The senior diplomat’s [Frances Adamson] candid remarks come as relations between Canberra and Beijing remain at their lowest ebb in decades amid heated disputes spanning trade, alleged espionage, Huawei Technologies Co., Hong Kong, and the South China Sea. [Link…]
Frances is head (Secretary) of Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, where I worked for eleven years all up, between 1976 and 1995, serving in Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. And for sure Australia-China relations are the worst in all that time. Most of the time they have been more than cordial.
To resolve this very serious breakdown will need each side to step back from one of their demands and this discussion ought to be going in behind closed doors. In my reading of it, Beijing needs to make the first step as it was the one which staged a hissy fit in response to criticisms from Canberra that were well within the normal diplomatic ambit, within, that is to say, the norms of international relations. Not for Beijing, though. Oh no. Beijing cancelled Australian exports, and did in breach of WTO rules and conventions — their bans on our exports are “informal guidance”, says Beijing. Right. (China was brought into the WTO by Bill Clinton with assurances it would engage China more fully in the international community. It did not — membership of WTO led to China’s domination of world trade and quasi-theft [technology transfer demands] of intellectual property).
Which is why we need to be very wary of Beijing wanting to set the agenda. Can we trust they can overcome their mercantilist impulses? No we cannot. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me”.
[The “Wolf Diplomat” term is a reference to China’s Wolf Warrior Diplomats]
