![]() In America now we have Donald Trump, and that is the biggest wake-up call for clear thinking about America at least since the Vietnam War years. Let me recall here a view Gough had from when we first met in 1967: we can’t think clearly about China if we can’t think clearly about the US. But we don’t have a relationship to match it. Why? Because we are living in a Chinese world. But now, more than at any time in our history, we need a relationship with China “comparable with that which we have, or seek, with other major powers”. ![]() We’ve not since had that kind of closeness, except briefly between Paul Keating and Vice Premier Zhu Rongji. They are themselves hard-headed realists, and it would be unnatural of them not to take advantage of us or hold us in contempt for apparent weakness.Īustralia has never had this “comparable” relationship with China.Īt prime minister level we came some way towards it in the 1980s with Bob Hawke, who spent literally days in the company of Chinese leaders, listening, learning and persuading, to an extent that the British and US ambassadors in Beijing apparently complained that these leaders spent more time thinking about Australia than about any other country. We … need to measure our actions carefully so that we do not give the Chinese the impression that we are careless of our own interests. It would mean a comparable familiarity, in government and society, and comparable closeness, access and trust, and potential to influence – and, in Gough’s view, also the capacity to look to our own interests, and capacity to say “no”. It implies Washington or London as much as Jakarta or Tokyo. We seek a relationship with China based on friendship, co-operation and mutual trust, comparable with that which we have, or seek, with other major powers.
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