Uighur, Rio issues rattle Australia-China relations
Updated
The issue of the exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer has certainly added to strains in the relationship between China and Australia, ties that have already been tested by the embarrassing collapse of the Chinalco deal with Rio Tinto and the subsequent arrest of Rio Tinto executive Stern Hu. But could it all be down to a diplomatic misunderstanding?
Presenter: Kesha West
Speaker: Paul Monk, author and former officer with Australia's defence intelligence organisation, Melbourne
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MONK: Well I think its standard operating procedure for the Chinese Communist Party these days to try and discourage any foreign country from giving encouragement or support or recognition to anybody they see as a significant dissident. So of course they do it routine with the Dalai Lama, they have done it with democratic dissidents, like Wei Jingsheng. It's not surprising they do it with Rebiya Kadeer. What's particularly striking is how blatant this has been and of course how counterproductive and it's going to be interesting to see whether that really registers with them.
WEST: I mean it seems like very heavy handed and unsophisticated diplomacy, if you like. Is this a change in tactics of Chinese diplomacy?
MONK: Well, I think it's true to say that for quite a few years now, there was a general perception that they were becoming more sophisticated and subtle in their diplomacy. So this does appear yes to be crude and heavy-handed. But we must remind ourselves that this is the way they operate domestically all the time. One has a sense that over the last perhaps 12 months, two things have worked together to generate this kind of behaviour. One is that some things have not gone their way, very notably the Chinalco deal, for example, but also that they have perceived the global financial crisis as an indicator that they are in the ascendant and they will increasingly be able to set the terms in diplomatic relations and perhaps even in terms of global economics.
WEST: Yes, you mention the Chinalco deal and another issue that is straining Sino-Australian relations at the moment is the case of Australian, Stern Hu. It must be making international businessmen very nervous about negotiating with China?
MONK: Yes, I should think it would concentrate quite a few heads in boardrooms in many a company around the world, because it's a remarkable thing for the Chinese government to have done. Had they really gained evidence suggesting that Stern Hu or his colleagues had done something that was seriously upsetting, then the intelligent and subtle way to handle it would have been to get in touch with the Australian government and certainly with the highest levels of Rio Tinto and say, this is a breach we take very seriously, we don't want to derail either of these relationships, they're important to us. So we need to talk to you in earnest. Of course they have done no such thing. They have stubbed both the Australian Government and Rio Tinto in regard to the sensitivity surrounding this matter. They have made wild allegations, the most recent being that Rio Tinto as a company had been spying, as a matter of policy for six years and thereby it had somehow defrauded China of $120 Billion which is totally preposterous. And once it emerged that this was ludicrous, it seems the web site that published it was shutdown, but you are still getting that allegation repeating in the major Chinese media, so something is quite awry in the way the Chinese Foreign Ministry or the Politburo are handling this matter. They must be cognisant of it, they try and micro-manage so many things and yet this one is getting away from them.
WEST: Yes, much is being made of Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's affinity with China, but there doesn't seem to be many benefits showing from this. Do you think that the Chinese feel disappointed that their lobbying, if you like, has proved unproductive on commercial and diplomatic fronts?
MONK: I said a moment ago that there has been a perception for some years that Chinese diplomacy is becoming more sophisticated. One would have thought therefore that they would have done their homework long since on Kevin Rudd, and yet they have been wrong footed consistently. I don't mean to say that he has set out to trick them. I mean they have failed to understand how he thinks. They have been annoyed and embarrassed by things that he has done and they have not been able or willing perhaps to sustain a dialogue that would settle things down. And one has the feeling that a good deal of that is because he ventured in his famous speech now at Beijing University, to say with, I thought, measured candour Australia would like to be a 'zhengyou' - a true friend, a frank friend of China - therefore there is some things that we think we should say to you. But that is not because we are hostile of China, we're not. I think at this end, that went down very well. With many Chinese students at the time I have a sense that it went down very well. With Chinese leadership, it went down badly. They didn't want him to say some of the things he did. They censured them in the press and one understands that Hu Jintao subsequently, privately gave Mr Rudd a dressing down and I think that the relationship is in a sense gone downhill from there, when one would have hoped that actually they would have said behind scenes, look, we're going to find it difficult to swallow some of your candour. We'd ask you to restrain it at times, but this is an important relationship. We like the fact that you speak Mandarin, we do want a good relationship, we do want to talk. It doesn't seem that that has happened.
