That was then, this is now: Tony Abbott’s changing tune on China

In a speech written for the questionably funded Dubai-based think tank Legatum and published in The Australian, former prime minister Tony Abbott unites his apocalyptic and Churchillian sides to paint a chilling near future scored by the drums of war.

Global conflicts in Ukraine, the Middle East and East Asia are neatly woven together with other culture war concerns — How can we prepare for war with everyone treating climate change like it’s our biggest threat? Who will fight for countries so wracked with self-loathing that they tear down the statues of their greatest men? — into a grand narrative of Western decline and external threats. Classic Abbott, essentially.

He has particular worries over the rise of China, which has “embarked on the greatest military expansion in peacetime history” and whose diaspora, he darkly notes, “is everywhere”. As such, he argues for an “immediate need” to “position more ships and planes into East Asia, urgently excise China from critical supply chains, swiftly rebuild our defence industrial infrastructure, be ready to mobilise armed forces that adversaries would shrink to take on …”

Expressing his solidarity with Taiwan with typically Abbotonian weirdness, he stresses:

It has to be said, though, that Taiwan — free, liberal, democratic, creative Taiwan — plus the millions of well-assimilated ethnic Chinese in countries like Australia, prove that there’s no totalitarian gene in the Chinese DNA, which is why Beijing is so ruthlessly, relentlessly, indefatigably set on crushing it; and intimidating them.

It is inarguable that China’s expansion, and particularly its bullying posture towards Taiwan, is a huge concern and challenge for a country like Australia. But if Abbott wants to criticise anyone for too supine and conciliatory a stance towards China, he may wish to make his first target former prime minister Tony Abbott. Listen to this chummy rhetoric:

April 2014: Abbott, upon taking the largest Australian delegation to ever visit China ahead of a hoped free trade agreement:

It’s one of the most important delegations ever to leave Australia. Team Australia is here in China to help build the Asian century. China, after all, has taken to heart Deng Xiaoping’s advice that ‘to get rich is glorious’.

And China should be richer still, thanks to premier Li [Kequiang]’s reforms. To be rich is indeed glorious — but to be a true friend is sublime. Australia is not in China to do a deal, but to be a friend. We don’t just visit because we need to, but because we want to. Our region and our world need peace and understanding based on international law and mutual respect.

… I am proud that Australian coal, iron ore, gas and services exports have helped to drive [China’s] prosperity.

November 2014: Abbott invites Chinese President Xi Jinping to address Australian Parliament, and praises Xi’s speech:

I have never heard a Chinese leader commit so explicitly to a rule-based international order founded on the principle that we should all treat others as we would be treated ourselves. I thank you, Mr President, for this historic, historic statement which I hope will echo right around the world.

Experts at the time did not detect any of the same novelty or significance in Xi’s speech.

June 2015: Refusing to commit Australia to any position on Chinese actions in the South China Sea, Abbott insists, “China is a very good friend of Australia and it’s a friendship which is getting stronger all the time”.