Australia’s Cautionary Tale on China

By Henry Srebrnik, [Saint John, NB] Telegraph-Journal

Though both countries started off as British Empire settler states, Canada and Australia have followed different political trajectories over the decades.

Australia, in general, tends to have a more volatile political system, and one further to the right of ours.

Australians also live in a different geographical neighbourhood, and this has led to an increased emphasis on military defence.

While it does rely on American support through the 1951 collective security agreement known as the Australia, New Zealand, United States Security Treaty (ANZUS), Canberra knows that America is far away.

In the Second World War, Japan bombed the northern Australian city of Darwin, and also occupied much of the nearby island of New Guinea, the eastern half of which was governed from Canberra. 

Approximately 216,000 Japanese, Australian and U.S. troops died during the New Guinea campaign. Unlike Canada, Australia had faced a potential invasion by an Axis power.

Today, it is wary of another major state, China, whose own geopolitical aims keep growing. 

Last year, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who heads the governing Liberal-National Coalition of centre-right parties, in a Defence White Paper announced a robust increase in military spending, including the biggest expansion to its navy since 1945.

Military spending would be increased to two per cent of the country’s gross domestic product by 2021.

The government was “particularly concerned” about the “unprecedented pace and scale” of land reclamation by the Chinese in the South China Sea, the document said.

China has added nearly 3,000 acres of land to atolls to make them capable of accommodating military aircraft and equipment. 

In December of 2017, a follow-up paper backed the idea of joining India, Japan and the U.S. to promote a free and democratic Indo-Pacific region that could offset China.

Exports to China, particularly in mining, have grown fivefold in the past decade. China bought $70 billion worth of Australian goods and services last year.  

But controversy over Chinese influence within the country’s domestic economy and politics has been intensifying.

Foreign ownership of agricultural land, in particular, is a touchy subject. In April 2016, the Australian government blocked a bid that would have seen a chunk of land the size of Ireland sold to a private Chinese company, Shanghai-based Dakang.

The government also stopped a Chinese bid for a major electricity grid, Ausgrid, on national-security grounds.

As well, money has been flowing to Australian political parties from companies and individuals with ties to the Chinese government. Turnbull has now unveiled a series of proposed laws to curb foreign influence in Australian politics.

This followed accusations that Senator Sam Dastyari of the opposition Labour Party became an advocate of Chinese policy after accepting money from Chinese billionaire Huang Xiangmo. 

In 2015 he attempted to persuade Labour’s foreign affairs spokesperson, Tanya Plibersek, to cancel a meeting with a member of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement. Dastyari has now resigned from parliament.

Finance Minister Mathias Cormann also received a $20,000 donation from Huang last year.

Has some of this spilled over into overt anti-Chinese attitudes? Beijing thinks so. After all, the country’s “white Australia” immigration policies were a feature of its politics for many decades.

The prime minister denies this, declaring that Australia was entitled to stand up for its sovereign interests.

Nevertheless, Australia’s relations with China are cooling. And for a country that is seeking closer ties with the rising power, Canada might do well to see Australia’s case as cautionary.