CRI听力:Scholars discuss possible revival of China-Australia ties

Scholars from China and Australia have met to discuss how to revive the relationship between the two major Asia Pacific countries.

The two-day discussion was held at The University of Western Australia. The participants shared their ideas on reshaping the ties between the two countries in the context of China's rising influence and strengthening mutual trust.

Professor Xie Tao from Beijing Foreign Studies University said China and Australia are more than just major trading partners. He suggests that Australia take an independent stance when it comes to defining its relationship with China, rather than just following in the footsteps of another major power's strategy.

"Over the past three decades at least, Australia has not experienced any economic recessions, primarily because of China's incessant appetite for anything that's producing in Australia. So China is important for Australia, especially in the economic sense that China is an opportunity. The second kind of discourse is that China is a challenge. It's not a threat. It's a challenge. Challenge means, it's kind of something you have to deal with."

James Laurenceson is the deputy dean of the Australian-Chinese Relations Institute at the University of Technology Sydney. Through long-term research, he's found that many of the accusations made against China by sections of Australia's media and political circles don't stand up to close scrutiny. This includes the unfounded accusation that China was influencing policy in Australia through the use of election campaign donations. This is shown by the fact that, during the 2016 national elections, foreign donations only accounted for 2.9 percent of total donations, and donations from Chinese sources was only a fraction of this already small amount.

"China is not the enemy. Many areas of Chinese foreign policies actually align beautifully with Australia's, Australia's talk about a multilateral rules based order. You look at Chinese actions, and you can find many examples of a China foreign policy, is also driven by a commitment to multilateral rules based order. Right now folks, it is not China that's trying to block World Trade Organization. It is not China that is walking away for the Paris Climate Change in Copenhagen."

What's more, Laurenceson said he doesn't understand Australia's decision to follow other parts of the Western world in excluding Huawei from taking part in the construction of the country's 5G network, on the grounds of national security concerns.

"But I think it's a bigger issue for Australia, think about it, clearly, in the next ten years, more and more best technologies are going to come out of China, right? That's a fact. What are we going to do? Just banning Chinese companies? Well if we do that's going to become very problematic. It's also a fact now ten of the world's top fifty universities in science and technology are from China. One is from Australia."

Mark Beeson is a professor of political science at the University of Western Australia. He said that Australia often antagonizes countries as a result of inconsistencies in its foreign policy.

"Not so long ago in the 1980s Japan was our biggest trade partner, and there was a similarly lively debate about the implications of Japan's rise for Australia. As now, policy makers worried about the impact of Japanese investment on real estate prices in the Gold Coast."

During the latest round of the China-Australia Foreign and Strategic Dialogue in Beijing, China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi suggested that the two sides re-establish mutual political trust, so as to consolidate the foundations for future bilateral relations.