Lazarus Rising

by John Howard

  38

  SHAKESPEARE IN MANDARIN

  Of all the events I was involved with which had a foreign policy connotation, nothing came anywhere near the symbolism of two days in October 2003, when, successively the presidents of the United States and the People’s Republic of China addressed joint sittings of the two houses of the Australian parliament. There was both coincidence and deliberation about these events.

  Two American presidents, George Herbert Walker Bush and Bill Clinton, had previously addressed joint sittings. In 2003, Hu Jintao became the first Chinese President to be extended that honour. It was a mark of the importance I attached to the relationship with China. The symbolism was powerful. In one unmistakable gesture, Australia was telling the world it was possible, simultaneously, to have close relations with both the United States and China.

  That did not mean that we treated the two nations equally. The United States will always be the more important partner, and more intimate friend, for Australia. Our shared history, values and security interests guarantee this. The fact that our relationship with the Americans became even warmer during the time of my Government made it that much easier, rather than more difficult, for us to build a friendly, pragmatic association with the Chinese.

  This is where my critics were completely wrong. They argued, and some still do, that the closer you get to the Americans, the harder it becomes to get along with the Chinese. What they refused to accept was that the Chinese saw no incongruity in our having a close relationship with the Americans. To them, barring a military showdown with the United States over, say, Taiwan, our US alliance was no impediment. Many Chinese saw it as an asset. Others respected the fidelity displayed by Australia to our American friends. It was evidence that we were a dependable, reliable people with whom to have an association.

  At another time and in other circumstances, having the two addresses following each other would have generated sensitivity. An American president less confident of the intimacy of the relationship between his country and ours might have wondered about the apparent equal billing being given to the Chinese. For their part, the Chinese may have expected a stand-alone focus for such an important occasion. It was precisely because we had unambiguously strengthened the American relationship, whilst pursuing a pragmatic, and to that point highly beneficial, improvement in our relations with China, that the two events were able to take place in such a smooth manner.

  Some antecedents illustrated the vastly different cultures of the two countries. George Bush had spoken to me about his forthcoming visit and his address to the joint sitting whilst we were at the APEC meeting in Bangkok, just over a week before he was due in Australia. He asked me what sort of a reception he would get. I said it would be supportive from both the Government and the opposition, although in the case of the latter it might, due to such issues as Iraq, be a little more subdued. I said to him that there could be an outburst from a minor party. I told him there was ‘a Green called Brown’ who might be noisy. He laughed at the play on words and said, ‘Thanks for the warning.’ American politicians are frequently fascinated by the robust parliamentary system practised in both Britain and Australia.

  The Green called Brown did interject. Bush handled it with aplomb, responding, ‘Isn’t free speech great?’, and drew a resounding burst of applause in the process. This incident, however, set off alarm bells for the Chinese. They were despairing at the prospect of a recurrence of the Brown interjection when President Hu Jintao spoke the following day. There were numerous communications between the Chinese embassy and the speaker’s office as well as my own. I made it clear that although we hoped for an incident-free address, there was no way that we could guarantee it and that naturally, as a member of the parliament, Senator Brown was entitled to be in the chamber. He would be dealt with in accordance with the Special Standing Orders adopted for the joint sitting, but only if he became unduly disruptive. The anxiety of the Chinese to avoid any appearance of an affront to their President contrasted sharply with the willingness of President Bush to embrace the hurly-burly of a political exchange.

  The Chinese displayed the same sensitivity over the official luncheon following their President’s address. As had been the case with President Bush, we offered a luncheon in the Great Hall, to which all members of parliament would be invited as of right. The Chinese knocked this back in favour of a function at the Hyatt Hotel in Canberra that evening, to which selected people were invited. In this way Brown’s attendance was avoided. I fully understood what they were up to with the Hyatt reception. Having made the point about Brown’s rights in the parliamentary chamber, I saw no point in going further. In any event it was a Chinese call. They were not obliged to have a full parliamentary lunch.

  Quite a number of Chinese Australians were invited to the evening dinner. Some of them I knew well, and they asked to meet the President. At an appropriate time I motioned them over to the table where we were both sitting. I introduced them and as they were chatting amiably we were suddenly surrounded by a large number of Chinese security personnel. They were not used to this kind of informal access to their leader. I smiled at them benignly.

  In every way, it had been quite an achievement having these two addresses one after the other. It had underlined a great duality in our foreign policy. It had been achieved without any apparent self-consciousness about the equal billing from either leader. In the process, as well, we had been reminded of the continuing gulf between Australia and the United States on the one hand, and China on the other, when it came to openness and freedom of speech.

  The Chinese were chuffed at what had happened, despite the sensitivities of their officialdom. They knew that Hu Jintao had become the first foreigner other than the US President to address a joint sitting of the two houses of parliament. He even achieved that honour in advance of a British prime minister. Equally, I knew that the courtesy extended to him would be long remembered, and be seen by the Chinese as a real gesture of friendship and a mark of the importance I personally attached to the relationship between our two countries.

  Strengthening the US alliance was an instinctive given, so far as I was concerned. When I became Prime Minister I did not believe that the alliance was in disrepair or anything other than our most important bilateral relationship. Rather, I believed that it had become somewhat stale and needed revitalisation.

  Relations between the Howard Government and China got off to a rocky start. The Taiwan Straits flare-up in 1996, involving both the United States and China displaying military might in those waters, caught Australia unprepared. Quite properly, we supported the Clinton Administration’s position, but did it in a way which probably exacerbated Chinese sensitivities. Then there was the axing of the Development Import Finance Facility (DIFF) Scheme as part of the necessary cost savings in our first budget. It was a concessionary finance program benefiting developing Asian countries, including China.

  Things went from bad to worse with the relationship; many developments came about through no fault of ours. We were fully within our rights in attacking a Chinese nuclear test in June. It was unreasonable of the Chinese to expect us to ban the pro-independence mayor of Taipei City from coming to Australia to attend an Asian cities summit in Brisbane. To cap it off, the Chinese bitterly resented a visit to Taiwan by John Anderson as Minister for Primary Industries, even though the visit was fully in accord with the One China policy, as well as the final indignity, so it seemed, of my seeing the Dalai Lama. The relationship virtually went into deep freeze in August/September of 1996. The Chinese placed a ban on visits to China by Australian ministers.

  It was essential to find a way of drawing a line under what had happened and in a sense start again. I had the opportunity of doing this at the APEC meeting in Manila in November 1996, when I could have my first opportunity to talk face to face with the Chinese President, Jiang Zemin. Jiang as leader received mixed reviews. Some commentaries suggested that he lacked substance. Other, more, astute commentary gave
him credit for being quite a cagey survivor. All of my experience with him suggested that the latter version was, overwhelmingly, the more accurate one. Jiang Zemin was amongst the more astute and fascinating and genuinely interesting leaders that I met.

  My attitude was we should take the opportunity presented by the APEC meeting to put the relationship on a sensible footing. We should neither pretend there was an emotional content to the relationship, nor ignore the potential of building on the practical links that already existed and could be expanded in the future. For me there would be none of those rhetorical references to special relationships. China and Australia had vastly different histories. China was an authoritarian nation. By contrast, Australia was one of the longest continuous liberal democracies in the world. With a population of more than one billion people, China dwarfed Australia. On the other hand, the precious resources exports of Australia were of enormous potential benefit to a growing Chinese economy.

  Chinese Australians were making a lively contribution to the development of modern Australia. Already in Australia’s largest city, Sydney, dialects of Chinese were the most widely spoken foreign language. There was much on which to build, provided both China and Australia adopted a commonsense approach.

  I went to that meeting determined to focus on the things that we had in common and to put aside those things that could never be resolved between our two nations. With human rights in China, I favoured a formal dialogue between the two countries, thus avoiding the annual ritual of the United Nations passing a resolution condemning human rights abuses in China, without any likelihood of future action.

  It has long been my view that eventually there will be a collision within China between her economic liberalism and her political authoritarianism. China’s political system will undergo change, but such a change is unlikely for decades. Meanwhile, China will continue to grow economically, and it is in the national interest of Australia that we take advantage of that growth, without conceding ground on issues that are important to the values of our country.

  I rate the meeting I had with President Jiang Zemin in Manila on 25 November 1996 as about as important a meeting I held with any foreign leader in the time that I was Prime Minister.

  The President stated the obvious when he said at the outset that the relationship between Australia and China depended on the efforts we both put into it. I told Jiang Zemin that I was personally committed, as was my Government, to building closer relations between the two countries. I said that there would be differences in emphasis because of the differences between our societies. I told the President that Australia would like to see China as a member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). I further said that I saw participation by China in the region as a force for stability and important for the region. I reiterated the longstanding One China policy of Australia.

  I made it clear to the Chinese President that the alliance between Australia and the United States was deeply rooted in history and not in any way directed against China. It was designed to promote our security, not undermine the security of any other nation. I felt that Jiang understood this, even though he did not say so.

  Jiang made the point that he was quite familiar with both Bob Hawke and Paul Keating and that it was, therefore, beneficial to get acquainted with me. He expressed appreciation for the remarks I had made about China’s membership of the WTO. The President talked extensively and rather defensively about Tibet.

  Importantly, towards the end of the discussion, the President extended an invitation to me to visit China. I accepted this invitation and indicated that I would very much like to visit China again. I said I would like to visit in the first half of 1997, if that were possible.

  As the meeting ended I told the President that I would like to see China and Australia go into the next century in peace and cooperation, respecting our different cultural heritages and political standpoints. I said I did not believe in lecturing others any more than we liked receiving lectures ourselves.

  Encouragingly, as we walked out of the meeting, the President said to me in English, ‘Face to face is much better, isn’t it?’ In my later news conference, I said that I had told the President that ‘Australia and China had some very basic differences so far as our political systems were concerned’, but that we should focus on pursuing the mutual interests that we had. I made it clear that I wanted to focus on commonsense practical aspects of the relationship. I felt that the meeting had the effect of placing a floor under the relationship, and that the rebuilding process could now start.

  I would visit China over Easter of 1997, and fully understood the importance of the trip. I decided to take a broad-based business delegation to emphasise to the Chinese the importance I placed on economic links. The delegation included Hugh Morgan of Western Mining; Charles Goode, Chairman of ANZ; Lachlan Murdoch; David Murray of the Commonwealth Bank; Lewis Ting of Ernst and Young; and Russell Madigan, one of the icons of the Australian mining industry. It was a heavyweight delegation and told the Chinese that we were serious about the relationship and that the core of that relationship was mutual commercial interest. The visit in 1997 was positive. It built on the progress made at my meeting with Jiang Zemin in November 1996.

  The visit also gave me the first opportunity to meet Li Peng. Long regarded as the architect of the suppression of the student uprising in Tiananmen Square, he was the hard man of Chinese politics. As Premier he exerted enormous influence. It was with him that I raised, specifically, the concept of a human rights dialogue as a possible substitute for Australia deciding each year whether or not to support an anti-Chinese resolution at the United Nations on the issue of human rights.

  There was also discussion concerning the growing importance of liquefied natural gas (LNG) as an energy source for China. Li Peng struck me as a tough, uncompromising operator who would have had no hesitation in brutally suppressing dissent. The time devoted by Li Peng and the intensity of the dialogue reflected the fact that the Chinese were taking the visit seriously, and that a corner had been turned in the relationship.

  My visit to Shanghai revealed just how much that city had changed in the 12 years that had passed since I had last been there in 1985. At that time, Mao suits and bicycles predominated. Twelve years on it was almost the complete reverse, so extensive had been the modernisation.

  I had an amusing experience with my Chinese security detail. The first morning I was in Shanghai, they accompanied me on my morning walk, all decked out in business suits. They obviously thought this early-morning walk of mine was a bit of a stroll. When they discovered otherwise, they turned up the next morning replete in tracksuits ready for a more energetic workout. The walks on both mornings took me through a park in Shanghai filled with mainly elderly Chinese doing their Tai Chi or ballroom dancing accompanied by music from old gramophone players.

  While in Shanghai I attended an Easter Day church service, where I ran into Newt Gingrich and his wife.

  It was during this visit that I got to know and almost inevitably like Jiang Zemin. He was a fascinating character. His conversational English was quite good, although his fluency in Russian was, allegedly, superior. He was of an age that he had spent time during his early working life in the old Soviet Union. He was an engineer.

  Jiang was a lover of Western music, literature and movies. He had quite an extensive knowledge of composers such as Beethoven and a passionate interest in Shakespeare. When he discovered that Janette had been a high school English teacher, his eyes lit up and, from then on, exchanges about Shakespeare between the two of them became a feature of any meetings. Janette told me that she felt that meeting Jiang Zemin represented something of a Shakespearean examination. From time to time he would quote something from Shakespeare and ask her the name of the play containing the quotation.

  Jiang’s fascination with old Hollywood and other Western movies was demonstrated at the Shanghai APEC meeting in 2001. At the conclusion of the cultural presentation, at the gala dinner, the host ense
mble gathered on the stage to the tune of ‘Auld Lang Syne’, which intrigued Janette and me no end. When we asked Jiang about this later he replied, ‘Remember the ending of Waterloo Bridge when “Auld Lang Syne” was played?’, indicating that this was the reason for the tune’s inclusion in the cultural presentation. Waterloo Bridge was a 1940 movie starring Robert Taylor and Vivien Leigh.

  I grew to like Jiang a lot. The personal relationship we began to build over that Easter visit made a material contribution to the energy the bilateral relationship enjoyed over subsequent years.

  I also met Zhu Rongji. He was the presumptive Premier and a person dedicated to further liberalisation of the Chinese economy. He visited Australia not long after my visit to China and played a key role, by then as Premier, in the negotiations in 2002 over an LNG contract, to which I will refer a little later.

  After the Easter 1997 visit, the relationship between our two countries gathered momentum, with trade growing at a rapid rate. Between 1996 and 2006, Australian exports to China were to increase by a staggering 626 per cent or an average annual rate of 18 per cent. In that latter year China became Australia’s largest export destination. It was one of those happy conjunctions of the availability of natural resources required by the hungry needs of an expanding economy.

  It would, however, be a mistake to assume that it was all serendipitous. There were features of Australia as a supplier which made her attractive to the Chinese.

  During Zhu’s visit to Australia in May 1997, he disavowed an article in the China Daily and told me that his government did not view Australia’s alliance with the United States as a threat. Such a statement, unexceptional today, was quite groundbreaking then. The Chinese had understood and absorbed the message on this issue which I had delivered to Jiang at our Manila meeting in November 1996.