The Sino-Australia Senimar opening Remarks

To commemorate the 35th Anniversary of Establishment of Diplomatic Relations between China and Australia
Building on Strong Foundations: The Future of the China-Australia Relationship

Sydney, Australia, Thursday 17 May 2007
CPIFA – Lowy Institute – Tianda Institute
Opening remarks by Tianda Institute

The Sino-Australia Relations: Reality and Vision

It is a great pleasure to join all of you here to celebrate the 35th anniversary of establishing diplomatic relations between China and Australia and to review and explore this relationship. On behalf of Tianda Institute and Mr. Alan Fang, founder of the Institute and the Chairman of Tianda Group, I would like to extend our warm regards to all of you, particularly to our friends from Beijing who have flown more than ten hours to Sydney.

The Tianda Institute was established in 2005 as a non-governmental and non-profit research organization headquartered in Hong Kong and with representations in Australia and China. The Institute’s mission is to serve as a platform to carry out research in key areas of Chinese national strategy and regional security with a special focus on China and its relationships with world powers such as the US, EU countries, Japan, Australia and others through international cooperation with goals of improving the quality of relationships between China and its regional partners for a peaceful and harmonized world and contributing to China’s sustainable development.

In October， 2005, together with China Reform Forum and the French Institute for International Policy Studies (IIPS), the Tianda Institute jointly hosted an international seminar on “China’s Peaceful Rise & Sino-European Relations” in Paris. Then in April, 2006, in cooperation with China Reform Forum and the United States Centre for Strategic International Studies (CSIS), the Institute successfully sponsored an international seminar on “China’s Peaceful Rise & Sino-US Relations” in Seattle. Just last month soon after Premier Wen Jiabao’s successful visit to Japan, the Institute jointly with the Chinese People’s Institute for Foreign Affairs (CPIFA) and the Japanese Institute for World Peace held a seminar on “the 35th Anniversary of Normalization of Diplomatic Relations between China and Japan” in Tokyo.

And today，together with the CPIFA and the Lowy Institute of Australia, the Tianda Institute is jointly holding this seminar on the 35th Anniversary of the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations between China and Australia. It is our hope that through discussions and exchanging points of view by elite scholars and entrepreneurs from both two countries, we can explore, with good will, all kinds of cooperation for the relationship including the possibility of Sino-Australia strategic partnership.

In fact, thanks to the vision of leaders of two countries, the current bilateral relations between China and Australia have witnessed all-round development and entered the best period in history. Chinese and Australian leaders have maintained frequent exchanges of visits and contacts. Prime Minister John Howard has visited China five times since 1996 after he came to the office. Chinese leaders including Hu Jintao, Wen Jiabao and Wu Bangguo have all visited Australia in recent years. Last year when Premier Wen Jiabao visited Australia, he and Prime Minister Howard even agreed to develop comprehensive cooperative relations of mutual benefits in the 21st century.

In the economic field, China has become Australia’s second largest trading partner and second largest export market. Bilateral trade volume has increased from 100 million US dollars in 1972 to 5 billion US dollars in 1996, and dramatically reached 27.3 billion US dollars in 2005 at an average annual rate of 30%.

It’s obvious that there is great potential for cooperation and collaboration between China and Australia in both political and economic fields. The bilateral relations are therefore facing a new opportunity particularly this year when we celebrate 35th anniversary of this relationship. Also this year, Chinese President Hu Jintao will be in Australia for APEC summit and this will certainly improve this relationship further.

Those who study history of Australian international relations know that Australians have strong believes but are not ossified. They talk about principles but not take them as dogmas. Australians are realistic. They always have clear vision for the country. In 1951, when Australia had not yet thrown out the British strategic relationship and most Australians still considered Britain as the main guarantor of its security, Mr. Percy Spender, then Australian Secretary for External Affairs, initiated the idea of ANZUS. It was then regarded as radical in Australia. But it was his vision that made the history possible.

Spender was a realist who’s vision was that he understood Australia had strategic interests throughout the Western Pacific and Australia needed peace and stability in the region at that time. However, in the world today, peace and stability, what Australians want, is also a common vision for the Chinese people and the people of the world , and of course has become China’s national policy.

Finally, when we talk about vision for Sino-Australia relations, we have to mention Mr. Edward Gough Whitlam, the former Australian Prime Minister. It was because of his vision that China and Australia established diplomatic relations on December 21, 1972, not more than 20 days after he became Prime Minister. When Mr. Whitlam went to China in the summer 1971 as the leader of Australian Labor Party, he might not expect that relations between China and Australia would have been as close as today and China would have changed so much economically and politically. However, he foresaw the importance of Sino-Australia relations and made the history with a good vision.

The Sino-Australia Senimar Closing Remarks

（To commemorate the 35th Anniversary of Establishment of Diplomatic Relations between China and Australia）

Sydney, Australia, Friday 18 May 2007
CPIFA – Lowy Institute – Tianda Institute
Closing remarks by Tianda Institute

The Sino-Australia Relations: Challenges and Opportunities

Opportunities and challenges always come together. In our discussion today about Sino-Australia present and future relationships, although we might still have different points of view or disagreements in certain issues, I believe we both come to realize that there is great potential in developing the relationship politically and economically and we have more opportunities than challenges.

Both China and Australia have already benefited from the cooperative relationships. It further proves that a good relationship between two countries is not only good for both countries but also good for Asia Pacific Region and the world as well. For many years, in building and consolidating the cooperation, collaboration and mutual trust, leaders and people of both two sides have made every endeavor to overcome many difficulties, particularly ideological difference. In doing so, they also surprisingly discovered China and Australia have so many areas to cooperate and collaborate in mutually beneficial way.

This is something referred to as opportunity or good-timing that leaders of two countries would never miss. China and Australia are highly complementary in economy and international trade. China has an enormous demand for Australia’s iron ore, uranium, natural gas, quality agriculture and animal products, and Australia is interested in huge Chinese market. According to recent news report and a figure provided by Meat and Livestock Australia Limited (MLA) that Australia exports 20,000 tons of meat to China, 5% to 10% of total market share in the country.

However, as the world’s number one beef export country, the amount of beef from Australia exported to China “has reached 1012 tons”, in 2005, 30% increase than in 2004, mainly consumed in five-star hotels and high class restaurants in Beijing and Shanghai, including Shangri-La Hotels, Grand Hyatt Hotels and Sheraton Hotels. Ironically, for a country like China, 1012 tons of beef is far from enough.

Nevertheless, according to an estimate by economists that in 2004 Australia’s export to China has already contributed 30% of this country’s total GDP. Australian and Chinese people both benefit from the increasingly closer economic ties. Maybe this is one of the direct incentives for the development of this bilateral relationship.

The economic ties between China and Australia have also changed the political environment in Asia Pacific. Peace and stability have become a common goal in the region that in return Sino-Australia relations are improved and mutual trust is increased. Furthermore, the agreement to develop comprehensive cooperative relations of mutual benefits in the 21st century reached in April last year between Premier Wen Jiabao and Prime Minister Howard has laid a good foundation to further improve this relationship.

In March when Chinese Vice Premier Zheng Peiyan visited Australia, he guaranteed his Australian counterpart that China will work in greater efforts with Australia on FTA agreement between two countries and actively promote closer cooperation among countries in the South Pacific.

Therefore, it’s not a question of cooperation between China and Australia, it’s a matter of increasing mutual trust and expanding strategic cooperation. We believe with the implementation of the agreement between Premier Wen and Prime Minister Howard reached last year and the improvement of strategic ties between two countries, Sino-Australia bilateral relations will further improve. We believe such improvement will give momentum to complete the FTA negotiation.

There are reasons we hope Australian policy-makers need to have a foresighted vision to understand China better, not only looking at its great market potential, but also at recent changes in China’s political transformation. In his article published in the official 《People’s Daily》on February 26, and a speech at a press conference in March, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao for the first time surprisingly praised some of the universal values including “democracy, rule of law, freedom, equality, human rights and fraternity”. We people in Hong Kong see this as a great change in China’s modern politics, an exciting and positive political signal designed to tell the world that a dramatic political reform will take place and therefore we feel optimistic for China and of course for the future Sino-Australia relations.