CRI听力:Paul Kelly Expresses Confidence in China-Australia Ties

It's widely expected the Australian government is going to announce this week that it's going to join the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, despite opposition from The United States.

To that end, CRI's Qian Shanming caught up with Paul Kelly, Editor-at-large for The Australian newspaper, who once acted as a mentor for current Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott.

Kelly is now in Beijing as a guest author to participate in the eighth Australian Writers Week.

A political journalist, author and TV-radio commentator for most of his career life, Kelly says he has witnessed the remarkable development of Australia-China relationship during the past decades, and this has underpinned much of the narrative of his book "Triumph and Demise" that he wants to introduce to Chinese readers.

"...Of the key points to make about this that from 2003 onwards, for a decade, China went through this fantastic industrialization, this fantastic construction boom, Australia provided a lot of raw materials for this boom. So this was in the economic interests of both China and Australia. There is high degree of economic complementarily between the two countries."

Back in the 1980s, Kelly was an instructor for Tony Abbott, now Australia's Prime Minister who then worked as a junior editorial writer at The Australian. Kelly says Australia-China ties have developed strongly under the Abbott government.

"... Under the Abbott government we've negotiated, Australia and China have finalized Free Trade Agreement; I think this has been a very important free trade agreement. It's been widely applauded and supported from the Australian side, and we had the President of China visiting Australia not all that long ago, so the relationship between Australia and China I think is developing very strongly under Tony Abbot as the Prime Minister."

Kelly said Australia is now making careful reassessment of joining in the China initiated Asian Infrastructure Bank, AIIB. He said while there has been pressure from the United States, the Australian government believes that its national interest and the interest of the region should not be compromised.

"I interviewed Prime Minister Tony Abbott, about 7 or 8 days ago in Australia, and he made it very clear to me in that interview that the Australian government is reassessing and will change its position on the bank, and I believe this means that Australia will sign up to negotiate with a view to becoming a member of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. It's true that the White House, that President Obama and the Obama administration had made representation to Australia suggesting that they had concerns about this, but I think the view of Tony Abbott the Prime Minister is that it seems that this bank is in the interest of the region and in the interest of Australia to become involved."

21 countries, including China, India and Singapore, signed a memorandum of understanding in Beijing in October last year to build the AIIB.

For CRI, I'm Qian Shanming.