Facing Up to the Reality of China
When the Stern Hu case in Shanghai broke in the Australian media a fortnight ago, outrage was understandably widespread. For most Asia hands, though, who had been involved with the region for any length of time, the biggest surprise was not so much what China had done. Rather, it was the shock that Australians felt that anything like this could happen.
Regardless of the rights and wrongs of this case and the way it is being handled, two vastly different systems are at work here. Australia’s is based on democratic principles of justice and fairness, while China’s places less emphasis on the rights of the individual and more on protecting the national interest – however that is interpreted and by whatever means are deemed necessary. Neither side understands the other fully. But China is huge and important, and clearly isn’t going to be led by the nose to our way of thinking.
Unfortunately, Australians can be pretty naive. It’s as though we belong to a benign dream world in which we can take China’s money for our resources yet have no corresponding duty – to ourselves, at least – to recognise who the Chinese are, where they stand at this time in their history and the strategic heritage that they’ve brought from their past.
Lots of pressures were building behind the scenes before we witnessed the recent Hu eruption on the surface. They were not just economic and commercial, but political as well. In an immediate sense, the writing was on the wall a few months back when a number of horses in the Chinese steel industry stable broke ranks. Individual mills struck deals with iron ore providers to get the tonnages they wanted at prices they were willing to pay. Then the mockery started in the international media: Ha! There’s no way China can exercise control now that some of its thoroughbreds have bolted into the hills. Really, no way?
That naiveté reminded me of an aside I once heard made by the head of Nippon Steel years ago in Tokyo. It was at a time when that company was the largest producer in the world. "The only resource Japan has," he noted, "is its people, which means the only thing of value we have is what sits above our shoulders. Standing on your inheritance, as you Australians do, can make you awfully cocksure of yourselves. You shouldn’t overlook our legitimate sensitivity to resource security. You’d better watch out, you know, or else your ace card will be turned against you by someone more skilled at the game."
In more ways than one, that’s precisely what’s happened, despite successive generations of Australians going out into the region and grappling effectively with what makes the real world tick there. One of those Australians, Michael Byrnes, spent nearly two decades reporting from Asia – including from Tokyo during Japan’s peak iron ore and coal years – for The Australian Financial Review. In 1994, he published a brilliant exposé of how things really work in the region. The book was called Australia and the Asia Game and in it he described the challenge that this country faced when it came up against the negotiating power of the Japanese. "The difference with Asia," Byrnes wrote, "was profound. Australia continued to look to elaborate bodies of academic and theoretical thought to explain the deeper importance of individualism – markets. Asia had its own explanations – markets were fine but control through authority was king."
The book was pooh-poohed by the foreign minister of the day, the peripatetic gasbag Gareth Evans, because it didn’t fit in with his agenda. In the business and bureaucratic worlds it regrettably received nowhere near the attention it deserved. We were too busy pursuing the El Dorado we perceived to our north, despite the fact that the Japanese had already turned our seller’s market advantage into that of a buyer. In 2006, Byrnes published an updated version of his book under the title of Australia and the Asia Game: The Politics of Business and Economics in Asia. A good half dealt with the opening up of the Chinese economy and included useful comparisons between the Japanese and Chinese approaches. This time it received less coverage than before – and Gareth Evans had rolled on to the presidency of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group.
And that’s where Australia finds itself today: at a point of crisis in its relations with Asia’s emerging giant on the global stage. We mightn’t like how China goes about things, but warning Beijing that the eyes of the world are upon it is like threatening to send our big brother round to bash up the Chinese leadership unless it changes its tune. We might as well send the Tooth Fairy, for all the good that will do.
What the reaction to the arrest of Stern Hu, a fellow Australian, tells us is that this country has a long way to go before it understands what it’s contending with in the region. We’re actually engaged in a battle of wits and wills for our survival, and with anywhere near the terms we believe we’re entitled to. You’d never know it, though, if you happen to hear Foreign Minister Stephen Smith or shadow counterpart Julie Bishop talking about the Hu case. To them, the capital of China is a mythical place called Beishing or Beixing. Actually, no such place exists – even in Harry Potter. China’s capital is pronounced exactly the way it’s romanised. Remember Jingle Bells and you’ll be safe. For anyone to be making that mistake nearly a year down the track from the last Olympics is appalling.
"Trivial!" many Australians would say. "As though such minor oversights matter."
Well, they do. Viewed from Asia, they indicate just how determined we are to keep laying our convenient template of comprehension over the region rather than taking it for what it really is. It’s not simply a matter of who’s right or who’s wrong. It has more to do with appreciating that not everyone lives in our comfort zone. History is never kind to those who see their future through rose-coloured glasses.
Warren Reed was an Australia-Japan Business Cooperation Committee scholar in the law faculty of Tokyo University in the 1970s. He later worked in intelligence and was chief operating officer of the Committee for Economic Development of Australia.
StephenWilson
July 24, 2009 at 12:36 am
There’s a missing piece
The arrest of Stern Hu has become a lightning rod for all sorts of issues to do with relations between Asia and the West. People are earnestly drawing lessons about business methods, business styles, ethical standards, international law, economics and strategy.
Lockstep Consulting provides independent advice and analysis
on digital identity. Lockstep Technologies develops unique new
smart technologies to address transaction privacy and web fraud.
and with APEC and ASEAN for the past 10 years.