The Chinese ambassador's Darwin Port visit, renewed coercion concerns, and a ministerial meeting with Taiwan
Fortnight of 29 May to 11 June 2023
Ambassador Xiao Qian does Darwin
From the People’s Daily article covering Ambassador Xiao’s visit to Darwin:
“Darwin is the ‘Northern Gateway’ of Australia, with a superior geographical location and unique advantages in carrying out China-Australia people-to-people exchanges and developing economic, trade and investment cooperation with China.”
Quick take:
As I noted last edition, there’s been an appreciable uptick in the publicly reported outreach by Chinese government missions in Australia. This trend has continued with a slew of additional engagements in the last fortnight between Australian organisations and individuals and Ambassador Xiao and China’s consul-generals. As with previous weeks, the Chinese government’s readouts of these meetings have mostly been posted in Mandarin only (with a small number of English-language exceptions). Given that there are multiple plausible explanations for this, it’s unclear what, if anything, one can infer from this discrepancy. Still, the scope and intensity of China’s publicly advertised engagement with state and territory governments and politicians (e.g., here and here), local governments (e.g., here and here), the tertiary education sector (e.g., here and here), and private businesses (e.g., here and here) is at least consistent with what looks like a multilayered effort by Beijing to repair ties with Australia.
Among these recent engagements, Ambassador Xiao’s visit to the Northern Territory was especially noteworthy. As well as calling on non-government stakeholders and attending community events in the Territory, the trip involved a series of high-level calls in Darwin. These included meetings with both the Administrator and Chief Minister of the Northern Territory, Speaker of the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly, and the Lord Mayor of Darwin. Given the relative rarity of a Chinese ambassador visiting the Northern Territory (Or at least I imagine that it isn’t that common an occurrence?), it makes sense that Ambassador Xiao would want to pack in as many calls as possible with senior Territorians. But diplomatic protocol and pageantry aside, Darwin Port was the most intriguing stop on the ambassador’s Northern Territory trip.
Ambassador Xiao was treated to what looked like a warm reception at the port, where the Chinese company Landbridge Group holds a 99-year lease that isn’t set to expire until sometime around the year 2114. Although unmentioned in the publicly available summary of the visit, it’s hard not to interpret Ambassador Xiao’s engagement in the context of the ongoing Albanese government review of Landbridge Group’s lease. The readout included references to the employment of locals, Landbridge Group being a “private enterprise,” and the commercial nature of the bidding for the lease—messages which one might imagine would have been designed to assuage concerns in Canberra. Though, to be fair, the fact that the readout was only posted in Mandarin might lend itself to an alternative and perhaps more plausible interpretation: That the Darwin Port visit was more about the Chinese ambassador signalling to his own government that he’s making efforts to sure up the lease.
Leaving Ambassador Xiao’s intent to one side, how might the visit connect to the Albanese government’s review of Landbridge Group’s lease? Although the review by the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (PM&C) has had a long incubation, there still haven’t been public indications of its findings. As far back as April this year, Minister for Defence Richard Marles was saying that the review “will report shortly and we’ll take it from there.” At the risk of over interpretating the Minister’s comment, it seems possible that PM&C has already delivered a report and that the Albanese government is taking extra time to finesse the details of its response and/or the timing of an announcement. Given Canberra’s current priority of stabilising the Australia-China relationship and getting trade restrictions unwound combined with Beijing’s regularly expressed concerns about the treatment of Chinese businesses by the Australian government, it’d be unsurprising if Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his Cabinet had decided to slow roll their response to the review.
Although I’m not confident inferring much about internal deliberations in Canberra from Ambassador Xiao’s Darwin visit alone, it would presumably be embarrassing for the the Chinese embassy if the Albanese government decided to end the lease shortly after an ambassadorial trip to the port. So, at the very least, it seems unlikely that Canberra will want to tear up the lease in the immediate wake of Ambassador Xiao’s visit. What that means for the outcome of the Albanese government’s review longer term is unclear though. But my working assessment remains that the most likely outcome is that Canberra won’t cancel the lease outright and will instead put in place additional forms of security oversight, administrative procedures, and/or lease modifications. These arrangements might even be so cumbersome that Landbridge Group leaves Darwin Port without being forced out. Of course, an outright lease termination remains possible, especially if it can be delayed until after China’s trade restrictions have all been removed and Prime Minister Albanese has travelled to Beijing. Still, leaving the lease in situ with additional monitoring and/or contractual amendments seems to most closely fit with the Albanese government’s track record of trying to balance a broadly tough and bipartisan security posture on China with the ongoing stabilisation of ties with Beijing.
One final thought bubble: The apparent uptick in the Chinese government’s engagement with a wide range of organisations and individuals across Australia makes me wonder whether there’s a case for a more joined-up and whole-of-nation approach to Canberra’s China diplomacy. Should the federal government, for example, share more information and talking points with state, territory, and local governments, as well as community leaders, universities, and Australian companies, so that they can also press Chinese government interlocuters on Australian consular cases, China’s trade restrictions, and human rights and other concerns? In raising this possibility, I fully recognise and accept that many organisations and individuals in Australia won’t want to broach these kinds of pointy bilateral issues in their engagements with Chinese government representatives. Accordingly, any joined-up and whole-of-nation approach to Canberra’s China diplomacy should probably be non-compulsory. I can also imagine that this coordination already occurs to some extent, so feel free to tell me how naïve I might be. But to the extent that it’s not already happening and there’s broader national appetite to prosecute these Australian interests with Chinese government representatives, perhaps there’s a case for more information-sharing and coordination between the federal government and a wider range of actors across Australia’s federal system of government and society. All that said, the opportunity to raise Australian priorities more regularly won’t necessarily translate into better outcomes, but I’ll save that tougher question of effectiveness for another time.
Renewed coercion concerns
From the Joint Declaration Against Trade-Related Economic Coercion and Non-Market Policies and Practices issued by the Five Eyes countries and Japan on 9 June:
“We express serious concern over trade-related economic coercion and non-market policies and practices that undermine the functioning of and confidence in the rules-based multilateral trading system by distorting trade, investment, and competition and harming relations between countries.”
Quick take:
This joint declaration is the latest in a series of conflicting datapoints in relation to the Albanese government’s approach to raising concerns about economic coercion. As I’ve written previously, Canberra has undoubtedly wound back its use of more rhetorically charged terms like “economic coercion”. Albanese government ministers tend to use softer terms like trade “sanctions” or “impediments” when mentioning China by name, and there have been fewer references to economic coercion in Australia’s joint communiqués since the Albanese government came to power. Although the term “economic coercion” still features in Canberra’s diplomatic lexicon, it was dropped from the most recent joint statements with India, Malaysia, and the Quad (both at the ministerial and leader levels). Economic coercion also received less of an emphasis in the Joint Statement from the 2023 Australia-U.S. Strategic Commercial Dialogue than its previous iteration in 2022. As ever, it’s possible that some of these changes were driven by other capitals rather than Canberra and that these linguistic tweaks might be a product of happenstance/human error rather than a conscious decision. Still, the shift towards reducing the use of the term “economic coercion” in the Albanese government’s first year is conspicuous.
In that context, this recent joint declaration by the Five Eyes countries and Japan is a noteworthy example that bucks the apparent trend of declining diplomatic emphasis on economic coercion concerns. Might this latest strong and detailed expression of opposition to economic coercion and non-market policies and practices impact the ongoing stabilisation and repair of the Australia-China relationship? Almost certainly not. Although Beijing presumably didn’t appreciate the (thinly veiled) broadsides in the joint declaration, this latest statement won’t materially shift the overall positive trajectory of bilateral ties. China might have privately expressed frustration to Australia. And yet Beijing’s negative public reaction was directed exclusively at Washington. Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokesperson Wang Wenbin fired back in the wake of the declaration by saying: “The statement is made by the US together with its Five Eyes allies and Japan, but every sentence in it reads like a description of the US itself.”
Beyond Beijing’s keenness to make use of the joint declaration to mount its own criticisms of Washington, a few other factors are likely to minimise any fallout for the Australia-China relationship. First, unlike the G7 Leaders’ Communiqué last month, this joint declaration doesn’t mention China by name in relation to concerns about economic coercion and non-market policies and practices. Beijing might have taken offence, but the lack of a clear culprit in the declaration from the Fives Eyes countries and Japan would likely make it much less aggravating for China than the G7’s targeted salvo just a few weeks earlier. Second, although the formal and detailed nature of the joint declaration is an evolution relative to the baseline of Australia’s public messaging on economic coercion and non-market policies and practices, the general thrust of the concerns isn’t novel and so presumably wouldn’t have caught China off guard. Third, and perhaps most importantly, the timing of this joint declaration is likely to blunt any blowback from Beijing. Coming as it did after the direct naming and shaming of China in the G7 communiqué and the announcement of the European Union’s Anti-Coercion Instrument (ACI), Beijing is likely to see this joint declaration as relatively rhetorically non-threatening (compared to the G7’s more explicit communiqué) and in practice toothless (compared to the European Union’s ACI). So, although Australia might be putting its concerns about economic coercion up in lights, don’t expect it to dent the upwards direction of travel for bilateral ties.
Talking with Taiwan
Minister for Trade and Tourism Don Farrell responding to a question from Senator David Fawcett on 1 June:
“I met with my [Taiwanese] trade equivalent last week. We had a very productive and friendly discussion. I’m happy to continue those discussions.”
Quick take:
The details of this meeting are, unsurprisingly, scarce. (I haven’t seen any official media releases unpacking the specifics of this bilateral engagement and I’d welcome any pointers in that regard.) But based on the exchange in Senate Estimates, it seems that the encounter could have occurred in person in the United States during Minister Farrell’s late-May trip for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) meetings. This timing works given that Minister Farrell could have easily bumped into Taiwan’s Minister-Without-Portfolio John Deng at that time. Minister Deng is described as “Taiwan’s point man on trade” and was in Detroit at the same APEC meeting. Of course, it’s equally possible that Minster Farrell had a simple video linkup with Minister Deng or perhaps Minister of Economic Affairs Wang Mei-hua. [Update: Before pressing send, I noticed this 28 May interview with Minister Deng confirming the APEC sidelines meeting hypothesis.]
Regardless of the particulars, public confirmation from Minister Farrell is noteworthy given Canberra’s tendency (though, of course, not universal) to shy away from broadcasting contact with Taipei at the political level. That said, Minister Farrell’s meeting is in no way unprecedented. Then-Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment Dan Tehan met online with Minister of Economic Affairs Wang in July 2021, and ministers Tehan and Deng also apparently met in April 2021. It’s possible/probable that other unpublicised ministerial meetings have taken place between Canberra and Taipei in recent years as well. (As always, please send through any tips you might have on those meetings.) Taking a longer historical view, meetings at the ministerial level between Australia and Taiwan are not at all anomalous. Indeed, serving Australian ministers and assistant ministers even visited Taiwan on official business numerous times the 1990s and 2000s, and two Australian ministerial trips to Taiwan occurred as recently as 2011 and 2012. Still, considering the baseline of the last few years, Minister Farrell’s confirmation in Parliament of a meeting seems relatively forthright. [Though, per the caveat above, maybe less so considering that the comment in Senate Estimates came after Minister Deng’s interview publicly confirming the meeting.]
As always, thank you for reading, and please excuse any errors (typographical or otherwise). Any and all objections, criticisms, and corrections are very much appreciated.
“joined-up and whole-of-nation approach to Canberra’s China diplomacy” - Xiao Qian is: a) lobbying, to divide and rule. b) creating photo ops to make Chinese readers of Chinese language media in Australia, have the impression everything is fixed now, Australia has mended its ways. So a while a whole of nation approach (like the CCP enforce in China and beyond) is what we need, it’s the base line, the starting point.