This is the text of remarks made by Nicholas Whitlam at the Reception given by HE Ambassador Xiao Qian on 9 December 2022 at the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in Canberra.
Among the many initiatives and reforms that my father quickly introduced on being elected PM in December 1972, one with the most enduring importance was the establishment of diplomatic relations with China. It was something he had been publicly advocating for nearly twenty years. Once he was in power, it took him just nineteen days to make it happen.
I was living in London at the time, a serious young banker working for JP Morgan, and I was interested in what would become of the Sydney branch of the Bank of China. The bank had been granted a rare foreign banking licence during World War II. The Chinese Government changed hands on 1 October 1949, and the conservative Menzies government was elected on 10 December of that year. Somehow the rebel authorities in Taipei gained control of the Bank of China’s Sydney branch – and so it stayed for the next twenty-three years, as the Australian Government continued the bizarre fiction that the Chinese government was based in Taiwan.
But Australia’s own Liberation on 2 December 1972 did not return the branch to its rightful owners. The branch quickly stopped trading and closed. Ownership of its Sydney premises were transferred to the former branch manager. All this resulted in the revocation of the bank’s licence - as the authorities in Taipei must have anticipated, and hoped for. And so the legitimate Bank of China did not return to Australia until Treasurer Keating re-opened the country to foreign banks in the mid-1980s.
We all have our stories on how China has changed our lives. This personal anecdote is barely a footnote to the fundamental changes that came in the relationship between our two countries in the years since 1972.
Back in 1971, when my father famously led the ALP delegation to China as Leader of the Opposition, there were two items on their agenda: discussing the possibility of establishing diplomatic relations – and wheat sales.
No-one talks about wheat sales now!
(Wheat represented about 90% of our exports to China in 1972, which then totalled the grand sum of about $100 million.)
I need hardly set out how the trade between our two countries has flourished in the last fifty years. No doubt others will do that today. Suffice it to say that - for some time - China has been far and away Australia’s most important trading partner.
Of equal importance are the cultural and educational ties that have developed over the last fifty years.:
· Mandarin is the second most spoken language in Australia after English.
· People of Chinese ancestry represent nearly 6% of our population.
· Australia is one of the most popular destinations for Chinese students wishing to study overseas, and
· China is a key destination for Australia’s New Colombo Plan.
· Prior to the COVID pandemic, China was our largest source of inbound tourists.
With the pandemic seemingly in abatement, we can hope that these interactions will return to their earlier levels.
So my family and I rejoice in the Chinese proverb:
“When you draw water from the well, you must not forget those who dug the well.”
…
By 2014 our political leaders agreed to describe the relationship between our two countries as a “comprehensive strategic partnership.”
There is no point, however, in ignoring the fact that in recent years the relationship has been subject to decay, neglect, and some conflict - and that, in many circles, China has been demonised. As have people of Chinese extraction. I deeply regret this.
My father always said that Australia should not be asked to choose between China and the USA.
We do not always share common values or interests - not with China, nor with the USA. But we do have many common interests and common problems, issues on which we agree. At the highest level, doing something about climate change is the most obvious and immediate such issue. Without ignoring those matters on which we disagree we can make progress on other things. Because, you know, most of us can chew gum and walk briskly at the same time.
There is every sign that our new government is trying to put the government-to-government relationship back on a stable footing. That is what diplomacy is about. The recent meeting between our Prime Minister and President Xi apparently went well. President Xi graciously opined that China’s relationship with Australia “is worth cherishing”. It’s a sentiment many Australians still feel towards Britain. Cherishing. You cannot be much more welcoming than that.
No-one could pretend that our relationship with China is as deep and broadly-based as that we have with Britain or even the USA. But, in due course, it must be.
Fifty years ago my father’s riding instructions to our first ambassador, Stephen FitzGerald, were clear:
“We seek a relationship with China based on friendship, cooperation and mutual trust, comparable with that which we have, or seek, with other major powers.”
That is still our challenge