PM Morrison pledges no ‘showboating’ on China

Australia Prime Minister Scott Morrison has stifled expectations of confronting Beijing over disputes in the South China Sea or human rights issues during high-level meetings this week.

Canberra:

The PM has also ruled out signing a major trade deal when he meets with Indonesian President Joko Widodo at a series of regional summits.

Mr Morrison will attend the East Asia Summit in Singapore and APEC in Papua New Guinea this week to talk about trade, regional security and counter terrorism, in what will be his first summit season as leader.

Escalating trade tensions and strategic competition between the US and China are expected to loom large over the forums.

Mr Morrison is aiming to meet with Chinese Premier Li Kequiang in Singapore and President Xi Jinping in Port Moresby.

But he won’t be publicly pushing China for putting Uighur Muslims in re-education camps, despite at least three Australians having been held in the facilities. “We always raise any concerns that we have, particularly about human rights issues,” Mr Morrison said.

“We do that privately, we do that directly when we do these things. We don’t get into showboating about these things.”.

Nor will Australia agitate over China’s territorial claims over islands in the South China Sea.

However, Mr Morrison noted that the government’s position on freedom of navigation rights in the politically-charged waterway had not changed.

Australia was due to sign a trade deal with Indonesia before Christmas, but the Prime Minister now says there is “no rush” to get it done.

Indonesia is upset about Australia’s potential move of an embassy to Jerusalem, with reports the deal is on hold until the issue is sorted out.

“The intention was the trade ministers would be able to deal with that by the end of the year, but there’s no hurry,” Mr Morrison told Bloomberg.

“Australia doesn’t conflate these issues.”