In what must feel like an historic international relations low not matched since Lord Elgin sacked the Summer Palace, a desperate China has kow towed to our own headless chicken PM at the East Asia Summit, via the AFR:
In a dig at former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and former foreign minister Julie Bishop, under whom the relationship grew testy, Mr Li told Mr Morrison the leadership change represented a “turning point”.
“This is the first annual dialogue between the Chinese premier and the Australian prime minister after you took office,” he told Mr Morrison.
“This is also a meeting that is a turning point after our ups and downs in relations.”
Boy is that desperate. ScoMo barely qualifies as a placeholder PM. He’s pivoted back towards the US in the Pacific push, is signing intensified defense agreements with arch enemy Japan, as well as doing this:
Australia is reportedly part of a group of 15 Western ambassadors in Beijing seeking a meeting with senior Communist Party officials over China’s alleged human rights abuses against Uighur Muslim minorities in the country’s west.
In a move which potentially complicates Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s efforts this week to repair Canberra’s relationship with China, Reuters news agency said on Thursday that envoys from 15 countries including Australia were jointly seeking a meeting with a top official in China’s Xinjiang region.
The move was made in a letter to Chen Quanguo, Xinjiang’s Communist Party boss, according to a copy of a draft letter seen by Reuters. Coordinated action by a group of diplomatics over a human rights issue would be highly unusual.
Morrison is hardly a strong “pivot”. But that’s the central value of the ‘Pilbara put’ to the Chinese Communist Party as Cold War 2.0 deepens.
And let’s face it, Chinese influence is under siege back home:
The government’s bill to ban foreign political donations has passed the Senate after backroom negotiations with Labor resolved a dispute about the Coalition’s attempt to override state donation laws.
The electoral funding and disclosure bill is the third plank of the Coalition’s foreign interference package to pass the Senate after bills to strengthen espionage offences and set up a foreign influence register passed in June.
Labor used the bill’s passage on Thursday evening to call on the Liberal and National parties to voluntarily stop taking foreign political donations, as it will not become law until it goes from the Senate and is passed by the House of Representatives.
The passage of the bill in the Senate was welcomed by civil society groups in the Hands Off Our Charities coalition including the Australian Conservation Foundation, which were pleased that substantial amendments had clarified and rolled back proposed new red tape on charities.
The Greens remained critical of aspects of the legislation, citing advice that despite the Coalition and Labor’s assurances the bill may create a loophole for political parties to restructure their finances to avoid state developer donation bans.
Look for more Chinese largesse as the pivot away from it gathers pace.
