Foreign Minister Penny Wong speaks of balance, equality and a new regional order – yet Australia’s China policy still carries Cold War assumptions that risk strategy, prosperity and peace.

Senator Penny Wong’s 17 November keynote speech to the Australian Institute of International Affairs confirmed, “The change in the regional landscape is permanent.”

Painting a “grim picture”, she took the opportunity to don the role of architect. Burnishing Australia’s credentials, the Minister reflected on Australia’s ambitions as a “resilient middle power” supporting a “new normal” within an inclusive new regional architecture.

This “new architecture” is to sit on “the foundation of a relationship of equals.” The stabilising of the Sino-Australian relationship is an ongoing part of this.

Her calm, cerebral rejection of a “false binary” in this relationship was noteworthy, but the qualitative scale of enhanced Sino-Australian cooperation lacked a full explanation.

In a likely indirect swipe at Morrison’s failed China policy, she said: “Australia cannot afford to stand still while tectonic plates are shifting around us – because in these circumstances, that would mean going backwards.”

Is not standing still enough? Perhaps it is more self-indulgent “cake-ism.” Beijing would regard statements on balance and equality within a “new normal” as both positive and familiar, but would ask whether China, as a maligned outlier, has ever been treated fairly on an inclusive basis of nicely balanced equality.

Australia’s predicament is well known. Despite recent interest in economic diversification, its economy remains heavily reliant on China. Security policy still relies on the US as the keeper of balance and “great builder of alliances”. Balance against whom? Chinese “architects” think alliances create imbalance through inequality, whereas “architecture” in the West presumes that China, as the Cold War enemy, works against the “rules-based” order.

Was Wong’s focus on Pacific engagement a masked containment? The Minister promised that Canberra would “prioritise dialogue with China at every level.” Towards what end? Australian democracy must still be defended against the unnamed “others who would tear at the fabric of our cohesion.” Australia “plays by the rules”, but China does not? Australia, however “must pave the way in rule-making otherwise the world will be more deferential to........

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