Albanese and Wong haven’t put a foot wrong on China, but the big tests come next year
Labor has been right to approach China and the rest of the region with a focus on shared interests, rather than shared values.
In their meetings with Chinese counterparts, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong and Defence Minister Richard Marles have displayed a deft diplomacy that the previous government sorely lacked.
The Turnbull and Morrison governments achieved big things: reorienting the China relationship to a more realistic footing; banning Huawei and other high-risk vendors from next-generation networks; enacting landmark foreign interference laws; and the AUKUS submarine deal. But the diplomacy wasn’t always strong enough to support their strategic intentions.
Look at the handling of the push for an international inquiry into China’s handling of the COVID-19 outbreak. Or Scott Morrison calling a snap press conference responding to a tweet by a relatively low-level Chinese official. Or the way in which it handled the fallout of the AUKUS submarine deal in
South-East Asia and France. Or its blatant politicisation of national security during the election campaign.
The way that Wong has approached the region has been a breath of fresh air.
In all of her speeches in the Pacific and South-East Asia, Wong has talked about shared “interests” much more than shared “values” such as liberal democracy. This is because the Morrison government’s constant talk of values went
down like a lead balloon in SouthEast Asia. Most of these countries share our fear of a growing and more assertive China but don’t necessarily share our love for liberal democracy.
Wong is meeting audiences where they are at, and trying to build alignment from there. This shouldn’t be a surprise; Wong has always regarded herself as a foreign policy realist.
When she is talking to an American audience, as she did earlier this month in a speech in Washington, there is much more talk of shared democratic values. But in her speech in Singapore in July, shared interests won the day.
“We need to continue to build alignment together and with others to help shape outcomes in ways that support our collective interests,” Wong said in the speech that referenced the word “interests” eight times.
This is similar to a new approach outlined by Britain’s foreign secretary James Cleverly last week, which emphasised building new partnerships with emerging economic powers who may not share the UK’s democratic values.
None of this is to say that Albanese and Wong have achieved anything substantive yet, apart from the release of Australian Sean Turnell from Myanmar.