Aussie China News
A weekly roundup of your favourite (and least favourite) Australian digital media coverage of China.
(Reuters: Thomas Peter)Hello everyone and welcome BACK to a new issue of Aussie China News!
This post covers Australian digital news and commentary on China between Friday 14th July and Friday 21st July.
News
Politics
First some optimistic news, and a bold claim:
China-Australia relations 'stabilised, improved', Chinese top diplomat says
Reuters, Fri 14 Jul 2023
China's top diplomat Wang Yi said China and Australia's relations have "stabilised, improved and developed" under the joint efforts of both countries, a Chinese foreign ministry statement Friday said. Wang also said he hoped Australia will provide a fair, just and non-discriminatory business environment for Chinese enterprises to invest and operate in the country.
… But are relations really stabilised?
With an Albanese visit to China on the cards, has Beijing overplayed its hand with hostage diplomacy?
Bang Xiao, ABC, Sat 15 Jul 2023
Simmering trade disputes and the arrest of two Australian citizens in China, at a time when diplomatic tensions were at their most frigid, once served Beijing's "wolf warrior" diplomacy tactics. But years later, Beijing could be paying for the cost of those decisions, as they cast a shadow of doubt over a possible visit to China by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese this year.
Penny Wong delivers China a list of improvements needed before Albanese accepts invitation
Sky News, Sat 15 Jul 2023
Foreign Minister Penny Wong has given China a list of improvements the government would like to see before Prime Minister Anthony Albanese accepts Beijing’s latest invitation.
Visit or no visit, we couldn’t start off without the most discussed (and censored) man of the hour:
How China's foreign minister going MIA could affect diplomacy with Australia
Bang Xiao, ABC, Wed 19 Jul 2023
Mr Qin's last public appearance was on June 25. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said Mr Qin would not attend an ASEAN meeting due to "health reasons". The foreign minister's disappearance could delay the appointment of a new Australian ambassador to China
Security
“China in the Pacific” is a hot issue expected to stick around.
Australia raises concern over Solomon Islands policing plan with China's top diplomat
Kirsty Needham, Reuters, Fri 14 Jul 2023
Australia has raised China's plan to take a policing role in the Pacific Islands nation of Solomon Islands in talks with Beijing's top diplomat Wang Yi, Foreign Minister Penny Wong said on Friday. The U.S., Australia, New Zealand and Solomon Islands' opposition party have called for Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare to "immediately" publish details of the policing deal signed in Beijing on Monday, amid concern it will invite further regional contest.
Solomon Islands defends police deal with China
Kirsty Needham, The New Daily, Fri 14 Jul 2023
The Solomon Islands has denied suggestions its policing deal with China is a threat to peace in the Pacific, saying the pact will enhance its capabilities in cyber security and community policing.China to ‘fill the gap’ in Solomon Islands budget as PM blasts ‘unneighbourly’ Australia and US
Ben Doherty, The Guardian, Mon 17 Jul 2023
China will “fill the gap” in Solomon Islands’ troubled budget, after Australia and other traditional development partners suddenly withdrew millions of dollars in promised funding, the country’s prime minister has claimed. While the Albanese government immediately denied the claim, Manasseh Sogavare again condemned Australia and the US for criticising his country’s policing pact with China, saying while Australian and other Pacific police forces were its “partner of choice”, China was a welcomed additional security ally.
But not the only topic in the security domain:
New report claims China producing disturbing ‘brain-disrupting’ weapons
Jamie Seidel, news.com.au, Sat 15 Jul 2023
Fears China is developing disturbing weapons are spreading amid rumours a mysterious syndrome was caused by a deliberate attack.
Supporting US military against China could draw Australia into nuclear war, expert warns
Daniel Hurst, The Guardian, Mon 17 Jul 2023
Australia is making itself a bigger military target for China and risks being drawn into a war that “could end in nuclear catastrophe”, a leading defence analyst has argued. Sam Roggeveen, the director of the Lowy Institute’s international security program and a former Australian intelligence analyst, issues the stark warning in an essay published on Monday.
Chinese 'spy ships' expected to sit off Darwin and Central Queensland during Talisman Sabre military exercises
Andrew Greene, ABC, Fri 21 Jul 2023
Defence officials are taking precautions to protect sensitive information during Australia's largest military exercise. Chinese spy ships are expected to station near the Northern Territory and Queensland coasts. China has not requested to participate in the military exercise bringing together about 30,000 troops from 13 countries.
China spy threat to solar grid
The Australian, Thu 20 Jul 2023
Under China's national intelligence laws, the companies supplying these solar inverters could be ordered by Beijing to sabotage, surveil or disrupt power supplies to Australian homes, companies or government. Could China control our solar grid?
Tech
ChatGPT is blocked in China but techies are creating ways to get around the great firewall
Iris Zhao, ABC, Thu 20 Jul 2023
New York resident Hanson Wang is helping thousands of people in China access US-made generative artificial intelligence. Mr Wang has created a type of proxy server that acts as an intermediary between ChatGPT and internet users in China. It has already attracted about 2,000 users.
Economics and trade
No chance China will join Pacific trade pact in near term, Australia warns
Daniel Hurst, The Guardian, Sat 15 Jul 2023
China has no hope of being accepted into a major regional trade pact in the near term, the Australian government has signalled, as members prepare to welcome the UK into the fold this weekend. The assistant trade minister, Tim Ayres, is visiting New Zealand for a meeting with fellow members of the CPTPP. The UK, which sees joining as part of its “tilt” to the Indo-Pacific region, is to be formally accepted as the 12th member on Saturday.
China’s economic recovery loses steam as GDP disappoints
James Mayger and Fran Wang, AFR, Mon 17 Jul 2023
China’s economy grew slower than expected in the second quarter, with consumer spending easing notably in June, sending more alarm bells about the recovery. Gross domestic product expanded 6.3 per cent in the second quarter from a year earlier, data released by the National Bureau of Statistics showed on Monday, weaker than the median forecast of 7.1 per cent by economists.
China's economy misses growth forecasts, raising odds of more support for slow recovery
ABC, Tue 18 Jul 2023
Growth in the Chinese economy was less than forecast this quarter. Chinese youth unemployment has risen to a record high. Property investment also sank by 7 per cent in the last quarter.Chalmers meets Chinese counterpart amid economic fears
Phillip Coorey, AFR, Tue 18 Jul 2023
Jim Chalmers has held a breakthrough meeting with China’s Finance Minister, Liu Kun, as the government continued to fret over the consequences of a rapidly flatlining Chinese economy, which could include a downgrade of Australia’s economic forecasts. During his second and final day at the G20 meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors, Dr Chalmers continued the thaw in relations between Australia and Beijing by becoming the first treasurer in four years to meet his Chinese counterpart.Evergrande offers an ugly view into China's property woes
Sydney Morning Herald, Thu 20 Jul 2023
Evergrande, dubbed the world's most indebted property company when it defaulted on its debts in 2021, was one of the earliest, largest and most high-profile casualties of the “three red lines” policy China introduced in 2020 to restrict the degree of debt within an over-leveraged property sector.
Penfolds reveals foothold in China as it prepares to release 'trial' cabernet blend made from fruit harvested in the country's top wine-growing regions
Des Houghton, Sky News, Fri 21 Jul 2023
A secret project that has been kept under wraps until now - code named CWT 521 - may help thaw frosty trade relations, writes Des Houghton.
Society
Opinion and analysis
The disturbing evolution of China’s foreign policy
Sunny Cheung, The Strategist, Fri 14 Jul 2023
The international community has recently been rocked by the Hong Kong government’s chilling decision to place bounties on eight exiled activists, two of whom are currently residing in Australia. This show of transnational repression, a disturbing extension of law enforcement beyond territorial borders, is a brazen violation of human rights, personal freedoms and national sovereignty.
Paul Keating is wrong. Here’s why NATO matters to Australia and Asia
Lavina Lee, Sydney Morning Herald, Mon 17 Jul 2023
Last week, Paul Keating labelled NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg a “supreme fool” and stridently criticised NATO’s “lurch eastward” with its proposed opening of a liaison office in Tokyo. In the former Australian prime minister’s view, NATO has no business in Asia, and he firmly rejected any parallels between Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s coercion of Taiwan and belligerence in the South China Sea. China, said Keating, had “no record of attacking other states, unlike the United States”.
How China’s renewables boom is fuelling its coal expansion
David Fickling, AFR, Mon 17 Jul 2023
The country’s futuristic renewables sector is shackled to antiquated market structures that mean green and fossil power often go hand in hand.
Why China tripled its heavy truck shipments to Central Asia: Unravelling the influence of Russia’s war in Ukraine
Joseph Webster, The Interpreter, Wed 19 Jul 2023
Trade data shows Central Asia’s imports from China are up sharply, as the region is progressively integrated into a Beijing-Moscow economic axis. Central Asia is increasingly a pass-through for Sino-Russian trade. There are now fresh reports of illicit supplies being funnelled to Russia via the region hidden within a broader export surge.
China is playing the long game in the Pacific. Here’s why its efforts are beginning to pay off
Graeme Smith, The Conversation, Fri 21 Jul 2023
Some key questions have been overlooked this week in the pantomime about what Australia should or shouldn’t do to shore up its relationship with an important Pacific partner. (We could start by accepting that Sogavare will never love us, and avoid getting into an arms race in the Solomon Islands with China.) What’s been somewhat lost, though, is how China has made inroads so quickly in a region that it still officially classifies as “peripheral”.
That’s all for this week. Thank you so much for reading! This project is in its experimental phase, so please send your feedback and let me know what you think as I work to improve it.
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