Joe Biden's inauguration as 46th President of the United States was an opportunity for Australia to "reassess" its relationship with China, members of the Australia China Business Council (ACBC) of WA were told last week.
Former Australian ambassador to China 2007-2011 Geoff Raby told an ACBC WA Zoom conference there was likely to be "a change in tone and rhetoric" from the US under Mr Biden.
Dr Raby said that based on his and his advisers' previous published positions on various global issues, Mr Biden appeared to be looking at a "co-existence of strategic competition and co-operation" with China.
This was in contrast to the previous administration's attempts to "contain" China's influence as a global economic power, Dr Raby said.
"I think that (improved US-China relations) certainly is a big advance from where we are now,'' he said.
"The US will be forced by its own interest to provide China with more strategic space."
Dr Raby said he believed China's economic growth would continue - this year it is estimated China will contribute about 26 per cent of global gross domestic product growth, compared to the US's 15pc.
"Biden will be very focused on getting the US economy going again (after COVID-19) so there is likely to be a reassessment in the US of whether the tension with China and the attempt to contain China is helpful," he said.
"I suspect there will be a reassessment based on a much more fundamental pressure - this is not in the US interest to sustain it.
"Anything that improves the tone and tenor of US-China relations will, I believe, provide an opportunity for Australia to start to reposition itself with China.
"The trick is, the Australian government will need to figure out that things have changed - but they haven't shown they are particularly perceptive about these things.
"It doesn't matter how much the Australian Prime Minister might like to say we work co-operatively with China, or we have a common future, or common interest with China, our actions establish that we are seeking to contain China and all that follows from that.
"My argument is that we have not managed this great power shift well (from the US being the dominant global economic power to the ascendency of China and a shared global power) - no Federal government since the Howard era has handled our relationship with China well, in my view."
Dr Raby pointed to Treasurer Josh Frydenberg stopping the "sale of a Japanese-owned dairy company (Lion Dairy & Drinks) to a Chinese dairy company" on the grounds of "national security" as an example where Australia's actions resonated far more with China than its words.
China's investment in Australia had "collapsed" as a result of similar actions and Australia's assets would be devalued as a result, he said.
In the case of Lion Dairy & Drinks, China Mengniu Dairy had been prepared to pay $600 million for its assets, but they are now being sold to Bega Cheese for $534m.
"If we have a problem with China, then we need to work out by how much we are prepared to have our standard of living reduced," Dr Raby said.
"Over a number of years the US has moved from a position of engagement with China, accommodating China's rise and seeing China's rise as being in its own self-interest, to seeking to contain China.
"Australia has chosen to glue itself at the hip to the US and to join the US in a policy of containment of China.
"There's no reason why we have to contain China.
"China is not an existential threat to Australia's security, far from it, we have benefited enormously - economic strength is a foundation of national security.
"We have gone through a series of events where we have made policy announcements - perfectly reasonable in themselves - but all of which underscore the fact we have aligned ourselves with the US and are containing China.
"As a result we find ourselves today very much as an outlier in our relationship with China."
Dr Raby said the deterioration of relations with China coincided with behind-the-scenes changes in Australia's foreign policy determination.
"It has been taken over by the intelligence, security and defence establishments, DFAT (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade) has basically been marginalised in terms of high-level strategic policy developments and the consequence is a relationship with China which many people in Canberra would say is the new normal," he said.
"It's not a binary choice (between security with the US and economic trade with China) and should not be regarded as the new normal.
"There's a lot more Australia could be doing both in its relations with China and in developing regional coalitions and alliances around specific issues for our interests.
"But we're unable to do this sort of activist diplomacy if we're unable to speak with China diplomatically or officially.
"I think we do ourselves further damage in the eyes of our Pacific neighbours in the way we have mishandled our relations with China.
"(The problem is) I don't see political leadership in Australia to develop a better relationship with China irrespective of what relationship the US has with China.
"We can and we have and we must try and run an independent foreign policy from the US.
"We have significant security assets such as Pine Gap and others that contribute to US security and the US is not going to walk away from that.
"We have to educate the new US policymakers that Australia having more of an independent voice (on China) does not mean that we are no longer a most reliable alliance partner."
Answering questions from ACBC members, Dr Raby said he believed the Federal government needed to be "more accountable" for deteriorating relations with China.
He advised members to contact their local MPs to reinforce to them the economic risks faced by WA businesses and industries that trade with China, if the relationship was to continue to slide.
"People have to stand up and say tit-for-tat punitive measures don't do anyone any good," Dr Raby said.
As a background to his talk, Dr Raby said it was his view China's leaders had never envisaged its growth to a global power would make it so dependent on "world markets for critical imports" - such as raw materials and energy for manufacturing - on which its economic growth relied.
Strategic planners in Beijing had long realised the route of most of these critical imports through the Straits of Malacca and South China Sea to Chinese ports made China's economy extremely vulnerable to blockade by the US should it decide to do so, he said.
Its Belt and Road Initiative and its recent actions in the South China Sea were a response to its economy's perceived exposure to calculated supply disruption, Dr Raby said.
Prior to becoming Australia's ambassador to China, Dr Raby was ambassador to APEC (Australia-Pacific Economic Co-operation) from 2003-05 and ambassador to the World Trade Organization in 1998-2001.
He is chairman of the Australia-China Institute of Arts and Culture at the University of WA.
Last year Dr Raby published his thoughts on Australia-China relations in the book 'China's Grand Strategy and Australia's Future in the New Global Order'.
