By Philip Yeung
The China-Australia relationship is the least studied and most misunderstood in geopolitics, as it is overshadowed and distorted by the China-America rivalry.
Australia allows itself to be dragged into this trap, mistakenly believing that it needs America's protection to survive in Asia. In the Trump era, it is everyone for himself.
Australia's doubts about China is the most bone-headed, unexamined idea in foreign relations. The two countries have no quarrel—theirs is essentially a trading relationship. The "China threat" is American fiction, which Australia has gullibly swallowed.
China has been good for Australia. America is something else. Remember the war in Afghanistan and the Australian lives lost?
The truth is China doesn't need Australia, but Australia needs China, its largest trading partner, to survive. How can Australian politicians see China as a threat when it is all so far-fetched and imaginary? Five Eyes and Aukus, by contrast, have netted Australia nothing but greater national debt. China-phobia is an expensive disease.
Its Aukus nuclear submarines alone cost a whopping US$300 billion, or 35 million Australian per day. And how can nuclear submarines defend Australia against hypersonic missiles presumably to be launched by China? It is a multi-billion-dollar stupidity.
Australia should learn from its little brother New Zealand which strikes a neutral and nuanced posture, reaping huge economic benefits while maintaining cordial relations with the Chinese. Where is Australia's sovereignty and national dignity as a US puppy?
The latest outbreak of US-inspired China phobia falls on the Australian National University (ANU) and the University of Queensland.
Out of the blue, Penny Wong, its foreign minister, has issued a directive to terminate their partnership agreements respectively with Shandong University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, citing national security concerns.
Australia is using its national security concern promiscuously in its China relations. Wong gave the two universities no grace period, with neither prior consultation, nor any review process. The institutions meekly complied.
Wong's action was triggered by the Pentagon's move in adding Shandong University to its blacklist of foreign entities. But even America has given its 30 universities two weeks to conduct an audit of the partnerships. Wong was panicked into an ill-considered decision. The ANU partnership with Shandong U has been described by a former ANU vice chancellor as "almost no risk" and signed after a thorough-going due diligence. It is just an undergraduate partnership with no research capability. An ombudsman should have been appointed to adjudicate the matter. Instead, the universities were given no chance to argue their case.
According to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, China leads in 66 out of 74 critical and emerging technologies. Australia, therefore, is the one that stands to benefit more from these partnerships.
ANU signed its agreement in 2022 to establish the SDU-ANU Joint Science College. Nothing negative has emerged from this undergraduate joint venture which allows Chinese students to study in China before transferring to ANU. The college has capacity to admit 1200 students who are now left in limbo.
Wong's directive indiscriminately axed a research collaboration between the University of Queensland and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, including research into pain relief derived from Australian native plants for the treatment of tuberculosis. TB treatment has nothing remotely connected to national security concern. Wong is being irrational and ridiculous.
Wong has another elephant in the room—Pauline Hanson's One Nation party, a MAGA-like far-right party that feeds on fear of the foreign. It is now surging in the polls.
China-phobia is a tactic that always pays political dividends. And Pauline Hanson has been waving this magic wand to attract misguided voters. Wong doesn't want to appear being soft on China. Facts don't matter. Perception does.
Australia has also misjudged China on the South China Sea dispute. Its recent friction with the Philippines is a direct consequence of America's encirclement policy. This maritime district is a US chokehold on China, through which flows 75% of its trade. Keeping the sea lanes free flowing is vital to its national survival.
The China containment policy has produced another bad actor, Japan, now fast-tracking its military and nuclear rearmament. Its imperialist ghosts pose a greater threat to Australian national security than a peace-loving China. Australia forgets Japan's wartime atrocities and allows it to test long-range missiles from its soil. Japan, the repeated invader of China, is now crying wolf over Taiwan to fish in troubled waters. Watch out for this new ticking time bomb in Asia.
Wake up, Australia. Don't judge China by its ideological label or by US propaganda. Judge China only by its actions. China is war-free. The US is up to its eyebrows in conflict, with the forever war in Iran.
China is paying a price for its communist label. It pursues peaceful co-existence, fixating only on its domestic development, while aggressively fending off US encirclement. China wants no quarrel with Australia. It is Australia that has poked China in the eye, through joint military exercises with America in the South China Sea.
Australia should let sleeping dogs lie and learn to carefully calibrate its relationship with the Asian giant, a la New Zealand.
Besides, what exactly has China done to make Australia feel threatened?
I hope that Penny Wong, being ethnically Chinese, is not over-eager to prove her loyalty to Australia by being provocatively anti-China.
Time for Australia to stop playing US poodle, and act only in its own interest by pursuing its own independent foreign policy. AUKUS and Five Eyes have done nothing for Australia except drain its budget acquiring expensive and useless weapons against a non-existent threat. China is your benefactor and largest trader partner. Don't allow US hysteria to hoodwink you into believing otherwise.
Hostility towards China is dangerous, misguided, costly and runs counter to Australia's national interests. Why be an American poodle that barks and bites on command? Australia is overdue for an overhaul of its wrong-headed China policy. You can't afford to be a dumb dog in an ultra-smart age.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
Read more articles by Philip Yeung:
Opinion | The end of the American century?
Opinion | Two melons and one big headache for Australia's leader
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