2022-10-27
Whitlam’s daring visit opened up new ways for Australia to embrace the opportunities and benefits of engaging with Asia and we can learn from his approach to navigate the hostile relations with China that have arisen in recent years. The Greens seem to have learned better than others.
By Rob Delves, Green Issue Co-editor
In July 1971, while still in Opposition, Gough Whitlam made the audacious decision to become the first Western leader to travel to China seeking to normalise relations with our long-standing Cold War enemy and “Yellow Peril” threat. Although this was a high-stakes gamble, it was not an exercise in political opportunism, for Whitlam had a long history of seeking to promote regional friendships rather than always acceding to the Cold War rhetoric of our “great and powerful friends.”
The 51 years since that ground-breaking triumph have transformed Australia’s relationship with China and all of Asia – and definitely for the better. However, in recent years, the China-Australia relationship has deteriorated badly. This is partly due to Xi Jinping’s increased authoritarian control and aggression, but also the likes of Morrison, Dutton and Payne stupidly poking China with a sharp stick time and time again, presumably to make them look tough.
I’d like to revisit what happened on that momentous occasion in July 1971 and reflect on what lessons Whitlam’s approach can teach us in promoting better relations with this most critical actor in our region – and indeed the world.
What was the dominant view of China 51 years ago?
This was the Cold War era and so for decades Australia had looked at China through the Cold War lens of distrust, anxiety and paranoia. Australia’s knee-jerk reaction rarely went beyond fear-mongering about red and yellow perils.
Why did Whitlam decide to visit China when it was such a huge political risk?
For many years he had been frustrated by the West’s failure to acknowledge the bleeding obvious: although we might dislike the authoritarian Communist system, Mao’s Beijing regime was the legitimate government of China. Back in 1954 he became the first Australian MP to argue for recognition of the People’s Republic of China. It simply did not make sense to ignore the political existence of nearly one quarter of the world’s population for distorted ideological reasons about the threat of Communist expansion. He hoped his visit would nudge Australia towards a more reasoned thinking about China, viewing this huge country in terms of opportunities, especially for trade, rather than simplistic fear-mongering about “the Yellow Peril.”
Here was an Australian leader – not even a Prime Minister, merely an Opposition leader – going where no other Western leader had gone and making high-level political contact with the biggest communist country in the world. And all in the midst of the Cold War, in particular the Vietnam War. The trip was especially criticised for damaging Australia's alliance with the United States, which since 1941 had been worshipped as our imperial protector from the yellow hordes to our north, China in particular, with their unfamiliar cultures and overcrowded lands.
What happened on this visit?
Eric Walsh was a young journalist working for The Australian Financial Review, part of the group of reporters and China-academics accompanying Whitlam. He recalls the meetings as follows: “We were very well received by our hosts. It was the first instance of goodwill they had had from Australia in a long time. Gough was at the centre of the whole thing, of course. He said if I’m elected next year, one of the first things I will do is recognise China. He said ‘It should have been done 20 years ago’. Premier Zhou Enlai liked that.”
Most of the journalists reported that Premier Zhou appeared to have two main goals. Firstly, to include Australia in the “Small Powers” with whom he was seeking to build ties against the dominance of the USA and Russia. Secondly, to entice Whitlam into denouncing Australia’s commitment to America under ANZUS. Zhou had a towering intellectual reputation as a wily negotiator. He first sought points of agreement, then probed for concession. He patiently described how China had felt betrayed by her supposed ally Russia, then asked: “is your ally very reliable?” Whitlam replied there had been no parallel deterioration in Australia-USA relations, but Zhou countered: “But they both want to control others – our socialist country will not be controlled by anyone!”
“Yours has been a bitter experience,” Whitlam agreed, “and I understand your feeling.” He then proceeded to carefully explain that Australia cherished its American alliance but was confident enough to criticise the US government as an equal in that alliance. He encouraged Zhou to feel less threatened by American imperialism because of the way that its citizens (like our own) were mounting massive opposition to the invasion of Vietnam, and hopefully would never again allow a President to send troops to invade another country. Zhou loved that one: “Such a very good appraisal of the American people.”
There is widespread admiration amongst the reporters for the intelligent and persuasive way Whitlam made the case for redefining the Australia-America relationship by asserting that Australia had its own national interests and could act independently on that basis. Moreover, by doing this from China, we demonstrated the importance of developing a regionalism not dominated by the great Cold War powers.
How was the visit received back home?
The conservative press and Prime Minister William McMahon poured scorn on the “shams and absurdities” of Whitlam’s dangerous flirtation with the enemy, warning it “would isolate Australia from our friends and allies not only in South-East Asia and the Pacific but in other parts of the Western world as well.” McMahon reminded Australians that our brave soldiers were risking their lives in Vietnam precisely to “stop the downward thrust of China between the Pacific and Indian Oceans,” while Whitlam was “playing his wild diplomatic game, knocking our friends one by one until he was virtually alone in Asia and the Pacific, except for the communists…I find it incredible that at a time when Australian soldiers are still engaged in Vietnam, the leader of the Labor party is becoming a spokesperson for those against whom we are fighting…We must not become pawns of the giant communist power in our region.”
Peter Dutton couldn’t have put it better. It was just ridiculous exaggerations and scare-mongering, as the Australian journalists observing the Whitlam-Zhou conversation almost to a man agreed that Whitlam negotiated with skill and intelligence. Then on July 12, McMahon trumpeted his most-quoted condemnation: “In no time at all, Zhou En-Lai had Mr. Whitlam on a hook and he played him as a fisherman plays a trout.”
Only three days later the world learned that Nixon’s national security adviser Henry Kissinger had secretly visited Beijing to end 25 years of mutual hostility between the Communist regime and Washington. News of the Kissinger trip blindsided and embarrassed McMahon and was a delicious gift to Labor. Whitlam’s deputy Lance Barnard declared that far from his boss being a “trout” it was McMahon who was “a stunned mullet.” America’s stunning affirmation of Whitlam’s initiative significantly contributed to the trout defeating the mullet a year and a half later.
How did the Australia-China relationship change as a result of the visit – in the short and long term?
The newly elected Whitlam government recognised the "one China" formula as one of its first acts after being elected in December 1972. China gradually moved from the periphery to the important centre of Australia’s trade and foreign policy vision, resulting in decades of mutual prosperity, immigration of Chinese people and relatively harmonious relations, upset on occasions by events such as Tiananmen Square.
What were Whitlam’s most important observations that challenged long-established negative attitudes to China?
Firstly, Whitlam challenged us to face the reality that we must seek peaceful engagement with China (and other Asian nations) regardless of whether we approve of their values and governments, because that is the best way to pursue our prosperity and security. Whitlam’s other central message was that you can’t establish even a half-decent relationship unless you begin with the hard work of understanding that country, its culture and history. Two of the most-quoted statements from his 1971 experiences are as follows:
“One of the great troubles between China and the West is that we expect China to believe the best about our statements of intentions while we choose to believe the worst about hers. We expect understanding for our own fears, but we have never tried to understand hers. We have been obsessed about our own historical experience, but we scoff at China’s obsession with her own experience.”
“We will never understand the Chinese and we will never begin to grasp their attitudes to Maoism unless we try to understand that above all they are determined never again to submit to humiliation. The corollary of this is that we will never understand China’s attitude to her neighbours and to the world unless we realise that she will not put herself in a situation where the chances of being humiliated could arise. And if anybody thinks about this for two seconds, he will realise that it is one of the most hopeful things about world affairs today.”
I’ve thought about that final sentence for much longer than two seconds and I don’t quite get it, but the rest is sustained wisdom indeed.
Under Xi Jinping China is more powerful and aggressive than 51 years ago. It clearly seeks to become a dominant player in the Western Pacific and East Asia, perhaps even further afield. What can today’s leaders learn from Whitlam’s thinking in order to create a better relationship in these dangerous times?
The government in China when Whitlam went there in 1971 wasn’t exactly a loveable government. China is now economically bigger, more powerful and threatening, but central to Whitlam’s thinking is that you can’t ignore reality ‒ you have to engage with a country whatever you think of it. China's rise is a fact of life and needs to be managed in a way that avoids confrontation, if possible. He would surely urge us to study how other Asian nations are seeking a more pragmatic independent relationship, perhaps best exemplified in this recent quote from Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong: “You don't have to become like them, neither can you hope to make them become like you. There will be rough spots and you have to deal with that. But deal with them as issues in a partnership which you want to keep going and not issues, which add up to an adversary which you are trying to suppress.”
Which other Australian leaders have carried on Whitlam’s heritage?
Two standouts are Malcolm Fraser and Paul Keating, both mostly since leaving office. Fraser’s 2014 book Dangerous Allies is a scathing critique of Australia’s over-reliance on the American alliance for our security from China, especially in the changed world of the 21st Century. Malcolm Fraser argued that Australia should adopt a much greater degree of independence in foreign policy, and that we should no longer merely follow America into wars of no direct interest to Australia or Australia's security.
Keating’s central argument, which he has promoted for many years, is that we must stop trying to find our security from Asia but instead seek security by engagement with Asia. He is deeply concerned by our preoccupation with Taiwan as a trigger for war between the US and China, and the expectation that we would automatically side with the US in such a war, that there is zero prospect of winning. He describes the recent AUKUS submarine acquisition policy as an abject failure, that will leave us with a small fleet suitable for war with China and reliant permanently on US expertise, but not fit for the purpose of defending the Australian coastline. And the so-called ‘QUAD’ is exactly the kind of containment arrangement that the world does not need.
What are The Greens policies towards China and the bipartisan reliance on the American alliance to provide our security from China?
In the lead-up to this year’s May election, Jordon Steele-John strongly criticised the government’s aggressive fear-mongering about China and staked out clear differences from the Lib-Lab consensus. He made clear that The Greens don’t see China as a military threat to Australia. He said the future of Taiwan was not a direct concern for Australia or for the United States. He described the government’s concerns over the Solomon Islands-China deal as racist. The Greens support the Solomon Islands as a sovereign country that is seeking to build relationships with its regional neighbours as best it can and it is making those decisions as a sovereign country should.
Labor was careful to water down national security as an election issue by matching the Coalition’s defence commitments. In government they have been clear that the “China as dangerous threat” policy is unchanged. Tellingly, when Penny Wong met her Chinese counterpart in July, she stated “Australia’s Government has changed but our national interests and our policy settings have not.” However, the Greens have called for military spending to be slashed and the AUKUS agreement cancelled. They want the nation’s nuclear submarine and hypersonic missile programs to be axed, Pine Gap closed and US marines out of Darwin.
Are The Greens today’s standard-bearers of Whitlam’s bold ground-breaking attempt to forge a more realistic, intelligent, independent, peace-seeking relationship with both the USA and China?
Yes.
As a final comment, I’d like us to make climate change front and centre of our relationship with China. Climate change is a much greater threat even than war with China and we must work more closely with China, find more common ground, on emissions reduction efforts. We could also encourage the Teals to make this their entry point into engaging positively with China, as I’m guessing this critical relationship isn’t on their radar so far ‒ and it needs to be.
Header photo: Gough Whitlam on his 1971 China visit. Credit: The Whitlam Institute
[Opinions expressed are those of the author and not official policy of Greens WA]