Singapore: Foreign Minister Penny Wong has ramped up pressure on China to convince Russia to end its war in Ukraine ahead of a possible meeting with her Beijing counterpart on the sidelines of a G20 summit in Bali.
Wong left the door open to sitting down with China Foreign Minister Wang Yi on the Indonesian island over the next two days following their duelling tours of the Pacific last month.
Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov will also be a controversial presence at Friday’s G20 meeting and Australia’s top diplomat and representatives from other nations have declared the gathering, as a result, “cannot be business as usual”.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong: “We are more than just supporting players in a grand drama of global geopolitics.”Credit:AP
On Wednesday night, Wong used a speech in Singapore to escalate a push for China to use its leverage to bring Vladimir Putin’s invasion to a close.
She said it was especially important for leading international countries and those with an influence on Russia “to exert their influence to end this war”.
“This includes China, as a great power, a permanent member of the [United Nations] Security Council, and with its ‘no-limits partnership’ with Russia,” Wong said at an event hosted by the International Institute for Strategic Studies think tank at Singapore’s Shangri-La Hotel.
“Exerting such influence would do a great deal to build confidence in our own region. The region and the world is now looking at Beijing’s actions in relation to Ukraine.”
Outlining the Labor government’s vision for south-east Asia and Australia’s role in it, Wong also called on China to exercise restraint in its dealings with its own neighbours, saying that would “give the region and the world greater confidence”.
She said Australia was not simply acting as an ally of the United States in the geopolitical rivalry between the two superpowers.
“Regardless of the character of leadership Beijing chooses to demonstrate, we all have our own choices to make, and our own agency to exercise,” Wong said.
“We are more than just supporting players in a grand drama of global geopolitics, on a stage dominated by great powers. It is up to all of us to create the kind of region we aspire to – a stable, peaceful, prosperous and secure region.”
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will meet with the Chinese foreign minister in Bali and Wang will also hold talks with India’s Subrahmanyam Jaishankar during a flurry of bilateral get-togethers.
Wong did not confirm if a meeting of her own with Wang had been set for Bali but said: “Australian ministers remain open to engagement [with China] and that extends to the G20. Obviously, these arrangements are very fluid.”
“We believe that both countries have an interest in stabilising the relationship,” she said after meeting with Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan in the city-state on Wednesday.
“We do maintain the concerns we have raised publicly about the existence and continuation of what we regard as coercive trade and economic measures against Australia.”
Discussions about an ice-breaker between Wong and her Beijing counterpart come less than a month after a three-year diplomatic freeze ended when Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles held talks with China Defence Minister Wei Fenghe while both were attending a defence summit in Singapore.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been clear, however, that Xi Jinping’s regime must drop trade sanctions against Australia for relations to properly resume.
Hopes of tension easing were tempered by another reality check over the past week as China rwas angered by Albanese’s comparison of Russia’s war in Ukraine with China’s ambitions of reclaiming Taiwan, saying it had demonstrated “attempts to impose change by force on a sovereign country meets resistance”.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s comparisons of the war in Ukraine with China’s ambitions to reclaim Taiwan infuriated Beijing. Credit:Lukas Coch/AAP
Beijing labelled the Australian leader’s comments “irresponsible” and its state media declared that the prospects of a reset following the change of government were diminishing.
In a briefing on Tuesday night, China foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said a steady relationship between China and Australia was in the interests of both nations but maintained there was “no auto-pilot mode” to improving ties.
Indonesia, which holds this year’s presidency of the G20, has invited Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s foreign minister, to Friday’s meeting as well as Lavrov even though Ukraine is not a member of the forum of leading economies.
But attendees are lining up to take aim at Putin’s long-time foreign minister when they are in the same hotel conference room with him on Friday.
“This G20 meeting is happening at a critical juncture in history and will not be business as usual,” said Melanie Joly, Canada’s minister of foreign affairs, on Wednesday. “With Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, Canada must show up to call out Russia on its lies and with our like-minded partners, provide solutions to Russia’s weaponisation of food and to address other challenges such as climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic.”
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