Australia Reaches Out to Asia

Beijing Review: What are the legacies from four decades of Sino-Australian diplomatic relations?

Frances Adamson: Since the two sides signed the joint communiqué on December 21, 1972, we have seen dramatic growth in all sorts of aspects of the relationship—dramatic growth in trade, in investment, in tourism, in studentsexchange, in cooperation, and in some of the things that one cannot count in terms of quantity. But you can certainly get a sense in terms of the quality of the relationship. Id like particularly to highlight four areas where I think we have seen very substantial, changing development in the last 40 years.

The first is business. We have got from 1972 when bilateral trade was about AU$100 million (Australian dollars being roughly equivalent to U.S. dollars) to today when data show bilateral trade has reached over AU$150 billion. In the area of investment, in the last five years, the Australian Government approved 380 investment proposals from Chinese companies, most of which are stateowned companies, worth over AU$81 billion.

In education and science, the number of Chinese students studying in Australia reached 167,000 in 2010. What I want to highlight is the very strong science collaboration that has been developing between universities and research institutes in Australia and their Chinese counterparts. And we now have so many of these relationships that they are almost impossible to count.

Another is collaboration in culture. I think the importance of Chinese culture within China is well known. Many Chinese have an understanding of Australian indigenous culture and its 40,000-year history. Both countries have also found in each other some interesting modern culture to exchange and to appreciate in addition to the long-standing history that they enjoy.

I also want to mention the development of tourism. Chinese short-term visitors to Australia in 1972 were fewer than 500, but the number in 2011 reached 542,000. In the meantime, Australian short-term visitors to China in 1972 were also very few, but the number in 2010 was more than 336,000.

The Australian Government issued a white paper titled Australia in the Asian Century in October. Why does Australia emphasize its Asian identity?

Geographically, Australia is part of the AsiaPacific region, and one has only to look at the map to see at least part of the answer to that question. Another part of the answer lies in the trade force: Over a period of decades Australia has become increasingly interconnected with countries of this region, particularly the Asian region, through normal trade forces.

We have talked about the importance of natural resources that are a big part of that relationship. But then if you look at investment flows, traditionally they came to us from Europe and the United States, but for many years now Japan and South Korea have been significant sources of investment in Australia, and China now is gradually becoming more important.

And then if you overlay on the top of that the flows of people—students, tourists and business people, Australia also is a very multicultural place. We had a census in August last year, which showed that we had a population of 22 million people; 860,000 are of Chinese origin. Mandarin, after English, is the most frequently spoken language in Australia. Of course, other countries in the Asian region similarly have now large communities in Australia and are very connected in this region.

But part of the title of the white paper was just to reflect the reality of Asias rise—not just the rise of China, but also the rise of India, the rise of ASEAN countries as a whole and the rise of Indonesia, one of Australias closest neighbors. Some of this is just the realities of the century. When you look globally at where economic activities have been generated, it is in Asia.

How do you view the importance of the recently proposed Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership between ASEAN and its six partners including China and Australia?

Since Chinas entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) years ago, Australia has always been a trading nation and certainly for long time now we have been in favor of bringing down barriers to trade and investment. But obviously it is very hard when every member of the WTO is negotiating in what is called a big round of multilateral trade negotiations, at a time when the world economy has been affected by the global economic crisis, the global financial crisis and the European debt crisis. So within various regions and indeed bilaterally, countries have looked to see whether they can achieve at least some of those gains by reducing barriers between them.

We have been attempting to do that through the negotiation over the last six years or so of a free trade agreement with China. It can be difficult to do multilaterally, it can also be difficult to do bilaterally, and we are still working on it. But we think there is quite a lot to be said for a regional approach to this. Australia expresses support for and became interested in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, but we are also obviously in discussions and in negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership. We do not see any difficulty with trying to do all of these things at once, because we think the global economy needs the reduction of barriers.

I think it will be very interesting to see how each of these proposals develops. Australia is certainly very committed to contributing as much as we can to make each of them successful.

Apart from flourishing trade ties, how does Australia value military-to-military cooperation with China?

Our relationship with China has got a very important and strong economic component to it, but it has also got quite significant and growing defense cooperation components to it as well. For example, Australia is only one of only two countries with which China has a strategic defense dialogue at the highest level: at the level in Australia of the chief of the defense force, and the level in China of the chief of general staff. We have been doing this for 15 years. The dialogue produced quite substantial programs and practical activities—things like high-level exchanges, defense personnel visits and ship visits.

I think we were the first Western country that conducted live-fire naval exercises with China. Last year, we conducted the first humanitarian assistance and disaster relief exercise between the Australian Defense Force and the Peoples Liberation Army of China in Chengdu. The second exercise has been recently conducted in Queensland. I think there is growing defense cooperation between Australia and China. That is a very good thing.

How can China and Australia jointly contribute to Asian economic growth and security cooperation?

Making economies as open to each other as we can is the way to strengthen economic growth between us, but thats also something we are both committed to in the Asia-Pacific region—whether its through long-standing processes involving APEC or whether its through some of the new trade negotiations and economic cooperation agreements that have been launched. So I think there is a lot we can do in that area and jointly through membership in the WTO as well. It is not just about trade; it is about investment as well.

I think Chinas 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-15) sets out a whole series of policies that China will undertake itself, partly to become less reliant on exports for growth and more reliant on the domestic market. I think there are many Australian companies who are in a position to assist China in implementing the 12th Five-Year Plan.

When it comes to security cooperation, there are broader regional opportunities for us to engage in—whether it is through the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore or the ASEAN Defense Ministers Meeting. Id also like to mention that from January 1 next year, Australia will become a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council for two years, and China of course is a permanent member. We very much look forward to working with China during that two-year period of our membership on security challenges that will be facing not only this region but the world broadly. I think both sides are willing to do that and we are increasingly capable of doing that.n