[Theme music starts]

RUBY:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am.

Diplomatic and trade tensions between Australia and China are at an all time high.

Ongoing anxiety in our region has even led to China’s president warning against the risk of a new cold war.

As the rhetoric continues to ramp up, questions are being asked about who the Prime Minister is listening to when it comes to his foreign policy approach.

Today, Senior reporter for The Saturday Paper, Rick Morton, on where Scott Morrison is getting his advice from when it comes to our relationship with China, and whether his strategy will work.

[Theme music ends]

Archival Tape -- Journalist #1:

“Beijing has fired another shot at Canberra as the trade war continues to escalate, uploading a ban on two Victorian abattoirs…”

Archival Tape -- Journalist #2:

“Australia’s wine exports to China have plummeted by 98% in just 2 months after crushing new import taxes were introduced…”

Archival Tape -- Journalist #3:

“Australia is taking China to the World Trade Organisation…”

Archival Tape -- Journalist #4:

“Australian cotton and wheat farmers are likely to be next in the firing line, taking the total value of banned agricultural goods past $7 billion…”

RUBY:

Rick, last week Scott Morrison mentioned that he had actually been in touch with former Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to talk about the tensions between Australia and China. It is pretty interesting that a Liberal Prime Minister would be taking advice from someone who you’d think he’d see as a political opponent. So what do we know about that?

RICK:

Well, things are starting to bite in the tensions between China and Australia.

Archival Tape --Scott Morrison:

“The Australia-China relationship is important to Australia. The China-Australia relationship is important to China.”

RICK:

And he wanted to appear that he was, certainly, that he was kind of taking this whole situation very seriously.

Archival Tape -- Scott Morrison:

“Of course we value the trading and more broader comprehensive relationship, and we will be taking up whatever opportunities we believe is going to best position Australia to be in a position to advance that relationship.”

RICK:

And then, of course, Morrison comes out at this press conference and says...

Archival Tape -- Scott Morrison:

“It's a topic that some time ago and even more recently, I was connecting with Prime Minister Rudd about these matters.”

RICK:

Rudd was particularly known for his understanding of the China relationship. And, you know, he was foreign affairs minister. He speaks Mandarin, which is a fact that he will tell you.

Archival Tape -- Scott Morrison:

“So I'm always open to those who are very experienced in these areas.”

RICK:

And that was news to Kevin Rudd. And Kevin actually told me - I put some questions to him and he said: “If Mr Morrison is inferring that the current direction of Australia's China strategy has been based on any substantive consultation with me, let alone any support on my behalf, that's a patent falsehood”, Kevin Rudd said. So he was pretty annoyed.

RUBY:

Right. So why do you think that Scott Morrison said that then? Why would he want to create the impression that he was consulting someone like Kevin Rudd if he wasn't?

RICK:

Because the relationship between China and Australia has deteriorated so much now that you can measure it. You can measure it in billions of dollars in the cost to the economy because we are in a trade war.

So Scott Morrison at least wanted to give the impression that he was taking it seriously, that he was consulting with people who have different experiences of different times. You know, Kevin Rudd had experience of China before Xi Jinping came to power and kind of caught just the start of Xi Jinping’s rise in 2013 to become the ultimate leader of China. So Scott Morrison wants to appear certainly on the outside, that he's taken it seriously and that he's not been as rash as some of his actions might actually lead us to believe.

RUBY:

OK, the only problem here, of course, that Kevin Rudd says he's not actually speaking to Scott Morrison about China. So if he's not talking to Rudd, who is Scott Morrison talking to?

RICK:

He's talking to John Howard.

I mean, that's the only one that we know of. Certainly, I don't think him and Malcolm Turnbull have discussed it, but there might be reasons for that.

And the only voice we really got advising him is the second longest serving prime minister in Australian history.

Archival Tape -- John Howard:

“There is no flawless bilateral relationship anywhere in the world and I have sought to be realistic both about our differences and also those things that we have in common.”

RICK:

And, you know, it's not bad advice to be getting because John Howard actually led a very deliberate effort to build relationships with countries in Asia...

Archival Tape -- John Howard:

“No relationship can be free of difficulties and challenges. “

RICK:

...and actually presided over a relatively stable relationship with China throughout his prime ministership.

RUBY:

OK, so what do we know about the kind of advice that John Howard might be giving the current prime minister on the Australia China relationship?

RICK:

His is an interesting assessment and certainly a lot of foreign policy watchers would agree with it.

Archival Tape -- John Howard:

“Well, we did have an equilibrium, and that should still be our goal. It is not in our interests to have a permanent rupture in our relationship with China.”

RICK:

He was saying in an interview last November that, you know, we should wake up to the fact that China is doing what every emerging power has done throughout world history, and that is throw its weight around.

Archival Tape -- John Howard:

“But under Xi Jinping, China has become more authoritarian internally. It is more assertive in the region. It is throwing its weight around. And we have to recognise that, and consistent with that, continue to toil away at keeping the bilateral relationship together.”

RICK:

And he said it's doing that at the moment. And I think that's you know, that's one thing that all foreign policy people can agree on, is that China is throwing its weight around. It really is being assertive. And that's very much a hallmark of Xi Jinping’s rule so far. And it's just been gradually stepped up and stepped up.

Archival Tape -- John Howard:

“It's very important that we not give up on a practical relationship with China, but equally, we have to recognise that as the Morrison government has done, that the world is a very different place because China has a very different attitude.”

RICK:

But Howard, you know, Howard makes an interesting point, he says that, you just have to understand that we don't need to overreact to it. And that's just the way the world is right now. And we might actually have to get used to living with that sort of thing for some time, were his words.

And he gave another interview to the University of Melbourne's Asialink Milestone's podcast in which he said that Scott Morrison had to get to Beijing as soon as possible for a face-to-face meeting.

Archival Tape --John Howard:

“You have got to have a good personal relationship. And the key to our relationship is to accept that a country of Australia’s size, what matters to the Chinese is the relationship between our head of government and their head of government.”

RICK:

He gave the same advice to Julia Gillard: get to Beijing, meet with Xi Jinping. It's the only thing the Chinese respect, they respect strength, they respect sovereignty and they respect, you know, dialogue with the leader.

RUBY:

Right, but is a face-to-face meeting looking likely? Possible?

RICK:

Uh, no, not at the moment. We can't even talk to them, you know, so we had, well, they haven't picked up the phone for months and months and months now.

But one of the key, you know, interesting bits about all of this is that Australia doesn't have back channels to China like some countries do, particularly some Asian countries, have pretty good - Japan does - have some pretty good foreign affairs back channels. We don't have any of that.

So there's no actual way to get, you know, diplomatic messages to the right people in China except from picking up the phone. And that's just not working for us at the moment.

So it actually seems like we're at a point now where even if the Australian government wants to try and re-engage with China and wants to be serious about it, there's not a lot of willingness on the part of China. And that's a big problem.

RUBY:

We’ll be back in a moment.

[ADVERTISEMENT]

RUBY:

Rick, we've been talking about the way in which Scott Morrison might be thinking about our relationship with China and what kind of advice he might be seeking, but I wanted to ask you about how this looks from the other side, because Xi Jinping recently spoke at the World Economic Forum. He didn't mention Australia directly, but was there a message there for Australia in his speech?

RICK:

Oh, certainly. So, you know, last week Xi Jinping gave this speech at Davos, you know, four years since he last spoke at the World Economic Forum at the annual meeting. This one was via video link

Archival Tape --Xi Jinping - Mandarin + English translation:

“Professor Klaus Schwab, ladies and gentlemen, friends. The past year was marked by the sudden onslaught of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

RICK:

He very specifically warned against a new Cold War.

Archival Tape -- Xi Jinping:

“We should reject the outdated Cold War and zero-sum game mentality, adhere to mutual respect and accommodation.”

RICK:

And he goes on to say, ‘there will be no human civilisation without diversity and such diversity will continue to exist for as long as we can imagine’.

Archival Tape -- Xi Jinping:

“Differences in history, culture and social system should not be an excuse for antagonism or confrontation.”

RICK:

And again, he goes on to say that ‘difference in itself is no cause for alarm. What does ring the alarm is arrogance, prejudice and hatred. It is the attempt to impose hierarchy on human civilisation or to force one's own history, culture and social system upon others’.

And so if you talk to seasoned China watchers in Australia and around the world, that will say that this was very much a transparent rejection of American foreign policy. And it's that goes for us as well, one of its steadfast allies being Australia.

So, you know, this very much was yet another shot across the bow. There have been so many of them now they're almost a dime a dozen. But that's how they do foreign policy.

RUBY:

OK, and so have we seen much of a response then here in Australia to what the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, said? How have his comments been interpreted?

RICK:

Look, Xi Jinping’s been on this fairly aggressive kind of ride now for years. So these types of pot shots and warning shots, even coded as they are in the language of foreign diplomacy, they're not especially new or surprising. But obviously Australia's been really hammered and has been put in the sin bin by China recently. And it's quite interesting to watch Scott Morrison and how he plays this, because, you know, everyone I spoke to agreed that, you know, Morrison, in his speeches, in his scripted remarks about China, has been extremely cautious.

Archival Tape --Scott Morrison:

“The relationship with china is a mutually beneficial one. It supports both of our countries, it’s good for the interest of both countries, I think, to constructively engage…”

RICK:

He's been wary to buy into this rhetoric of a looming Cold War. And, you know, they've said he's, you know, one speech in particular. He said, ‘I'm not interested in a Cold War’. You know, ‘I want a state of happy coexistence with China.’

Archival Tape -- Scott Morrison:

“If we are to avoid a new era of polarisation, then in the decades ahead there must be more nuanced appreciation of individual states interests in how they deal with the major powers.”

RICK:

And, you know, clearly, he believes that engagement lives on in some form.

Archival Tape --

“Australia desires an open, transparent and mutually beneficial relationship with China as our largest trading partner...”

RICK:

But in the background, when the speeches are not scripted, when he's not being careful or when he's refusing to engage with his own backbench, you've got people like Liberal MPs, including Labour MPs, but obviously this is a problem for Scott Morrison. The Liberal MPs in the Wolverines, which is this club based on a high school group from the 1984 movie Red Dawn, who they were called the Wolverines and they fought off a Soviet invasion.

Archival Tape -- Unidentified Man #1:

“They’ve failed to appreciate the implications of an authoritarian China, an expansionist China and they don’t want backbenchers having a view on this - indeed mainstream Australians…”

RICK:

So now we've got this kind of gang of parliamentarians running around being very strong and very hawkish on China. And Scott Morrison has done nothing to intervene on that front. And, you know, that particularly irked Beijing, at least if you believe some of the state run tabloid newspapers in China, they said that this was going to cause irreparable damage to the relationship. And that was one of the first kind of warning signs.

RUBY:

Ok so Scott Morrison is trying to navigate between anti-China MPs in his own parliament and a situation where he can’t get a face-to-face meeting with the Chinese President. So, where does that leave us? Is there a way out that that will reconcile any of these issues?

RICK:

Uh, no, [laughs] it doesn't look like it. So look I mean, there's a small minority of China watchers and wonks who think that they've kind of noticed a ratcheting down of the pressure from Beijing and Xi Jinping. But almost everyone else I spoke to said that's not the case. If there has been a change, it's just been a very slight cessation in hostilities. But there hasn't been a ratcheting down in the pressure and and some of the trade restrictions and sanctions - whatever you want to call it - the punishments are still there.

And I was talking to James Curran from Sydney University, professor of modern history, and he was saying that China is treating Australia like a tethered goat. You know, where can Australia go? He says that China are saying to the region, ‘we are going to make an example of Australia and here's what happens to you if you get too close to the Americans’. You know, China is putting the region on notice.

RUBY:

Rick, thank you so much for your time today.

RICK:

Thanks Ruby, thanks for having me.

[ADVERTISEMENT]

RUBY:

[Theme music starts]

Also in the news today...

The reserve bank governor has predicted Australia’s economy will recover to its pre-pandemic size by the middle of this year, six to 12 months earlier than originally projected.

Philip Lowe released the bank’s revised projections yesterday, showing an expected 3.5% growth this year and next, with unemployment set to fall to 6% in 2021.

And Tasmanian environmentalists have lost their Federal Court challenge aimed at ending native forest logging in Tasmania.

The Bob Brown Foundation had argued Tasmania's Regional Forest Agreement contradicted federal laws and did not protect endangered species.

I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am see you tomorrow.

[Theme music ends]