Fed: China Syndrome: Is Rudd's friendship a help or a hindrance?

AAP General News (Australia)
04-02-2009
Fed: China Syndrome: Is Rudd's friendship a help or a hindrance?

By Sandra O'Malley, Diplomatic Correspondent

CANBERRA, April 2 AAP - It hasn't taken long for Kevin Rudd's Sinophile reputation
to turn from political advantage to potential embarrassment.

With the global economy in bloom, China was undoubtedly a friend. Its insatiable appetite
for Australian resources meant money kept pouring into government coffers.

But as markets turned sour, the economy drooped and Beijing began taking advantage
of bargain prices for Australian miners, the perception of China - for some at least -
turned from friend to foe.

When times were good, the prime minister - a former Beijing-based diplomat - was applauded
for his Mandarin skills and encyclopaedic knowledge of things Chinese.

Now he is charged with being too close to the Asian superpower.

It is with derision the opposition accuses Mr Rudd of spruiking for Beijing when he
argues the case for China to be given a bigger role with the International Monetary Fund.

What were once run-of-the-mill meetings with Chinese officials are painted as cloak
and dagger events of mystery.

The Rudd government, no doubt, has done little to help the situation.

Signs of animosity towards Beijing had already started to emerge over the mining deals
but Labor's oddball management of a number of situations has made things worse.

The Chinese government-owned Chinalco's $30 billion grab for a greater share of iconic
Anglo-Australian miner Rio Tinto was already creating some anxiety.

It is the biggest of a host of deals China is trying to strike to take advantage of
bargain basement prices for Australian mining companies, feeding into what some consider
a latent xenophobia within parts of the community that becomes more evident in troubled
times.

However, it was Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon's ham-fisted handling of claims his
department was spying on him and his friend, Chinese-born businesswoman Helen Liu, that
set the hares running.

What was looking like another story about Defence railing against the authority of
its political masters turned into an embarrassment for the government when it emerged
Mr Fitzgibbon failed to declare two trips to China paid for by Ms Liu.

Mr Rudd had already sparked some paranoia when his office failed to brief the Australian
media about a meeting the prime minister was having with senior Chinese Communist Party
official Li Changchun, regarded by some as Beijing's propaganda chief.

It was left to China's Xinhua news agency to provide the little information that was
available about the meeting.

Then there was the perplexing revelation from London that Mr Rudd had asked the BBC
to seat him next to British Foreign Minister David Miliband rather than Chinese ambassador
to the United Kingdom Fu Ying during the filming of a news show.

While Trade Minister Simon Crean might argue Australia needs to be confident about
its relationship with China, the prime minister's odd request made him look anything but
assured about Sino-Australian relations.

It may be decades since China began emerging from behind the bamboo curtain but there
remains an air of intrigue about the nation of 1.3 billion people.

What remains inevitable is that Australia's future is inextricably linked to this powerhouse
economy.

As the current economic crisis shows, the United States has the power to bring the
global economy to its knees, but so too increasingly does China.

The saying used to go that when America sneezed, the world caught a cold. Now, when
China gets the sniffles, Australia needs to head to the doctor and begin stocking up on
Vitamin C.

A collapse in Chinese growth was a major factor behind the government's decision to
downgrade Australia's economic forecasts in February.

But even with a slowdown in activity, China will remain a key player in Australia's
economic future.

The two countries are trying to secure a trade deal which could give Australia better
access to a market of more than a billion people offered by China.

And it will remain a key consumer of Australian commodities for many years to come.

Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner hit the nail on the head when he argued that China
loomed large in Australia's future whether people liked it or not.

With a nation as complex and diverse as China, the question of whether the relationship
is an advantage or a handicap is never going to be black or white.

AAP so/kms/jlw/de

KEYWORD: CHINA AUST (AAP NEWS ANALYSIS)

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