澳 中 友 好 协 会

3

Dates for your Diary:

ACFS Regular Activities

Qigong: Every Wednesday, 10am, Ultimo Community Centre, exercise class $10. Call Miranda Ho on 0402 918 383

Mandarin: Every Tuesday. General Language class 10.30am-12noon in our ACFS Rooms, $17. Contact Mark Seeto,

ph. 0417 691 988 or email mseeto@bigpond.net.au

Kathy Blunt talk on Super Sniper Billy Sing:

Saturday, 11th April 2015, 2-4pm, at SMSA, Mitchell Theatre, 280 Pitt St Sydney NSW. $8 members, $10 non-

members. Light refreshments included

BOOKINGS: Kathie – 4861 3078 or dblunt@bigpond.net.au

The Golden Temple, Amritsar by Mailis Wakeham

For me, one of the most magnificent places we visited in India was The Golden Temple at Amritsar, (aka Sri

Harmandir Sahib, Amritsar). Rajeev purchased a “Golden Temple” handkerchief scarf for us to tie around our

heads as a sign of respect as well as being an easy means of spotting each other as we walked along the street to

the Temple.

The splendour of the Temple’s architecture plus its peaceful serenity and cleanliness was an astonishing,

welcome contrast to the surrounding towns with all their bustle and clamour.

Some Indian men and women were

bathing themselves in the lake, others

(like us) were walking around the central

lake and its structures.

I confess to checking with Wikipaedia for

some of the following facts:

Construction commenced in 1577 AD

and was completed by 1604 AD. This

holy shrine has four entrances, one in

the north, others in the south, east and

west, signifying that people belonging to

every walk of life are equally welcome.

The art displayed here is neither a copy

of Islamic art or Hindu traditional art but

a rare work of craftsmanship by Sikh

Artists. Designs depicting birds, animals

and flowers have been engraved in marble and then studded with colourful semi-precious stones - truly

superb! Later, our group visited a workplace where such artistry is still carried out, enabling us to better

appreciate the effort required in creating such superb art.

The ACFS

Bulletin is

kindly

sponsored

by:

Ph: 1300 764 224; email: ctstours@chinatravel.com.au

4

March ACFS talk on “How to get a Good Night’s Sleep”

We were welcomed by a room full of enthusiastic

people wanting to hear about our topic “How to get

a Good Night’s Sleep” Dr Vinee Chen and I shared

the stage discussing the benefits of using Traditional

Chinese Medicine Theory, Supplements and

Meditation to relieve insomnia.

Having just returned a few days ago from presenting

our findings at the CAM Summit Alternative

Medicine Conference in Colombo, Sri Lanka we were

very excited to be once again sharing our research

and experience with the members of the Australia

China Friendship Society.

The Traditional Chinese Medicine Theory discussed

the need to sleep before 11pm each night and to

ensure that the 5 elements of Metal, Water, Wood,

Fire and Earth are in balance. An imbalance of any

element will lead to disease and one symptom may

be insomnia. Vinee demonstrated the particular

meridian points that can be pressed to assist with a

good night’s sleep. Everyone had a go at finding the

specific points and assured Vinee they would try

these points out at home when they found it difficult

to sleep.

The audience was particularly interested in the

Chinese Medicine Theory and insomnia of which

there is a wealth of research material

that people can read to explain the

theory in more depth and to assist

people to bring their health into

homeostasis by following the points

outlined. More books on the subject

are available from China Books

Sydney (9280 1885) and on YouTube.

We have developed a 10 Step

Protocol to Break Free of the

Insomnia Cycle and a survey

questionnaire that can assist to

determine the main causes of

insomnia. Both these may be

requested by emailing me on

contessa8888@gmail.com

The 10 Step to Breaking Free of the Insomnia Cycle is

summarized as follows:

Introduction – Understanding why we need to sleep

restfully and completely

Step 1 – Survey your bedroom

Step 2 – Survey your mind

Step 3 - Survey your body

Step 4 – Making your bedroom an insomnia free

zone. De-clutter and disconnect

Step 5 – Insomnia proofing your mind – Waking up at

3am? Using moving meditation to assist

Step 6 – Is your body telling you something? Where

is your pain?

Step 7 – What to do next! Bedroom, mind & body

tips

Step 8 – Daily plan and analysis

Step 9 - New Life Schedule

Step 10 – Starting a new life with the new you!

We hope that our presentation was of interest to you

and helped you or someone you know understand

more about insomnia. Should you require more

information and would like to participate in the

insomnia study please do not hesitate to contact us.

Thank you for making Vinee and me feel so welcome.

Contessa Hajinikitas

5

Celebrating Lunar New Year at the White House Posted by Aditi Hardikar on February 20, 2015 at 06:32 PM EST

Yesterday evening, we hosted the first-ever Lunar New Year celebration at the White House. Members

of Asian American and Pacific Islander community from across the country joined together to ring in the

first day of the Lunar New Year with keynotes from Administration officials, a discussion with diverse

AAPI leaders, and three lively cultural performances. President Obama also sent his greetings by video

message.

Traditional Chinese Lion Dance, performed by the Wong People Association.

Speakers of the evening included Deputy Secretary of Labor Chris Lu and an armchair dialogue with

Juliet Choi, Chief of Staff at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services; Tung Nguyen, Chair of the

President’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders; and Sam Yoon, former

Senior Advisor at the U.S. Department of Labor. All speakers elaborated on the experiences and values

instilled by their families that drove them to careers in providing services and opportunities to

Americans. We also heard from Tina Tchen, Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff to the First

Lady, who spoke about the importance of family and working together as a community to continue

uplifting the diverse voices and experiences of the AAPI community.

The event also included dynamic performances including a traditional Chinese Lion Dance by the Wong

People Association, Korean Poongmulnori and 12 Meter Hat Ribbon Dance by the Asian American Arts

Center, and a Vietnamese Ao Dai Performance by NOVAL-DC.

Throughout the evening, speakers and performers emphasized the importance of family, community,

and a deep-rooted commitment to public service. Whether it is ensuring that AAPIs know about the

Affordable Care Act and have translated information, advocating for comprehensive immigration

reform, or advocating for better educational opportunities across the country, let’s ring in the New Year

by recommitting to public service and continued progress.

Aditi Hardikar is an Associate Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement.

6

China Rises, and Checkmates

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

If there’s a human face on Rising China, it belongs not to some Politburo chief, not to an Internet tycoon, but to a quiet,

mild-mannered teenage girl named Hou Yifan.

Hou Yifan, the new women’s world chess champion, is the youngest person, male or female,

ever to win a world championship. Ms. Hou (whose name is pronounced Ho Ee-fahn) is an

astonishing phenomenon: at 16, she is the new women’s world chess champion , the

youngest person, male or female, ever to win a world championship. And she reflects the

way China — by investing heavily in education and human capital, particularly in young

women — is increasingly having an outsize impact on every aspect of the world.

Napoleon is famously said to have declared, “When China wakes, it will shake the world.”

That is becoming true even in spheres that China historically has had little connection with,

like chess, basketball, rare earth minerals, cyber warfare, space exploration and nuclear

research.

This is a process that Miss Hou exemplifies. Only about 1 percent of Chinese play chess, and

China has never been a chess power. But since 1991, China has produced four women’s world chess champions, and Ms.

Hou is the one with by far the most promise.

At this point, I have to put my sensitive male ego aside. You see, Ms. Hou gamely agreed to play me after I interviewed her.

She had just flown into Beijing after winning the world championship, and she was exhausted — and she shredded me in 21

moves.

Most dispiriting, when I was teetering at the abyss near the end of the game, her coach nudged her and suggested

mischievously that we should switch sides. Ms. Hou would inherit my impossible position — and the gleam in her coach’s

eye suggested that she would still win.

I protested that I could survive being beaten on the chess board by a schoolgirl. But to be toyed with, like a mouse by a cat

— that would be too much. Ms. Hou nodded compassionately and checkmated me a few moves later.

At 14 she became the youngest female grandmaster ever. She’s still so young that it’s unclear just how remarkable she will

become.

Women in general haven’t been nearly as good at chess as men, and the world’s top women are mostly ranked well below

the top men — but Ms. Hou could be an exception. She is the only female chess player today considered to have a shot at

becoming one of the top few players in the world, male or female.

Cynics sometimes suggest that China’s rise as a world power is largely a matter of government manipulation of currency

rates and trade rules. But China has also done an extraordinarily good job of investing in its people and in spreading

opportunity across the country. Moreover, perhaps as a legacy of Confucianism, its citizens have shown a passion for

education and self-improvement — along with remarkable capacity for discipline and hard work, what the Chinese call “chi

Ku,”吃 苦 or “eating bitterness.”

Ms. Hou dined on plenty of bitterness in working her way up to champion. She grew up in the boondocks, in a county town

in Jiangsu Province, and her parents did not play chess. But they lavished attention on her and spoiled her, as parents of only

children (“little emperors”) routinely do in China.

China used to be one of the most sexist societies in the world — with female infanticide, foot binding, and concubinage —

but it turned a corner and now is remarkably good at giving opportunities to girls as well as boys. When Ms. Hou’s parents

noticed her interest in a chess board at a store, they promptly bought her a chess set — and then hired a chess tutor for her.

Ye Jiangchuan, the chief coach of the national men’s and women’s teams, told me that he played Ms. Hou when she was 9

years old — and was stunned. “I saw that this kid was special,” he told me, and he invited her to move to Beijing to play with

the national teams. Three years later she was the youngest girl ever to compete in the world chess championships.

It will be many decades before China can challenge the United States as the overall “No. 1” in the world, for we have a huge

lead and China still must show that it can transition to a more open and democratic society. But already in discrete areas —

its automobile market, carbon emissions and now women’s chess — China is emerging as No. 1 here and there, and that

process will continue.

There’s a lesson for us as well. China’s national commitment to education, opportunity and eating bitterness 吃苦吃苦吃苦吃苦 —

those are qualities that we in the West might emulate as well. As you know after you’ve been checkmated by Hou Yifan.

7

Year of the Sheep, Century of the Dragon? New Silk Roads and the Chinese Vision of a Brave New (Trade) World

By Pepe Escoba

BEIJING -- Seen from the Chinese capital as the Year

of the Sheep starts, the malaise affecting the West

seems like a mirage in a galaxy far, far away. On the

other hand, the China that surrounds you looks all

too solid and nothing like the embattled nation you

hear about in the Western media, with its falling

industrial figures, its real estate bubble, and its

looming environmental disasters. Prophecies of

doom notwithstanding, as the dogs of austerity and

war bark madly in the distance, the Chinese caravan

passes by in what President Xi Jinping calls “new

normal” mode.

“Slower” economic activity still means a staggeringly

impressive annual growth rate of 7% in what is now

the globe’s leading economy. Internally, an

immensely complex economic restructuring is

underway as consumption overtakes investment as

the main driver of economic development. At 46.7%

of the gross domestic product (GDP), the service

economy has pulled ahead of manufacturing, which

stands at 44%.

Geopolitically, Russia, India, and China have just

sent a powerful message westward: they are busy

fine-tuning a complex trilateral strategy for setting

up a network of economic corridors the Chinese call

“new silk roads” across Eurasia. Beijing is also

organizing a maritime version of the same, modeled

on the feats of Admiral Zheng He who, in the Ming

dynasty, sailed the “western seas” seven times,

commanding fleets of more than 200 vessels.

Meanwhile, Moscow and Beijing are at work

planning a new high-speed rail remix of the fabled

Trans-Siberian Railroad. And Beijing is committed to

translating its growing strategic partnership with

Russia into crucial financial and economic help, if a

sanctions-besieged Moscow, facing a disastrous oil

price war, asks for it.

To China’s south, Afghanistan, despite the 13-year

American war still being fought there, is fast moving

into its economic orbit, while a planned China-

Myanmar oil pipeline is seen as a game-changing

reconfiguration of the flow of Eurasian energy

across what I’ve long called Pipelineistan.

And this is just part of the frenetic action shaping

what the Beijing leadership defines as the New Silk

Road Economic Belt and the Maritime Silk Road

of the 21st century. We’re talking about a vision of

creating a potentially mind-boggling infrastructure,

much of it from scratch, that will connect China

to Central Asia, the Middle East, and Western

Europe. Such a development will include projects

that range from upgrading the ancient silk road via

Central Asia to developing a Bangladesh-China-

India-Myanmar economic corridor; a China-Pakistan

corridor through Kashmir; and a new maritime silk

road that will extend from southern China all the

way, in reverse Marco Polo fashion, to Venice.

Don’t think of this as the twenty-first-century

Chinese equivalent of America’s post-World War II

Marshall Plan for Europe, but as something far more

ambitious and potentially with a far vaster reach.

China as a Mega-City

If you are following this frenzy of economic planning

from Beijing, you end up with a perspective not

available in Europe or the U.S. Here, red-and-gold

billboards promote President Xi Jinping’s much

ballyhooed new tagline for the country and the

century, “the Chinese Dream” (which brings to mind

“the American Dream” of another era). No subway

station is without them. They are a reminder of why

40,000 miles of brand new high-speed rail is

considered so essential to the country’s future. After

all, no less than 300 million Chinese have, in the last

three decades, made a paradigm-breaking migration

from the countryside to exploding urban areas in

search of that dream.

Another 350 million are expected to be on the way,

according to a McKinsey Global Institute study.

From 1980 to 2010, China’s urban population grew

by 400 million, leaving the country with at least 700

million urban dwellers. This figure is expected to hit

one billion by 2030, which means tremendous stress

on cities, infrastructure, resources, and the

economy as a whole, as well as near-apocalyptic air

pollution levels in some major cities.

Already 160 Chinese cities boast populations of

more than one million. (Europe has only 35.) No less

than 250 Chinese cities have tripled their GDP per

capita since 1990, while disposable income per

capita is up by 300%.

These days, China should be thought of not in terms

of individual cities but urban clusters -- groupings of

cities with more than 60 million people. The Beijing-

Tianjin area, for example, is actually a cluster of 28

cities. Shenzhen, the ultimate migrant megacity in

the southern province of Guangdong, is now a key

hub in a cluster as well. China, in fact, has more than

20 such clusters, each the size of a European

country. Pretty soon, the main clusters will account

for 80% of China’s GDP and 60% of its population. So

the country’s high-speed rail frenzy and its head-

spinning infrastructure projects -- part of a $1.1

trillion investment in 300 public works -- are all

about managing those clusters.

Not surprisingly, this process is intimately linked to

what in the West is considered a notorious “housing

bubble,” which in 1998 couldn’t have even existed.

Until then all housing was still owned by the state.

Once liberalized, that housing market sent a surging

Chinese middle class into paroxysms of investment.

Yet with rare exceptions, middle-class Chinese can

still afford their mortgages because both rural and

urban incomes have also surged.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is, in fact,

paying careful attention to this process, allowing

farmers to lease or mortgage their land, among

other things, and so finance their urban migration

and new housing. Since we’re talking about

hundreds of millions of people, however, there are

bound to be distortions in the housing market, even

the creation of whole disastrous ghost towns with

associated eerie, empty malls.

The Chinese infrastructure frenzy is being financed

by a pool of investments from central and local

government sources, state-owned enterprises, and

the private sector. The construction business, one of

the country’s biggest employers, involves more than

100 million people, directly or indirectly. Real estate

accounts for as much as 22% of total national

investment in fixed assets and all of this is tied to

the sale of consumer appliances, furnishings, and an

annual turnover of 25% of China’s steel production,

70% of its cement, 70% of its plate glass, and 25% of

its plastics.

So no wonder, on my recent stay in Beijing,

businessmen kept assuring me that the ever-

impending “popping” of the “housing bubble” is, in

fact, a myth in a country where, for the average

citizen, the ultimate investment is property. In

addition, the vast urbanization drive ensures, as

Premier Li Keqiang stressed at the recent World

Economic Forum in Davos, a “long-term demand for

housing.”

Markets, Markets, Markets

China is also modifying its manufacturing base,

which increased by a multiple of 18 in the last three

decades. The country still produces 80% of the

world’s air conditioners, 90% of its personal

computers, 75% of its solar panels, 70% of its cell

phones, and 63% of its shoes. Manufacturing

accounts for 44% of Chinese GDP, directly

employing more than 130 million people. In

addition, the country already accounts for 12.8% of

global research and development, well ahead of

England and most of Western Europe.

Yet the emphasis is now switching to a fast-growing

domestic market, which will mean yet more major

infrastructural investment, the need for an influx of

further engineering talent, and a fast-developing

supplier base. Globally, as China starts to face new

challenges -- rising labor costs, an increasingly

complicated global supply chain, and market

volatility -- it is also making an aggressive push to

move low-tech assembly to high-tech

manufacturing. Already, the majority of Chinese

exports are smartphones, engine systems, and cars

(with planes on their way). In the process, a

geographic shift in manufacturing is underway from

the southern seaboard to Central and Western

China. The city of Chengdu in the southwestern

province of Sichuan, for instance, is now becoming a

high-tech urban cluster as it expands around firms

like Intel and HP.

So China is boldly attempting to upgrade in

manufacturing terms, both internally and globally at

the same time. In the past, Chinese companies have

excelled in delivering the basics of life at cheap

prices and acceptable quality levels. Now, many

companies are fast upgrading their technology and

moving up into second- and first-tier cities, while

foreign firms, trying to lessen costs, are moving

down to second- and third-tier cities. Meanwhile,

globally, Chinese CEOs want their companies to

become true multinationals in the next decade. The

country already has 73 companies in the Fortune

Global 500, leaving it in the number two spot behind

the U.S.

In terms of Chinese advantages, keep in mind that

the future of the global economy clearly lies in Asia

with its record rise in middle-class incomes. In 2009,

the Asia-Pacific region had just 18% of the world’s

middle class; by 2030, according to the

Development Center of the Organization for

Economic Cooperation and Development, that

figure will rise to an astounding 66%. North America

and Europe had 54% of the global middle class in

2009; in 2030, it will only be 21%.

Follow the money, and the value you get for that

money, too. For instance, no less than 200,000

Chinese workers were involved in the production of

the first iPhone, overseen by 8,700 Chinese

industrial engineers. They were recruited in only

two weeks. In the U.S., that process might have

taken more than nine months. The Chinese

manufacturing ecosystem is indeed fast, flexible,

and smart -- and it’s backed by an ever more

impressive education system. Since 1998, the

percentage of GDP dedicated to education has

almost tripled; the number of colleges has doubled;

and in only a decade, China has built the largest

higher education system in the world.

Strengths and Weaknesses

China holds more than $15 trillion in bank deposits,

which are growing by a whopping $2 trillion a year.

Foreign exchange reserves are nearing $4 trillion. A

definitive study of how this torrent of funds

circulates within China among projects, companies,

financial institutions, and the state still does not

exist. No one really knows, for instance, how many

loans the Agricultural Bank of China actually makes.

High finance, state capitalism, and one-party rule all

mix and meld in the realm of Chinese financial

services where realpolitik meets real big money.

The big four state-owned banks -- the Bank of China,

the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the

China Construction Bank, and the Agricultural Bank

of China -- have all evolved from government

organizations into semi-corporate state-owned

entities. They benefit handsomely both from legacy

assets and government connections, or guanxi, and

operate with a mix of commercial and government

objectives in mind. They are the drivers to watch

when it comes to the formidable process of

reshaping the Chinese economic model.

As for China’s debt-to-GDP ratio, it’s not yet a big

deal. In a list of 17 countries, it lies well below those

of Japan and the U.S., according to Standard

Chartered Bank, and unlike in the West, consumer

credit is only a small fraction of total debt. True, the

West exhibits a particular fascination with China’s

shadow banking industry: wealth management

products, underground finance, off-the-balance-

sheet lending. But such operations only add up to

around 28% of GDP, whereas, according to the

International Monetary Fund, it's a much higher

percentage in the U.S.

China’s problems may turn out to come from non-

economic areas where the Beijing leadership has

proven far more prone to false moves. It is, for

instance, on the offensive on three fronts, each of

which may prove to have its own form of blowback:

tightening ideological control over the country

under the rubric of sidelining “Western values”;

tightening control over online information and social

media networks, including reinforcing “the Great

Firewall of China” to police the Internet; and

tightening further its control over restive ethnic

minorities, especially over the Uighurs in the key

western province of Xinjiang.

On two of these fronts -- the “Western values”

controversy and Internet control -- the leadership in

Beijing might reap far more benefits, especially

among the vast numbers of younger, well educated,

globally connected citizens, by promoting debate,

but that’s not how the hyper-centralized Chinese

Communist Party machinery works.

When it comes to those minorities in Xinjiang, the

essential problem may not be with the new guiding

principles of President Xi’s ethnic policy. According

to Beijing-based analyst Gabriele Battaglia, Xi wants

to manage ethnic conflict there by applying the

“three Js”: jiaowang, jiaoliu, jiaorong (“inter-ethnic

contact,” “exchange,” and “mixage”). Yet what adds

up to a push from Beijing for Han/Uighur

assimilation may mean little in practice when day-

to-day policy in Xinjiang is conducted by unprepared

Han cadres who tend to view most Uighurs as

“terrorists.”

If Beijing botches the handling of its Far West,

Xinjiang won’t, as expected, become the peaceful,

stable, new hub of a crucial part of the silk-road

strategy. Yet it is already considered an essential

communication link in Xi’s vision of Eurasian

integration, as well as a crucial conduit for the

massive flow of energy supplies from Central Asia

and Russia. The Central Asia-China pipeline, for

instance, which brings natural gas from the

Turkmen-Uzbek border through Uzbekistan and

southern Kazakhstan, is already adding a fourth line

to Xinjiang. And one of the two newly agreed upon

Russia-China pipelines will also arrive in Xinjiang.

The Book of Xi

The extent and complexity of China’s myriad

transformations barely filter into the American

media. Stories in the U.S. tend to emphasize the

country’s “shrinking” economy and nervousness

about its future global role, the way it has “duped”

the U.S. about its designs, and its nature as a

military “threat” to Washington and the world.

The U.S. media has a China fever, which results in

typically feverish reports that don’t take the pulse of

the country or its leader. In the process, so much is

missed. One prescription might be for them to read

The Governance of China, a compilation of President

Xi’s major speeches, talks, interviews, and

correspondence. It’s already a three-million-copy

bestseller in its Mandarin edition and offers a

remarkably digestible vision of what Xi’s highly

proclaimed “China Dream” will mean in the new

Chinese century.

Xi Dada (“Xi Big Bang” as he’s nicknamed here) is no

post-Mao deity. He’s more like a pop phenomenon

and that’s hardly surprising. In this “to get rich is

glorious” remix, you couldn’t launch the super-

human task of reshaping the Chinese model by

being a cold-as-a-cucumber bureaucrat. Xi has

instead struck a collective nerve by stressing the

country’s governance must be based on

competence, not insider trading and Party

corruption, and he’s cleverly packaged the

transformation he has in mind as an American-style

“dream.”

Behind the pop star clearly lies a man of substance

that the Western media should come to grips with.

You don’t, after all, manage such an economic

success story by accident. It may be particularly

important to take his measure since he’s taken the

measure of Washington and the West and decided

that China’s fate and fortune lie elsewhere.

As a result, last November he made official an

earthshaking geopolitical shift. From now on, Beijing

would stop treating the U.S. or the European Union

as its main strategic priority and refocus instead on

China’s Asian neighbors and fellow BRICS countries

(Brazil, Russia, India, and South Africa, with a special

focus on Russia), also known here as the “major

developing powers” (kuoda fazhanzhong de guojia).

And just for the record, China does not consider

itself a “developing country” anymore.

No wonder there’s been such a blitz of Chinese

mega-deals and mega-dealings across Pipelineistan

recently. Under Xi, Beijing is fast closing the gap on

Washington in terms of intellectual and economic

firepower and yet its global investment offensive

has barely begun, new silk roads included.

Singapore’s former foreign minister George Yeo sees

the newly emerging world order as a solar system

with two suns, the United States and China. The

Obama administration’s new National Security

Strategy affirms that “the United States has been

and will remain a Pacific power” and states that

“while there will be competition, we reject the

inevitability of confrontation” with Beijing. The

“major developing powers,” intrigued as they are by

China’s extraordinary infrastructural push, both

internally and across those New Silk Roads, wonder

whether a solar system with two suns might not be

a non-starter. The question then is: Which “sun” will

shine on Planet Earth? Might this, in fact, be the

century of the dragon?

Pepe Escobar is the roving correspondent for Asia

Times, an analyst for RT and Sputnik, and a

TomDispatch regular. His latest book is Empire of

Chaos.

Copyright 2015 Pepe Escobar

11

What a Turnbull-led foreign policy might look lie

By Hugh White 9/2/15

One of the many ways in which Malcolm Turnbull is not

your average Australian politician is that he has thought

quite deeply about foreign policy and strategic issues.

Among aspirants to the Lodge in recent years, only Kevin

Rudd has comparably developed views about Australia's

place in the world. But of course that was Rudd's day job

for much of his career. For Turnbull it has been, one

suspects, more a sign of his wide-ranging natural curiosity,

and perhaps also prudent preparation for the post which

seems now for the first time to be within his reach.

He has set out his views in a series of speeches and essays

over the past few years. This post draws on just three of

those, including the one he gave in the US late last month

as the Liberal Party's leadership crisis flared. They present a

consistent and coherent set of ideas which suggest that, if

he becomes prime minister, he would pursue a rather

different policy from his predecessors, including and

perhaps especially from Tony Abbott, on the central quest-

ion of positioning Australia between America and China.

Turnbull's starting point is the magnitude of the shift in the

distribution of wealth and power occurring with the rise of

Asia, led by China, which he sees as 'the great geopolitical

transformation of our time'. He believes this will inevitably

drive major changes in the way the world works. Last

month he posed the question: 'How ready are Western

nations and Western-dominated multilateral institutions to

adapt to a very different distribution of global power than

that which they've been used to?' So unlike Tony Abbott,

he does not believe that, thanks to the Anglosphere, the

world will continue to be run in English.

Turnbull does not assume that America has necessarily

worked out how best to respond to this challenge. Though

he has praised the Pivot as 'a vitally important stabilising

reassuring factor in the peaceful development of our

region', Turnbull has at times observed that the US is

struggling to find an effective response to China's rise. Back

in 2011 he said they seemed 'utterly flummoxed'.

On the other hand, he has also criticised Beijing's approach,

saying in 2011 that 'China needs to be more transparent

about its goals in the region', and more recently that 'there

seems little doubt that the tough line taken (by China) on

the disputed islands and reefs has been quite counter-

productive'.

Third, Turnbull thinks that responding to China's rise and its

implications for our place in Asia requires rather more

sophisticated diplomacy from Australia than we have seen

so far. A few days after Obama's big Pivot speech to the

Australian parliament in 2011, he delivered this thinly

veiled rebuke to Julia Gillard's gushing response:

An Australian Government needs to be careful not to allow

a doe-eyed fascination with the leader of the free world to

distract from the reality that our national interest requires

us to truly (and not just rhetorically) to maintain both an

ally in Washington and a good friend in Beijing.

He suggested that this requires a careful balance in our

positioning with both powers, warning against 'extravagant

professions of loyalty and devotion to the USA' and also

against 'equally extravagant compliments paid to Beijing.'

And he certainly doesn't buy Kevin Rudd's idea of muscling

up to China militarily:

I disagree with the underlying premise of the 2009

Australian White Paper that we should base our defence

planning and procurement on the contingency of a naval

war with China in the South China Sea.

Above all, Turnbull has warned about complacently,

assuming that:

...the strategic and diplomatic posture that served us in the

past can and will serve us unchanged in the future: or that it

doesn't matter if our strategic and economic messages to

our region are somewhat contradictory.

Of course it is anyone's guess how these ideas would trans-

late into policy if Turnbull should become prime minster.

We can assume he would tread carefully and pay due

respect to the patterns and precedents of Australian

diplomacy, at least up to a point. But it is worth reflecting

that Turnbull, if he wins the Lodge, might have more scope

to really explore Australia's place in the world of the Asian

Century than any of his predecessors, or any of the current

alternatives.

Politically he has less to fear from an open discussion of the

future role of America in Asia than anyone on the Labor

side of politics, because he will not suffer from Labor's

deeply ingrained terror of being attacked by the Liberals as

disloyal and irresponsible.

And intellectually he has more to offer than anyone on his

own side of politics, simply because he has thought about it

more, and more openly than his colleagues. One reason for

that is his obviously deep curiosity about China, especially,

simply because he seems to see it as the most interesting,

as well as perhaps the most important, place in the world

today. That's not a bad starting point for Australian foreign

policy.

Originally published by The Lowy Institute publication The

Interpreter. Republished with permission.

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