EDITORIAL: Albanese’s special treatment in China comes with strings attached

Anthony Albanese’s mission to China, all sides have enthusiastically agreed, has been a raging success.

President Xi Jinping ensured the red carpet was rolled out for his guest’s six-day trip, which has reached its halfway point. The pair’s official meeting on Tuesday was followed by a private lunch, with an invitation also extended to Mr Albanese’s fiancee Jodie Haydon.

Not every foreign dignitary visiting China gets this type of special treatment. Only those from whom President Xi and the Communist Party machine have determined they will get return on investment.

The effusive reception continued in China’s press. State-run newspapers ran beaming photographs of Mr Albanese meeting with President Xi on their front pages.

China Daily editorialised praising Mr Albanese for his willingness to “promote mutually beneficial co-operation” and described both nations as “both beneficiaries and defenders of the postwar international order”.

That editorial came with a message for the Australian delegation: “If the two sides can carry on the positive momentum of their ties, they can better safeguard international fairness and justice, protect multi-lateralism and free trade, and promote the development of the international order in a more just and reasonable manner.”

What’s “just and reasonable” when it comes to the international order depends on where you sit in it. Australia is content with the status quo, which has our No. 1 security partner the United States at its apex. China is less satisfied.

While Mr Albanese has stuck faithfully to the diplomatic jargon of “mutual benefits”, there have been some overtures to independence. The Prime Minister has broached sticky subjects including the imprisonment of Australian writer Yang Hengjun on vaguely defined spying charges and the lack of warning given to Australia authorities before Chinese ships engaged in live firing exercises in the Tasman Sea.

This is what China see in its courtship of Australia: a Western middle power partner to hold up to the rest of the world as an example of the riches that can flow as a result of a cosy relationship with China. And as the US’s reputation as a reliable trading partner is eroded by President Donald Trump’s unpredictable tariff regime, the heft of that example increases.

Economically, China has the upper hand in its dealings with Australia, many times over. That’s by design. President Xi’s economic strategy of “dual circulation” is designed to do precisely that: develop a self-reliant China, while increasing other nations’ dependence on it.

That way, should nations step out of line — as Australia did under Scott Morrison in 2020, by calling for an investigation into the origins of the coronavirus — China can use that economic advantage as a battering ram to bend foreign leaders to its will.

Australia’s leaders, including Mr Albanese, aren’t blind to the strategy. But the bait — a market which will take as many lobsters, bottles of wine and tonnes of iron ore as we can produce — has proved too enticing to resist.

Responsibility for the editorial comment is taken by Editor-in-Chief Christopher Dore.