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June 29th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda That’s the argument from Australia’s international policy think tank the Lowy Institute.
In a new paper, East Asia Program Director Linda Jakobson argues that the weak relationship between Canberra and Beijing is hurting Australia’s ability to exert influence in the region.
She says Australia needs to develop a high-level understanding with China’s leaders, one that will help manage the inevitable tensions that arise between the two countries.
Presenter: Joanna McCarthy
Speaker: Linda Jakobson, East Asia Program Director
JAKOBSON: I think at the moment there’s a great emphasis on the economic relationship between Australia and China. China is after all Australia’s largest trading partner. Chinese students in Australia at institutions of higher education make up the largest foreign student body, and also Chinese tourists spend more money in Australia when they visit than any other visiting group from another country. So China is perceived very much in economic terms by Australia understandably. But today China is no longer merely an important economic power. China is also a paramount political and strategic player in the region.
MCCARTHY: And Linda you’ve called this paper Australia-China Ties in Search of Political Trust. Implicit there is that this is a relationship currently characterised by mistrust, is that what you’d say?
JAKOBSON: I wouldn’t say that the relationship between Australia and China is characterised by mistrust, I think there’s too little trust, there’s a difference between mistrust and a lack of trust. I think there needs to be a lot more familiarity between the top leaders of Australia and China, becoming familiar with your counterparts, being able to discuss not only bilateral issues, but also regional issues, builds trust. One has to have a lot more interaction at the top level to lay the foundation for trust you have to have mutual experiences, you need to have mutual achievements. That’s how you start building political trust. At the moment Australia and China have a strategic dialogue at the vice minister level. This is much too low in my view when you think of the importance of China to the region, to Australia and also Australia’s desire to exert influence in the region.
MCCARTHY: And Linda one of the really interesting things that you recommend is that Australian political leaders should speak candidly about the uncertainties that are associated with China’s rise. And you criticise the kind of what you call meaningless rhetoric about Australia having a friend in Beijing and an ally in Washington, and they’re not being an inherent tension in that. Now candor isn’t always the greatest political asset. Why do you think it’s necessary?
JAKOBSON: I think everyone knows and this includes the Chinese that there is a great deal of uncertainty, even anxiety about how China in the future will use its power. In off the record conversations in Beijing even Chinese officials say this is something that they ponder, they wonder what kind of a power will China develop into. I think a debate, a public debate in Australia about these uncertainties, which have to do with China’s rise, even the anxieties would be healthy. Obviously diplomacy has many sides, there has to be public diplomacy, there also has to be quiet diplomacy which takes place behind closed doors. But at the moment in public Australian leaders don’t delve into this question of the uncertainty which China’s rise evokes.
MCCARTHY: Indeed one of the questions you ask of Canberra’s leaders is why insist that the US defence relationship and strengthening of those ties is not about China? Now it would be a very bold leader who would say directly that the reason we are having more US troops come to Darwin for example is about China, given that the rhetoric from Washington itself is “we are not seeking to contain China”. Why would you want to see that kind of boldness, wouldn’t it just ratchet up the tensions?
JAKOBSON: Well there’s a difference between this is about China or we are trying to contain China. I don’t think anyone can contain China, if contain is used here in the same meaning that it was during the Cold War referring to the Soviet Union. But it’s about China, it’s about a very complex new economic, political, strategic environment which we live in, in the Indo-Pacific region. it is very much about China’s rise and again as I mentioned about the uncertainty as to how China will use its power over the next few decades. And I think it is possible in public to say that there are uncertainties.
Locations; Australia;
Keywords:China, Australia, Lowy Institute, bilateral relations
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