MANILA – Following his much-anticipated meeting with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Chinese paramount leader Xi Jinping hailed a “new starting point” in bilateral relations after years of escalating tensions and a tit-for-tat trade war.
“The China-Australia relationship has embarked on the right path of improvement and development. I’m heartened to see that,” the Chinese leader said.
Xi expressed his sincere hopes that the two countries could become “trusting partners” by focusing on areas of shared concern including climate change and regional security. “The progress we have made in advancing our relationship over that time has been unquestionably very positive,” Albanese added while standing beside his Chinese counterpart.
“Trade is flowing more freely to the benefit of both countries,” he said, with bilateral trade hitting a historic high of more than US$300 billion this year. To facilitate the thaw in bilateral ties, Beijing indicated a partial lifting of de facto sanctions on Australian imports while earlier releasing an Australian citizen, Cheng Lei, a prominent journalist who was detained in 2020 on what Canberra believes were politically motivated charges.
“Australia is the first US ally to make a clear change in its attitude toward China after a fierce conflict with China since the US defined China as its No 1 strategic competitor,” declared the Global Times, China’s Communist Party-run mouthpiece newspaper.
“Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and even US allies in Europe [should] think about themselves given the ups and downs of China-Australia relations,” it added while suggesting Albanese’s policy could serve as a “model” for other US allies in the region.
Albanese’s successful visit demonstrates both the importance of proactive engagement to avoid unnecessary tensions as well as calibrated deterrence, with Canberra expected to double down on its security cooperation with the US and like-minded partners in the Indo-Pacific.
It’s clear by now that Australia’s China strategy is highly relevant to Southeast Asian nations such as the Philippines, which is now confronting escalating tensions with China over a whole host of geopolitical issues including hotly contested territories in the South China Sea.
Strategic reboot
Not long ago, China effectively dismissed Australia as America’s “deputy sheriff” in Asia. After a decade of warm relations, largely a legacy of prime minister Kevin Rudd’s Beijing-friendly foreign policy, Australia began to revisit its relations with Beijing in the mid-2010s.
Although the Malcolm Turnbull administration welcomed “strong and constructive ties with China,” it soon began cracking down on Beijing’s malign influence operations. The upshot was a crackdown on pro-Beijing politicians, most notably the disgraced Labour Senator Sam Dastyari, in Canberra and new legislation that aimed to curb Chinese influence as well as strategic investments in Australia.
But it was under the conservative Scott Morrison administration that Australia-China relations took a decided nosedive. Instead of establishing guardrails in bilateral relations, Canberra began fortifying military cooperation with its Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) partners and, most dramatically, ditched a multi-billion dollar submarine deal with France in favor of a nuclear-powered submarine under the AUKUS (Australia-UK-US) alliance.
Crucially, Canberra barred Chinese high-tech investments in critical infrastructure, most notably Chinese telecom giant Huawei’s participation in its 5G rollout, and, to Beijing’s chagrin, called for an international inquest into the origins of Covid-19 at the height of the pandemic, a move that could have finally resulted in calls for China to pay reparations.
In response, Beijing raised tariffs on Australian imports including barley, wine and coal, and placed a de facto diplomatic freeze on bilateral relations.
Once elected into office, Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese launched a major policy reboot, which has turned out to be not too different from how the Democratic Joe Biden administration approached his Republican predecessor Donald Trump’s antagonistic policy toward China.
On one hand, the Albanese administration signaled policy continuity by underscoring its commitment to the Quad as well as maximizing the potential of AUKUS. As Foreign Minister Penny Wong has made clear, Canberra had “actually already chosen” a side between the two superpowers and that robust military alliance with the US now enjoys “deep bipartisan support.”
Moreover, the Albanese administration also doubled down on security cooperation with like-minded Southeast Asian nations, most notably Vietnam and the Philippines, which are also at loggerheads with Beijing over disputed resources and islands in the South China Sea. Nevertheless, the Albanese administration also expressed its commitment to de-escalating diplomatic tensions with China.
Geopolitical lessons
During his visit to Beijing, Albanese said that a “double balancing” act was not impossible. In particular, he said he drew on the advice of former Australian prime minister John Howard, who once wrote about his dealings with China:
“I said to [former Chinese president] Jiang Zemin that what we have to try and do is focus on areas where we agree rather than obsessing about areas where we don’t agree.” His counsel to successors was clear: “[C]ooperate where we can, [and] disagree where we must.”
During his four-day trip to Beijing, Albanese focused on establishing guardrails in bilateral ties through the relaxation of certain Chinese sanctions, which is expected to immediately boost bilateral trade by $6 billion. Albanese reassured China that Australia was against economic “decoupling” and refrained from public criticism of China in favor of gently raising areas of disagreements, including on human rights.
At the same time, Albanese made no concessions on his country’s AUKUS alliance, deepening defense ties with India under Quad and expanded maritime security cooperation with Vietnam and the Philippines.
Nor was there any indication that Australia is interested in returning to the “good old days” of Mandarin-speaking prime minister Kevin Rudd, who saw both Australia and China as part of a broader “Asia-Pacific community.”
Australia’s China policy is particularly relevant for Southeast Asian states such as the Philippines, whose relations with Beijing have recently hit a new nadir.
Over the past year, Manila has expanded security cooperation with the US while reconsidering and canceling certain promised but not delivered big-ticket Chinese infrastructure investments. Meanwhile, it has more proactively pushed back against China’s expanding presence in Philippine-claimed waters and more broadly across the South China Sea.
Albanese’s successful “double-balancing act” shows the importance of proactive engagement coupled with strategic conviction. Despite the imposition of sanctions on Australian imports, Canberra’s trade with China still expanded to $300 billion in 2022. So far it seems unlikely that Beijing will impose any sanctions on Manila anytime soon.
Moreover, the Philippines, which unlike Australia has direct territorial disputes with China, can’t afford to not seek help from more powerful allies such as the US given the extreme asymmetry of military power vis-a-vis China.
But it is also vital for Manila to calibrate its defense cooperation with the US, especially in regard to how much, if any, access it allows US forces to Philippine bases situated near Taiwan’s southern flank under the expanded Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) pact.
The Albanese administration has shown that if a nation holds its ground long enough, China may be willing to accept a new equilibrium in bilateral relations.
The Philippines and others in Southeast Asia could draw diplomatic inspiration from Australia’s proactive and subtle engagement with China to enhance cooperation in areas of shared concern while drawing hard lines on contested core interests. It’s arguably a balance many in the region need to strike to prevent potentially devastating conflicts.
Follow Richard Javad Heydarian on X, formerly Twitter, at @Richeydarian