When the Chinese government said that the relationship with Australia should be “cherished” I immediately thought about Gough Whitlam’s visit to Beijing in the 70s.
No media have pointed out the connection but this is not surprising as I’m quite old, older than most practicing mainstream journalists, and my referents are naturally different. I belong to a generation that is fast fading into obscurity, a kind of elder. But as the traditional welcome to country that presages most public gatherings tells us we should at least pay our respects to elders even if we don’t do what they say.
China doesn’t have a functioning public sphere, although WeChat does some work in this respect, and so it needs countries like Australia to fill the gap where corruption and unhappiness reside in its extensive population. We need to remember what our predecessors have done as their example can help us to navigate the rocky passes of the present. Gough Whitlam’s momentous visit is significant because it came before the one made by US President Richard Nixon, and so Whitlam was the first senior political representative to make his way to the Middle Kingdom in the post-1949 era.
It's not that long ago. We remember musicians, painters, and writers who were active in the immediate post-war era but we forget that China has a different timeline to work with as it didn’t exist in its current form until very recently. For a Chinese things really started to change in the 90s when the country opened up economically but of course the roots of change came earlier if you care to examine the history.
Whitlam’s journey north happened at a time when China was still coming to terms with Modernity in a way that, say, Japan worked through in the final decades of the 19th century, it was a time of becoming so for the Labor Party leader to make the trip to Beijing was significant for the Chinese in a way that we might find difficult to imagine.
I think there’s no doubt that Australia has won this contest of wills, though it will be hesitant to declaim the victory in public. China for its part will take its time to lift economic sanctions lest people make it lose face, but I think that our allies, not least the US, will be watching carefully for indications about their own future conduct.
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