My Take | A dilemma for the West: is China a friend or foe?
- Leaders of countries such as Australia and Canada are stuck between a rock and hard place when it comes to ties with Beijing: are they dealing with a business partner or an existential enemy, as defined by the United States?
A gaffe is a truth spoken by a politician in an unguarded moment. So, when conservative Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said something about China that was obvious to everyone, he was rounded on by rivals and critics alike.
“You don’t have to pick sides,” he said on the campaign trail for an election that he unexpectedly won. “You stand by your friends and you stand by your customers as well.”
The references are self-evident: the United States is Australia’s friend but China is its most important customer.
Australian Labor Party leader Bill Shorten, who was subsequently defeated, countered: “I see a much more sophisticated relationship than viewing China as some sort of customer going through the Australian Mc-drive-through and saying, ‘What can we get from you?’” Shorten’s remark typifies the pseudo-sophistication and hypocrisy of Western politicians and pundits from countries allied to the US: they are afraid not to toss Washington’s anti-China line yet while they are desperate for Chinese business.
So they agonise over how to characterise China, whether as a business partner or rival.
Here’s a particularly anguished editorial from Canada’s national newspaper, The Globe and Mail: “That lack of Chinese political liberalisation is at the root of what is fast turning into a new cold war,” it said.
Really? Isn’t this about trade, not regime change? Canadian farmers may think it absurd to sell their produce only to bona fide democracies.
