Skip to main content

Site navigation

  • University of Technology Sydney home
  • Home

    Home
  • For students

  • For industry

  • Research

Explore

  • Courses
  • Events
  • News
  • Stories
  • People

For you

  • Libraryarrow_right_alt
  • Staffarrow_right_alt
  • Alumniarrow_right_alt
  • Current studentsarrow_right_alt
  • Study at UTS

    • arrow_right_alt Find a course
    • arrow_right_alt Course areas
    • arrow_right_alt Undergraduate students
    • arrow_right_alt Postgraduate students
    • arrow_right_alt Research Masters and PhD
    • arrow_right_alt Online study and short courses
  • Student information

    • arrow_right_alt Current students
    • arrow_right_alt New UTS students
    • arrow_right_alt Graduates (Alumni)
    • arrow_right_alt High school students
    • arrow_right_alt Indigenous students
    • arrow_right_alt International students
  • Admissions

    • arrow_right_alt How to apply
    • arrow_right_alt Entry pathways
    • arrow_right_alt Eligibility
arrow_right_altVisit our hub for students

For you

  • Libraryarrow_right_alt
  • Staffarrow_right_alt
  • Alumniarrow_right_alt
  • Current studentsarrow_right_alt

POPULAR LINKS

  • Apply for a coursearrow_right_alt
  • Current studentsarrow_right_alt
  • Scholarshipsarrow_right_alt
  • Featured industries

    • arrow_right_alt Agriculture and food
    • arrow_right_alt Defence and space
    • arrow_right_alt Energy and transport
    • arrow_right_alt Government and policy
    • arrow_right_alt Health and medical
    • arrow_right_alt Corporate training
  • Explore

    • arrow_right_alt Tech Central
    • arrow_right_alt Case studies
    • arrow_right_alt Research
arrow_right_altVisit our hub for industry

For you

  • Libraryarrow_right_alt
  • Staffarrow_right_alt
  • Alumniarrow_right_alt
  • Current studentsarrow_right_alt

POPULAR LINKS

  • Find a UTS expertarrow_right_alt
  • Partner with usarrow_right_alt
  • Explore

    • arrow_right_alt Explore our research
    • arrow_right_alt Research centres and institutes
    • arrow_right_alt Graduate research
    • arrow_right_alt Research partnerships
arrow_right_altVisit our hub for research

For you

  • Libraryarrow_right_alt
  • Staffarrow_right_alt
  • Alumniarrow_right_alt
  • Current studentsarrow_right_alt

POPULAR LINKS

  • Find a UTS expertarrow_right_alt
  • Research centres and institutesarrow_right_alt
  • University of Technology Sydney home
Explore the University of Technology Sydney
Category Filters:
University of Technology Sydney home University of Technology Sydney home
  1. home
  2. arrow_forward_ios ... Newsroom
  3. arrow_forward_ios ... 2016
  4. arrow_forward_ios 10
  5. arrow_forward_ios Abbott injects dose of realism on Australia-China relationship

Abbott injects dose of realism on Australia-China relationship

4 October 2016

Bob Carr

 

Bob Carr, Director, Australia-China Relations Institute, University of Technology Sydney

This article originally appeared in The Australian, October 4 2016.

Download

Australia’s recent anti-China panic seems to challenge any prospect of a positive relationship with Beijing.

All hysterias exhaust themselves in excess, as this one did when an unnamed spook alleged Chinese espionage around iron ore negotiations when, in fact, the price is set by the spot market and has been for five years.

What’s left to the two nations, when Beijing is said to be stirring pro-Mao rallies to destabilise our politics and wrecking our census website out of pure spite? Both were colourful inventions. Or, just as bizarre, directing its one million tourists to work as spies. What’s left — apart from a Cold War?

Yet Tony Abbott’s speech in New York (“History haunts us in China: Abbott’’, 1-2/10) relegated Cold War instinct about China and embraced foreign policy realism. This is a significant intervention.

It seems to chime with the views of his successor Malcolm Turnbull and Liberal icon John Howard and embodies the prevailing thinking about China on the conservative side of Australian politics: a generally positive view of the Australia-China relationship. It draws a line with the harshly negative view of China.

The realism? Abbott is prepared to say, “America shouldn’t expect predominance in East Asia any more than it did throughout Europe during the Cold War”. This seems just a shade short of saying US primacy or dominance in Asia cannot be counted on forever.

Certainly Abbott was quick to underline the US’s continuing role in preserving freedom of navigation and its alliance relationships. But he also seems at one with Turnbull and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop in not snapping to salute US admirals who drop clanging hints that Australia should run patrols in the 12 nautical mile radius of Chinese-claimed territory. Abbott did not take their hints in government; and he did not advocate it in his speech.

It is still possible to recognise the dangers in the US-China relationship — the Thucydides trap, the tension between a rising and an established power. Yet Abbott resists alarmism. He says “the more capacity China gains to challenge the US, the more it has to lose in any conflict”.

This echoes Howard’s realism about the South China Sea: Howard foresees a long period of on-and-off tension but without a descent into conflict, rather like tension over the Taiwan Straits in the 1950s and 60s.

Abbott refers positively to the free trade agreement negotiated by Andrew Robb and sealed during the visit of President Xi Jinping to Australia in 2014. He makes the point it was the first between China and a big advanced ­economy.

For the first time, he nominates as one of his achievements Australia’s decision to join the Chinese-led Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank. He invokes the argument “you shouldn’t insist China plays by the rules only to reject it when it does”.

And — this is a forceful comment, source considered — he says it is a pity that the US and Japan have declined to join. By implication, it was the wrong call of the White House to lobby allies, something the US administration would probably now admit.

Leading Australia into the bank against the advice of the US President remains an important symbol that Australia can make a China policy without reference to Washington; that we can run a China policy based on national interest.

This places Abbott at odds with commentary on China from Peter Jennings of Australian Strategic Policy Institute and former public servants Paul Dibb and Paul Monk, who have written in The Australian.

His prescription for “constant dialogue” with China, using ­forums such as the East Asia Summit, confirms this. Here is the short-term antidote to strategic mistrust. The so-called “comprehensive strategic partnership” his government concluded with the Chinese leadership fits this pattern of engagement — engagement, not isolation, not containment.

Significantly, he acknowledges internal debate in China over foreign policy — the possibility of an evolution about which the West should not be naive nor blind.

More and more Chinese people travel, study and work abroad. The figure is 100 million a year — which is the biggest difference between China today and earlier Marxist-Leninist models.

It is common sense that, in ­Abbott’s words, this must feed “the taste of freedom”.

He says market freedom produces social freedom, academic freedom and finally a measure of political freedom even if, in its first stages, it is political choice under the umbrella of the Communist Party.

This might be optimistic but it’s a prognosis that accords with the Western expectation that when a country is predominantly middle class, as China will be in the 2020s, its politics cannot continue locked in authoritarian mode.

Nothing here would be at odds with the instincts of Abbott’s successor, Turnbull. Realist and pragmatic, it can be considered the ruling wisdom on China of Australian conservatism. It is a more confident and studied position than Labor in opposition has yet produced.


Author

Bob Carr, former NSW premier and Australian foreign minister, is Director of the Australia-China Relations Institute at the University of Technology Sydney.

Share
Share this on Facebook Share this on Twitter Share this on LinkedIn
Back to Commentary

Acknowledgement of Country

UTS acknowledges the Gadigal People of the Eora Nation and the Boorooberongal People of the Dharug Nation upon whose ancestral lands our campuses now stand. We would also like to pay respect to the Elders both past and present, acknowledging them as the traditional custodians of knowledge for these lands. 

University of Technology Sydney

City Campus

15 Broadway, Ultimo, NSW 2007

Get in touch with UTS

Follow us

  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • YouTube
  • Facebook

A member of

  • Australian Technology Network
Use arrow keys to navigate within each column of links. Press Tab to move between columns.

Study

  • Find a course
  • Undergraduate
  • Postgraduate
  • How to apply
  • Scholarships and prizes
  • International students
  • Campus maps
  • Accommodation

Engage

  • Find an expert
  • Industry
  • News
  • Events
  • Experience UTS
  • Research
  • Stories
  • Alumni

About

  • Who we are
  • Faculties
  • Learning and teaching
  • Sustainability
  • Initiatives
  • Equity, diversity and inclusion
  • Campus and locations
  • Awards and rankings
  • UTS governance

Staff and students

  • Current students
  • Help and support
  • Library
  • Policies
  • StaffConnect
  • Working at UTS
  • UTS Handbook
  • Contact us
  • Copyright © 2025
  • ABN: 77 257 686 961
  • CRICOS provider number: 00099F
  • TEQSA provider number: PRV12060
  • TEQSA category: Australian University
  • Privacy
  • Copyright
  • Disclaimer
  • Accessibility