Albanese Goes to China

In July Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese made a six-day official visit to China. The trip was a sign that relations between the two countries have been normalized, after a period under Albanese’s predecessor, Scott Morrison, where Beijing wouldn’t even accept Canberra’s calls. The friendly welcome for an Australian prime minister may also signal that Beijing is sensing opportunity in the current chaos and economic antagonism emerging from Washington.

The Albanese government’s mantra regarding China since first coming to power in 2022 has been “to cooperate where we can, and disagree where we must.” This framing recognizes that Australia’s wealth is overwhelmingly tied to China as an export market, yet Australia shares a very different worldview from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which requires Canberra to be quietly firm about its values and principles. This looks to be an approach that Beijing has come to respect.

Yet geopolitical conditions have also dramatically changed since 2022. With the return of Donald Trump to the White House, the United States is making the shift to an insular and protectionist state, undermining many of the relationships with states that were either aligned with the U.S. or friendly neutrals in the current era of great power competition. This behavior has opened the door for China to position itself as the stable, humble superpower.

Whether Beijing can fully embody this role is still to be seen. Humility is not an innate feature of authoritarianism, so the psychological shifts required in Beijing may be too steep to overcome. But in Albanese’s visit to China there were indications that the CCP was making the attempt. From a five-hour meeting with President Xi Jinping and a succulent Chinese meal in the Great Hall of the People, to accommodating Albanese’s visits to major historical sites, and a panda-breeding center – the visit looked like it was the Chinese seeking to impress the prime minister.

Australia, of course, is under no illusions that there is a game being played here. Despite how difficult Washington is making it to be an ally at the moment, there is no temptation for Australia to shift toward Beijing. But other countries in Australia’s region may find a friendly and more trade-focused Beijing to be a far more enticing prospect than a belligerent and economically illiterate Washington. This could shift the regional balance of power, and present significant problems for Australia should its neighbors, like Indonesia, find Beijing easier to deal with than Washington.

At present, Canberra needs to work with the blunt realities of Australia’s circumstances. Australia’s diplomatic approach to normalize relations with China has been driven by cold hard economic realities. Over a quarter of Australia’s trade is with China, and Australia simply does not want to return to the period prior to the Albanese government where Beijing reacted combatively to perceived slights from Canberra and either banned or heavily tariffed many Australian goods.

Albanese was accompanied by a delegation from the Business Council of Australia, with representatives of industries such as mineral resources, agriculture, education, tourism, and green energy. The delegation was designed to demonstrate not only China’s importance to Australia, but Australia’s importance to China. Much of China’s development is built with Australian resources, both in terms of raw materials and through the upskilling of young Chinese as international students. With the United States becoming more hostile to international students – and Chinese in particular – Australia is likely to benefit.

The delegation was also designed to send the strong message that Australia is open to trade. Unlike China, the European Union, Canada, and Mexico, Australia has decided to not respond in kind to the Trump administration’s regime of tariffs. Australia’s position is that it believes in free trade and maintains a firm commitment to this principle. It is important that Australia sends this signal to Beijing as well as Washington.

For Australia, it’s important for Beijing to understand that China’s own increasing wealth is tied to a free trading system, and any dramatic moves to disrupt it – like invading Taiwan – would be catastrophic. At present the Chinese government seems to understand this. The U.S may be wealthy enough to be stupid, but China isn’t yet – and may never be given its low birth rate. This binds China’s behavior significantly.

The success of Albanese’s trip can be understood through its attempts to be a stabilizing force in a destabilizing world. While lacking power to significantly shape the geopolitical realm, Canberra still has a role to play as a creative middle power by presenting itself as a rational and reliable face within the West. Now Canberra must hope these traits can be influential.