7 days ago
Anthony Albanese's China visit sought to 'stabilise the relationship'
The Chinese don't seem to do things by halves. The city of Chengdu in China's south-west has a history of continuous occupation dating back over 2000 years.
But drive through this metropolis of 21 million people and you would be lucky to see a building that is more than 30 years old. And it looks and feels very prosperous.
Chengdu is part of the staggering economic and social transformation that has taken place in China over the past four decades and it only seems to be speeding up.
They are building a completely new suburban city, named the Great City, on the outskirts of Chengdu which will house 80,000 people in just 1.3 kilometres of land when it is estimated to be completed in 2040.
Fifteen per cent of the land will be devoted to parks and landscaped space. The idea is that you will only ever be a 15-minute walk from the city centre and so won't need a car. And it is estimated the city will use 48 per cent less energy and 58 per cent less water and produce 89 per cent less landfill waste and 60 per cent less carbon dioxide than a city with the same population.
For self-described "infrastructure nerd" Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, the city is mesmerising.
Albanese told journalists at his final press conference of his six-day visit to China that he wanted them to go back and tell Australians about what was happening there, even in places beyond Beijing and Shanghai, as part of his mission to re-emphasise the importance of Australia's economic relationship with China, as opposed to just the focus on the rising superpower as a strategic threat.
There is a great sense abroad, when you are in China, that you are looking at the future, even as the United States seems determined to relegate itself to the past.
English commentator Ambrose Evans-Pritchard wrote in London's The Telegraph recently:
"China's leaders must be wondering whether they are hallucinating or whether America's political class really has lost its mind, committing economic and geopolitical self-harm on a breathtaking scale. Donald Trump's 'big beautiful bill' marks a wholesale retreat from swaths of advanced manufacturing and energy technology. It abandons a central front of the Sino-American superpower contest without a fight."
There's some sense of the tin ear, too, in the way the US is conducting itself in the strategic space, at least as far as Australia is concerned.
In what was seen as a fairly blatant attempt by the US — our biggest strategic partner — to disrupt Albanese's visit to our biggest economic partner, a story appeared in the Financial Times last weekend reporting that US Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby has been privately pushing Australia and Japan for pre-commitment to support the US in a future conflict over the Taiwan Strait.
It was a push that was met with incredulity by official circles in Australia, and publicly with a polite but complete rebuff from the prime minister.
"We, of course, are a sovereign nation," the PM told the ABC when asked if the US push was somewhat presumptuous.
"The US alliance has been our most important alliance. It remains our most important alliance. That is a critical relationship that we have for our defence and security. But that doesn't abrogate the need for Australia to have the last say in our own defence and security relationships."
The pressure was coming from a nation that has long had a policy of "strategic ambiguity" over Taiwan: that is, not saying how it would respond if China chose to forcefully bring Taiwan under its control.
"The United States has had a policy of strategic ambiguity over these issues," the PM told the ABC.
"It's one that's been shared by Australia. We don't want to see any change to the status quo.
"We have supported the one China policy, as does the United States, as part of the recognition of China that occurred, in our case, under Gough Whitlam."
There's also quite a lot of questioning among analysts of the US's broader commitment to the Asia-Pacific too, let alone whether it would ultimately commit to full-scale war over Taiwan.
Barack Obama's "pivot" to the region never really took off. The region has never really been a clear priority for Trump. Joe Biden talked about it but not much happened.
Except, of course, Australia's position as a physical base for the American military continues to grow: from B52 bombers and troops in Northern Australia to US nuclear submarines in Perth.
So is the PM confident that the US is committed to the region?
"Well, I'm confident that it is in the United States's interests," he said.
"Of course they have a major presence in their Pacific nation there, and their naval presence based in Hawaii is one, where Australia participates with our allies, there in Hawaii. And I've visited the centre there and engaged with the leadership there in the Pacific. And I think that the United States will continue to be engaged. That's an important thing for their presence and we welcome it."
But do the recent actions of Trump raise a question about the reliability of the US as an ally? Those actions have included everything from unilaterally bombing Iran, to imposing tough tariffs on allies.
"We continue to express our support for the relationship with the United States", he says.
"It is our most important ally and we continue to have constructive relations with the US."
Trump's war on the world has been focused primarily on trade wars, rather than shooting wars.
The prime minister has been criticised by the opposition for failing to have a meeting so far with Trump.
"I note on tariffs that there's no country that has received a better deal than Australia," Albanese said.
"I have engaged constructively with members of the Trump administration, as have other members of my government.
"In the discussions I've had with him, they have been constructive and they certainly have not engaged in any negativity around AUKUS.
"And when I visited the United States for my state visit [during the Biden presidency] and met with so many members of Congress and the Senate, there was overwhelming support for the AUKUS arrangements."
Australians really haven't had much of a chance to see a debate about AUKUS because it was signed quickly and both sides of politics agreed to it.
But in the wake of the Colby comments, the question of just commitments that may have been made to take part in US military actions comes into sharp focus.
"Well, Australia's a sovereign nation and governments of the day make decisions on behalf of the Australian government and certainly I cannot envisage a circumstance where an Australian government would give up that sovereignty," the PM told the ABC.
"Now I note in recent days most of the Coalition have said that that's the case. Angus Taylor has said something different and it's up to them to really clarify exactly what their position is."
The PM continues to insist that the nuclear submarines that are central to the AUKUS plan are essential to our defence strategy.
"What we've done is invested in our capability, but also invested in our relationships," he said.
"When it comes to our capability, the getting, obtaining by Australia of nuclear powered submarines has a number of advantages over other pieces of military equipment.
"The fact that a nuclear-powered submarine can stay under, submerge for longer, that it can travel further, that it's quieter, that it's less detectable means that it's an investment which my government agreed with the former government, was in Australia's national interest. "
As for his visit to China. People often want to know what material benefits come out of such a trip (and Opposition Leader Sussan Ley was asking that very question on Thursday).
But Albanese says the importance was in the relationship rather than the transactions.
"This is about stabilising the relationship," he said.
"It was at a bad point prior to our election in 2022. Since then, we have seen over $20 billion of trade impediments removed and we're now exporting large amounts, in some cases more than we were before."
Barley into China as well as wine, our other agricultural exports, as well as our resources exports.
"One of the really significant meetings that we've had here is on steel decarbonisation. Iron ore represents by far our largest export by value, and overwhelmingly it comes here to China," Albanese said.
"China produces over 50 per cent of the world's steel. If we're going to address the emissions reduction that the globe needs, then steel decarbonisation has to be a part of that and the idea of combining green metals, green steel production is something that is very significant to take the world forward as well as being in our national economic interest."
But none of this can take away from the sense of unease many feel about China's aggressive military build-up in the region and there have been many references in the past week to the tightrope the PM has had to walk between economic and strategic interests.
"You've just gotta be clear and consistent," he said when asked about how much of a tightrope act it really is.
"We have different political systems. We have different values, but we shouldn't allow our differences to define us.
"We should acknowledge what they are, be prepared to engage with them, engage with them constructively.
"My three phrases I consistently use, and have used, since the time I was Labor leader in opposition is that we should cooperate where we can, disagree where we must, and there are areas where we will continue to disagree but engage in our national interest."
The appearance of Chinese military vessels off the east coast of Australia — and the live firing exercises that they undertook — has caused consternation to many but the PM points out we can't have one policy for us and another for China.
"When it comes to military exercises, of course in international waters, Australia participates regularly in exercises, including around the South China Sea," he said.
That is, on China's doorstep.
"So we shouldn't be surprised that there will be exercises conducted. What we should do is seek greater clarification, greater notice to make sure there's no misadventure there. As I said at the time we did acknowledge that it was within international law."
Like the building projects in Chengdu, there doesn't seem to be a lot done by halves on strategic issues in China either.
There was an implicit acknowledgement from President Xi this week that China also had to change its method of engagement with Australia — which had become particularly aggressive during the so-called Wolf Warrior era.
Now, the Albanese visit has proved a textbook case of China trying to portray itself as the steady and calm adult in the global room.
While Donald Trump has had his focus on the Middle East, Ukraine and NATO, it will turn directly to China when he visits here in a couple of months' time.
Australia will only be able to watch from the sidelines about who outdoes who in that meeting.
Laura Tingle is the ABC's Global Affairs Editor.
