[【The Australian】 Tale of final straws and camel backs

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Tale of final straws and camel backs
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25950438-7583,00.html

Rowan Callick, Asia-Pacific editor | August 19, 2009

CHINA has launched a two-track strategy to manage its increasingly strained relationship with Australia, encouraging investment to continue while freezing out Canberra on the official front.

The opposition blamed Kevin Rudd yesterday for the deterioration, which includes the downgrading of diplomatic visits including Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei being replaced as China's envoy at the recent Pacific Islands Forum summit in Cairns by Pacific desk chief Wang Yongqiu.

"Our relations with China are at the lowest ebb they've been for many, many years," Malcolm Turnbull said.

"Mr Rudd has been making an absolutely ham-fisted effort with our diplomatic relations. He obviously has no leverage with China left at all."

Liberal Queensland senator Russell Trood, former director of the Centre for the Study of Australia-Asia Relations at Griffith University, said: "The humiliating, disdainful and provocative treatment of the Australian government by the Chinese government is the direct consequence of confused and muddled foreign policy objectives that Prime Minister Rudd has been pursuing in China since 2007."

China's tougher approach was indicated by its reluctance to co-operate with the PIF summit decision, initiated by Mr Rudd, to co-ordinate international aid to avoid waste.

Mr Wang told The Australian: "We feel it is unnecessary to accept this multilateral co-ordination mechanism ... if our aid is not the best, it must be one of the best."

Meanwhile, China's media assault on Australia is heating up.

Yang Rui, the host of China Central TV 9's Dialogue program, linked Australia's planned cull of camels, which he called a "massacre ... of innocent lives", with the iron ore price, which Beijing claims is far too high -- telling Australia to use its ore earnings to deal with its camel over-population more humanely.

China's nationalist Global Times headlined a story: "Australia must bear the cost of the deteriorating Sino-Australian relations".

Alistair Nicholas, originally from Sydney and principal of consulting firm AC Capital in Beijing, said: "It seems Australia is now public enemy No1 as far as the Chinese media is concerned. The straw that probably broke the camel's back for China was the granting of a visa to another public enemy of China -- Rebiya Kadeer, the leader of the World Uighur Congress."

A commentary by state newsagency Xinhua lambasted The Australian's foreign editor Greg Sheridan for his writing on Washington-based Ms Kadeer's visit, accusing him of "openly playing the role of an adviser for a foreign separatist".

Meanwhile, Australian economists -- including, on Monday, Treasury secretary Ken Henry -- continue to look to China as a crucial growth driver.

And the Chinese government, with its new "strictly business" approach to Australia, is approving a stream of large investments, including last week Yanzhou Coal's $3.5 billion bid for Felix Resources. On Monday, China cut an iron ore price deal with Fortescue Metals Group that involves lending Fortescue up to $7bn to fund expansion.

AC Capital's Mr Nicholas said: "What can Australia do to get out of China's crosshairs? Probably very little. The debate is at fever pitch in China. Rational arguments will fall on deaf ears.

"As a rising power, China is going to have to come to terms with the way of life in liberal democracies like Australia and the US, just as many Westerners have had to learn about the Chinese way of doing things."

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