{"id":1899,"date":"2021-06-11T03:29:03","date_gmt":"2021-06-11T03:29:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/?p=1899"},"modified":"2021-06-17T11:54:07","modified_gmt":"2021-06-17T11:54:07","slug":"singapores-lee-advises-australia-to-engage-with-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/?p=1899","title":{"rendered":"Singapore\u2019s Lee Advises Australia to Engage With China"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Singapore\u2019s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has advised his Australian counterpart, Scott Morrison, to engage more calmly and directly with China, amid a historically frosty spell in relations between Canberra and Beijing. Morrison made a brief stop in Singapore yesterday night for a meeting with Lee, en route to the G-7-plus meetings in Cornwall, where he will hold his first in-person meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden.<\/p>\n

In addition to discussing the potential\u00a0for a travel bubble between the two countries, and the creation of a mutually recognizable digital COVID-19 vaccine certificate, Lee said that he and Morrison discussed a number of issues related to China.<\/p>\n

Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Lee\u00a0described China\u00a0as \u201cone of the biggest policy questions for every major power in the world\u201d and said that he told Morrison that Australia should focus on areas of mutual interest rather than ideological differences.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t have to become like them, neither can you hope to make them become like you,\u201d he said. \u201cYou have to be able to work on that basis, that this is a big world in which there are different countries, and work with others who are not completely like-minded but with whom you have many issues, where your interests do align.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere will be rough spots \u2026 and you have to deal with that,\u201d Lee added. \u201cBut 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the past year, Australia\u2019s relations with China have hit a decades-long nadir, as Beijing, angered by Morrison\u2019s\u00a0public call\u00a0in April 2020 for an investigation into the origins of COVID-19, has punished Canberra by imposing billions of dollars worth of tariffs on a range of Australian goods and siccing its \u201cwolf warrior\u201d diplomatic corps on the Australian government. The standoff culminated in a list of 14 grievances released by Beijing, which sought to blame Australia for the deterioration in bilateral relations.<\/p>\n

Lee has long presented himself as a peddler of hard truths to the United States and China, and his advice to Morrison echoed previous statements that he has made about the burgeoning Sino-American rivalry. In his\u00a0keynote address\u00a0to the 2019 Shangri-La defense conclave, the Singaporean leader urged the two superpowers to find common ground. While praising China\u2019s growth as \u201ca tremendous boon, both to itself and to the world,\u201d he said that the Chinese leadership should seek to resolve maritime disputes \u201cthrough diplomacy and compromise rather than force or the threat of force.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lee also said U.S. policymakers had to accept that China would continue to grow, \u201cand that it is neither possible nor wise for them to prevent this from happening.\u201d Instead, he called on Washington to forge \u201ca new understanding that will integrate China\u2019s aspirations within the current system of rules and norms.\u201d<\/p>\n

Implicit in Lee\u2019s comments to Morrison was a criticism of the sharp turn in views of China that have taken place under his Coalition government, some of whose officials have in recent months begun speaking openly of war with China.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, Defense Minister Peter Dutton\u00a0called for an increase\u00a0in the number of American military personnel rotating through Australia\u2019s Northern Territory and mooted having U.S. Navy vessels operate from a base near Perth in the country\u2019s west, stating that Australia \u201cmust be prepared for any contingency.\u201d<\/p>\n

The former home affairs minister said Australia sought \u201ca productive relationship with China \u2013 but we don\u2019t accept breaking of the law, we don\u2019t accept interference in our electoral process, we don\u2019t accept interference in processes of democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The government\u2019s critics claim that while the downturn in relations has been prompted to some degree by genuine issues of concern \u2013 from China\u2019s maritime belligerence to its \u201cwolf warrior diplomacy\u201d and human rights in Hong Kong and Xinjiang \u2013 the threat posed by Chinese foreign interference is overblown, and that new legislation aimed at curbing such interference has significantly abridged civil rights in Australia.<\/p>\n

Indeed, the particular tenor of the turn against China cannot be explained without reference to the enduring Australian\u00a0fear of abandonment\u00a0by the United States, a worry that was heightened amid the outrages and uncertainties of the Trump administration. As in the U.S., there is also domestic political utility for conservative politicians in striking strong \u201canti-China\u201d positions.<\/p>\n

In a recent series of\u00a0three lengthy articles\u00a0in the Australian Financial Review, the publication\u2019s former deputy editor Max Suich argued that domestic political advantage is among the key drivers of Australia\u2019s present China policy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile we dramatically changed our approach, we did not define a policy objective for the new relationship with China or a strategy to achieve it. Nor did we thoroughly review alternative options,\u201d Suich wrote. \u201cWe elevated anger about Chinese activities in Australia and latent ministerial hostility towards China, turning threadbare slogans into policy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Source: The Diplomat<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Singapore\u2019s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has advised his Australian counterpart, Scott Morrison, to engage…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1901,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[35,4],"tags":[17],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/thediplomat-2021-06-11.jpg",462,308,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/thediplomat-2021-06-11-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/thediplomat-2021-06-11-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/thediplomat-2021-06-11.jpg",462,308,false],"large":["https:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/thediplomat-2021-06-11.jpg",462,308,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/thediplomat-2021-06-11.jpg",462,308,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/thediplomat-2021-06-11.jpg",462,308,false],"enternews-featured":["https:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/thediplomat-2021-06-11.jpg",462,308,false],"enternews-medium":["https:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/thediplomat-2021-06-11.jpg",462,308,false],"enternews-thumbnail":["https:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/thediplomat-2021-06-11.jpg",462,308,false]},"author_info":{"display_name":"admin","author_link":"https:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/?author=1"},"category_info":"Articles<\/a> Stories<\/a>","tag_info":"Stories","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1899"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1899"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1899\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1935,"href":"https:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1899\/revisions\/1935"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}