an autocratic backwater.
But the world has changed.
Taiwan is now a thriving democracy, a technological powerhouse, and a key player in global supply chains.
China, meanwhile, has grown more authoritarian and assertive.
A forcible annexation of Taiwan would shatter regional stability, weaken the US alliance system, and threaten Australia's own security.
The shift towards more cautious engagement with Beijing that began under Morrison must now be completed.
That requires speaking plainly.
Taiwan's future must not be decided by force.
Australia, alongside its allies, must be prepared to resist any effort to alter the status quo through coercion.
Prime Minister Albanese's visit offered an opportunity to deliver that message.
Let us hope that he took it, rather than allowing it to be subsumed by a six-day festival of flattery.
Nick Cater is a senior fellow at the Menzies Research Centre and a regular contributor to Sky News Australia