China’s foreign ministry has given the latest sign that any repair of trade and diplomatic relations with Australia seems unworkable at a time of rising global tensions.
Beijing accused Australia of interference in its internal affairs by criticising its military drills in the straits of Taiwan.
“Australia’s act violates the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, grossly interferes in China’s internal affairs and undermines regional peace and stability,” foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said on Monday night.
He said Australia risked building obstacles to improved relations and it should “stop saying or doing the things that undermine regional peace and stability” and “refrain from echoing or assisting certain countries’ misguided strategy of using the Taiwan question to contain China”.
There has been recent hope that relations might improve after Foreign Minister Penny Wong met her Chinese counterpart after more than two years without official communication and amid fraying ties.
With Chinese warplanes flying through the Taiwan Strait and an American aircraft carrier remaining in the area, the prospects of any improvement in relations seems remote.
Soft diplomacy hope?
Such prospects were always slim when the government was retaining fundamental foreign policy stances that put it at odds with Beijing at a time of intensifying competition with America, says Benjamin Herscovitch, a research fellow at the ANU National Security College.
“Canberra has very little, if any, agency over those kinds of events, and rarely if any influence, but those events have a massive bearing on the relationship,” he said.
“No amount of softer diplomatic rhetoric will stop the downturn in the regional security situation and the kind of dramatic blowback that you get when you have missiles being fired over Taiwan.
“Those big, dramatic, dangerous security developments totally blow out of the water any of the positive gains that you get with softer diplomatic rhetoric.”
Foreign Minister Penny Wong did not publicly endorse the trip to Taipei last week taken by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, but she was critical of the launching of missiles into zones around Taiwan as “disproportionate and destabilising”.
Defence Minister Richard Marles called for calm and de-escalation in the Taiwan Strait and warned of a deteriorating international security environment.
‘‘We’re completely aware of the military build up that China has engaged in and … it’s not been done in a way which gives any sense of reassurance to its neighbours in the region,’’ he told ABC radio on Tuesday.
‘‘The evolution of the situation across the Taiwan Strait in our view ought to be the result of a peaceful dialogue.’’
There seems to be no obvious way to defuse tensions between the countries being propelled by domestic political environments in both countries.
That will set the tone for Australia’s relationship, Dr Herscovitch said.
“On touchstone political and strategic issues like the status of Hong Kong, or the South China Sea, the new government is essentially doing what the previous government did,’’ Dr Herscovitch said.
‘‘They’re being very critical of China. They’re making public statements. They’re issuing communications with the allies and partners.
“That means that there will inevitably be a very high degree of ongoing tension in the Australia-China relationship.”
