Aussie-Sino love affair suffers setback

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This article was published 03/04/2009 (6325 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Australia’s love affair with China, which reached a climax with the election of our Mandarin-speaking Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in late 2007, took a breather this week.

Federal Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon was found to have a close friendship with Helen Liu, a Chinese-born businesswoman with ties to the Chinese leadership in both military and foreign affairs terms.

Fitzgibbon agreed the two got on well and exchanged small gifts but forgot to mention that among those gifts were two business class air tickets to China — a mistake he quickly rectified.

Meanwhile, Conservative National Party MP Barnaby Joyce has been appearing in television advertisements urging Australians to oppose a bid by the Chinese government-controlled Chinalco for a larger stake in mining giant Rio Tinto, which oversees lucrative mining operations in Australia.

And last Saturday Rudd held private talks with China’s fifth most powerful man — Li Changchun — but didn’t mention the meeting to the Australian media.

It’s little wonder that, during an interview on the BBC in London earlier this week, Rudd asked not to be seated next to the Chinese ambassador to Britain Madam Fu Ying when he appeared on the Andrew Marr Show.

Rudd wanted to sit next to the British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, a close personal friend who was also on the show.

"It’s kind of a natural thing that you actually wouldn’t mind parking yourself next to each other," he said by way of explanation.

A Conservative Australian columnist, Andrew Bolt, suggested the government might be trying to distance itself from its Chinese connections.

He also suggested Fitzgibbon was groomed by Helen Liu while Fitzgibbon was in opposition.

"She gave him a $20,000 campaign donation, a suit (later returned), other unspecified gifts and two business-class trips to China when he was an opposition frontbencher,” Bolt wrote, before adding details of the now defence minister’s Chinese visits paid for by Liu.

"Ms Liu had him fly out on Christmas Day, with her by his side, when he had three young children at home, as well as a wife whose birthday it was.

"Even if he’d wanted to forget this trip, I doubt his wife would have let him.

Australia’s own internal intelligence organisation ASIO says it has no evidence Liu is a security threat.

And the businesswoman has the backing of former new South Wales premier Bob Carr, also a close friend.

But a Victorian-based Liberal senator, Julian McGauran, voiced some deep seated unease in Australia regarding the Chinese, calling the Chinese Communist government a fanatical and brutal administration.

Specifically, he warned allowing Chinalco to increase its stake in Rio Tinto would give Beijing a strategic hold over some of Australia’s mineral assets.

Echoing Barnaby Joyce, McGauran said a sovereign government should not be able to buy a large slice of another country’s vital assets.

"This not only presents competition and pricing issues but ultimately security and national interest issues,” he said in a report in The Sydney Morning Herald.

"The Chinese government is a highly organized and fanatical administration that takes nationalism and control to the point of brutality.”

Historically, Australia has had a difficult relationship with the Chinese.

In 1885 amid deep racism on the gold fields of Victoria the Chinese were slapped with a tax of 10 pounds to merely enter the state.

And way back in 1947 the then opposition leader Arthur Calwell made the infamous declaration that "two Wongs don’t make a white” — an unfortunate remark still widely quoted today.

It was apparently said in jest, but even in those far-off politically incorrect days it was interpreted as a racist attack on all Asians, perhaps on behalf of all Australians.

There is even a (thankfully small) cohort of Australians who earnest believe that former prime minister Harold Holt who disappeared while swimming off a Victorian beach in 1967 was actually picked up by a Chinese submarine and whisked off to China (Holt was apparently a Chinese agent whose mission was complete).

Rudd, who served as a diplomat in China and is still an avid student of the country’s fascinating history, has been called a Manchurian Candidate by some who believe he has China’s interests ahead of his own country’s.

Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull only recently labelled Rudd a "roving ambassador” for Beijing.

The reality is Australia needs China, China needs Australia, and there’s nothing sinister in the relationship.

The contracting Chinese economy is being felt keenly on the coal fields of the northern state of Queensland as demand slackens and jobs are shed.

The hoped-for return to growth inside the Asian giant will continue to underwrite Australia’s prosperity, and much of the western world.

Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard brought a sense of perspective to the debate earlier this week, ridiculing the notion of underhand dealings.

"If you ever met a Chinese person, ever discussed an issue in relation to China, if you’ve ever spoken a word of Mandarin, then apparently this is all some huge conspiracy against Australia’s national interest,” she said.

 

Michael Madigan is the Winnipeg Free Press correspondent in Australia. He writes about politics for the Brisbane-based Courier Mail.