Curb Sino-Australian relations from plunging into the abyss

By Li Hongmei People's Daily Online

It looms clear that relations between China and Australia have now hit their lowest point in a decade, since John Howard met the Dalai Lama. And it also looks as if one single issue were not enough to derail the improving bilateral ties. But if a wide array of things chooses to go wrong exactly at the same time, the fallout will cost them both a potential win-win game.

Seemingly it all started in June when Ausie's Rio Tinto shocked Beijing by rejecting a US$19.5-billion bid by Chinalco, a Chinese state-owned mining company. But what was actually behind the abortive deal was a burgeoning anti-China chorus from some Australian lawmakers, who tend to overzealously act whenever it comes to China policies, with the pretext of being wary of China's 'growing reach into Australia's natural resources.'

That helps to explain why Australian officials have later tried to interfere in China's judicial sovereignty by blatantly pressing China to be 'fair' in handling the spy case involving four employees of Rio Tinto, one of whom is an Australian citizen. Shortly afterwards, the flare-up escalated with Australia granting a visa to Rebiya Kadeer, a pure terrorist masterminding the 7/5 Urumqi riots which claimed almost 200 lives. Unfortunately, instead of expressing any regret over the already strained bilateral ties, the Australian PM Kevin Rudd defended his right to issue a visa 'to anybody as he pleases.'

In response, China cancelled the visit of Vice-Foreign Minister He Yafei to attend the Pacific-Asia Dialogue in Australia to hit back at Australia challenging China's core national interest and causing heat between the two nations. Australia promptly reacted by calling Australia's Ambassador to China, Geoff Raby, back to Canberra for an emergency summit at a time when its Resources Minister Martin Ferguson made a sudden visit to Beijing to promote the US$50 billion natural gas deal between the North West Shelf Gorgon project and PetroChina, a trip seen as an effort to cool rising diplomatic tensions.

The latest wave of debates was, surprisingly, not set up by the Mandarin-speaking Kevin Rudd himself, but by his brother, Gregory Peter Rudd, who opened a business on Beijing's second ring road in May to promote better business links between China and Australia. The Rudd brother published an article in The Australian Newspaper, as the Sino-Australian relations continue to sour, addressing the importance of the bilateral ties and claiming to back up a sound relationship between China and Australia. On the surface, it is a soul-searching article released just in time to reverse the deteriorating situation; and even some authoritative Chinese newspapers and portal websites published its Chinese version in full. Still, some netizens sniffed out of the article, seemingly with good intentions, something disagreeable.

A Beijing-based netizen published his blog on Sina.com rebuking Gregory Rudd for actually slandering China's political system and human rights record, by citing what the brother said in his article----Democracy cannot exist in nowadays China, just as Communism is unlikely to take root in Australia… Yes, Chinese government at times exercises authoritarianism and high-handedness. It has to do so, as it is governing a vast nation with a population of 1.3 billion…If China pushed forward democracy, there would be at least two civil wars by the end of the year, and the grave geopolitical crisis incurred thereupon would plague the entire world---- just mention a few for example.

The netizen deemed all this utterance made by this VIP brother was the subtext to mock China and its people, more subtle but more hurt. The response to this blog article--entitled 'Lu Kewen (Kevin Rudd) Vs. Lu Kelei (Gregory Rudd): Is democracy workable in China?'--was unexpectedly tremendous. Immediately afterwards, a heated online debate was unfolded with posts and blogs flooding in. Public opinions are divided over the brother's intention especially at the very sensitive juncture of China-Australia relations.

Be that as it may, most Chinese still consider Sino-Australia ties as equally important as the relations with other Asian neighbors, even though traditionally and culturally Ausie has been taken as a link of the Western power chain. And in the previous years, some Australian lawmakers even hammered out some 'anti-Asia' policies. The recent years, however, have seen Australia approaching more close to its Asian neighbors, including China, particularly in economic ties. China is Australia's biggest trade partner with trade worth US$53 billion last year.

The Chinese public even one-sidedly wished the Chinese-speaking Kevin Rudd would breathe in a warm breeze in the bilateral ties when he took office. But they have also learnt a lesson that no matter how fluently he can speak your language and how much he said your culture appealed to him, Kevin Rudd is, after all, a politician, and a politician will be always dear to his interests more than anything else.

Driven by the interests and caught in between some anti-China forces, Kevin Rudd would turn against China to curry favor with his political rivals. But nobody is forceful enough to hold back the general trend and popular feeling.

A Chinese scholar hit the nail on the head when he said in the sweeping background of battling global recession, and out of consideration for national interests, no country can afford to pick up the sesame seeds but overlook the watermelons. Perhaps, Kevin Rudd and his brother also have a full knowledge of this.