MICHAEL BLEBY: Noodle diplomacy: the easing of Australian and Chinese hostilities

Australia has just savoured a regional political treat denied it for years — a handshake with the Chinese president.

The 32-minute bilateral meeting between Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Xi Jinping in Bali two weeks ago was not enough to make delicious again a relationship that had congealed like a clump of noodles in a bowl, but it at least poured warm water back into it.

It marked the end to an acrimonious period that arguably started in 2018 when Australia banned Chinese company Huawei from working on the country’s new 5G mobile phone network, and worsened in 2020 when the Australian government led calls for an international inquiry into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic. China later banned $20bn worth of Australian exports, including coal, wine, lobsters, beef and barley.

The trade bans have not been lifted — no-one realistically expected that to happen so quickly — but it marks a big change in tone between two countries now engaging in a reset of relationship.

Of course, the diplomatic and political games playing out across Southeast Asia — in a string of regional meetings that started in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh for the East Asia/ASEAN summit and travelled to Bali for the G20 and culminated with Bangkok’s APEC summit — are not just about China and Australia. (Australia is certainly a lesser consideration for Xi, who met US President Joe Biden, a day before he did Albanese, for a good three hours.)

But as University of Melbourne academic Elna Tulus shows, a study of instant noodles illustrates the significance of these global summits. The industry — worth $54.6bn and likely to grow to $81.84bn by 2029 — links most of the countries at the G20.

China is the world’s largest market for instant noodles. Russia, the US, Australia, Canada (and Ukraine usually) are the biggest exporters of wheat, and G20 host Indonesia dominates global supply of palm oil, the other major ingredient of instant noodles.

At a time when inflation is creating huge pressures on food prices, the interests any country has with another are like a big tangle of noodles. The start and finish are unclear.

But back to two these countries. A recently re-elected Xi — having secured an unprecedented third five-year term as president — needs to strengthen China’s economy, which is faltering under his strict anti-Covid policies and inflation. Unusually large protests in Shanghai and then Beijing over the weekend after a fatal apartment fire in the western city of Urumqi reveal a level of opposition to Xi’s strict Covid policies not yet seen.

A re-elected Xi can be more generous towards foreign countries and make less of an enemy of them. He may have decided a policy of punitive sanctions against an annoying smaller country was counterproductive. For Australia that exports more to China than it does to the US, Japan and South Korea combined, that matters.

But while everyone broke bread, or supped noodles, in a series of leaders’ meetings that reflected their need to work together, many of the underlying tensions remain, and may even get worse.

The bilateral relationship will never be the same. As Australia’s former chief diplomat, Frances Adamson, points out, this country will never again be able to keep its economics and politics to separate channels.  

Australia, under a new federal government that is more responsive to the global climate crisis than its conservative predecessor, is trying to rebuild relationships with regional Pacific island nations. At the same time, it is working with the US and other allies to counter an increasingly assertive China through new agreements that tie Australia ever-closer to US strategic interests.

Taiwan is one potential flashpoint; the South China Sea another. Last week US vice-president Kamala Harris visited the Philippine island of Palawan, about 300km from the Spratly Islands, where China has built harbours and airstrips, much to the annoyance of other countries that also lay claim to the strategic waterway.

Australia joining the AUKUS agreement last year aims to give the country nuclear-powered submarines with the help of the US and UK. Australian politicians also have an unhelpful tendency to engage in megaphone diplomacy (more megaphone, less diplomacy) when they feel it plays to their local audience.

The current detente is welcome, and a hopeful sign. But there’s a lot at stake. If the current pressures to work together lift — or if co-operation leaves either side feeling it’s not benefiting — the hostile path may beckon. The noodles may cool again.

• Bleby is a senior reporter with The Australian Financial Review, based in Melbourne.