Opening remarks: launching 'Australia’s Security in China’s Shadow' by Dr Euan Graham

Opening remarks delivered by Richard Maude, Senior Fellow at Asia Society Australia, on Thursday 11 May 2023 at the launch of Australia’s Security in China’s Shadow by Dr Euan Graham.

Thank you Carolyn.

It’s a pleasure to be here tonight to help launch Euan’s book.

Well, for a foreign policy wonk, how could it not be!

Euan’s book is timely and important. He has tackled such a consequential period in Australia’s foreign policy and story as a nation.

One in which the stakes have been very high indeed, socially, politically, economically and strategically.

Also a period that remains relatively under-studied. Perhaps because it is still so fresh, perhaps because the story rolls on.

It is sometimes suggested to me by critics of Australia’s approach to China that Australia does not have a China strategy.

Not surprisingly, I don’t agree. Whatever you might think of them, you don’t have to work too hard to find three core pillars: national resilience and sovereignty; the pursuit of a balance of influence– or strategic equilibrium, as Penny Wong calls it – in the Indo-Pacific that favours our interests; and, especially from 2020, the ambition for an Australian Defence Force with more firepower and reach.

I will concede though, that the journey has not been straightforward, nor without missteps, or its share of messiness and improvisation.

Euan’s book takes you on that journey, tracking through the issues gripping policy makers – foreign interference and influence, trade and coercion, investment, defence, and the contest in the Indo-Pacific.

I did a lot of nodding as I read through the book and also re-lived a few hair-raising moments.

In the book, Euan imagines Australia as a “resilient, if somewhat ruffled, canary emerging from the coal mine” of China policy.

It’s a beautiful metaphor, not just because it makes the reader smile, but because it was probably how many of us looked at the time. No doubt those at the coal face often still do!

I’ll leave the ideas in the book mostly to Rory and Euan. I might say in passing though, that I am less hard on governments past and present, and on Australian businesses, when it comes to Euan’s concern about open-ended economic engagement with China.

I think that was rational at the time, and even with hindsight. And, as Euan himself notes, Australia benefitted greatly from it and still does. Just ask the Treasurer.

Moreover, there is still no appetite for significant economic decoupling from China, a point even the Biden Administration has been at pains to make recently.

That said, Euan is absolutely right to say that Australia’s experience must be cautionary. The risks of investing in China and trading with China seem to me to rise almost by the day. China has its own de-coupling agenda.

If you only have time to dip into Euan’s book, I particularly encourage you to read his thoughtful last chapter, where he explores the lessons other countries might learn from Australia’s experience.

One of Euan’s most insightful observations is that there was nothing pre-ordained about the turnaround in Australia’s China policy.

Indeed, one can tally up all the individual factors that pushed Australian governments into action and still wonder what particular combination made the difference.

Euan underlines the role of individuals. I agree. Prime Ministers and advisers were pivotal decision makers.

But in pondering this question myself at points in my post-government life I have wondered about other, harder to quantify, variables.

Did national culture, for example, come into play? As a nation and people we are pretty independent – we don’t like being told what to do, by China, or by America, as it happens.

Early on in his great history of the First World War, C W Bean reflects on the national character of Australia.

Much of what he saw then has been re-shaped, and re-shaped dramatically, by decades of change. But some things still resonate.

Bean describes a “peculiar independence of character”. He said of Australians that they were “unaccustomed to commands untempered by the suggestion of a request”, a line that still makes me smile.

He also goes on to say, that Australia fought not just for Britain and empire, but in opposition to the principle that only the strong have rights.

Sometimes, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

I said at the top of these remarks that the story rolls on. And so it does.

Bilateral relations are somewhat better, the regional dynamic somewhat worse. Risks accumulate.

In my view, the government has sought to stabilise ties with China without any delusions as to the nature of the Party-state or the enduring structural nature of the differences between China and West.

That is a healthy mindset. Stabilisation serves our national interests but brings some hazards. For governments, sustaining such a hard won outcome is obviously attractive. Equally obviously, China sees leverage in this.

It is reasonable for Australia to pick our fights. Not everything China does requires an equal response. Still, while the evolution of China policy in recent years was far from smooth, we did at least learn that we should stop worrying about what China might do to us and get on with the task of protecting national interests.

That was a liberating moment. Perhaps the most important of all the lessons from this tumultuous period. As Euan says as he closes his book, we live in China’s shadow, but shadows are often bigger than the object that casts them.

Congratulations, Euan, on your book, and I look forward to the discussion to come.

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