Fawning over China has fast become a staple of political discourse during the 21st century, in Australia and elsewhere in the world. In large part it is understandable, given the extraordinary transformation the Chinese economy is going through. The opportunities such development creates occur domestically in China and internationally.
Among the international community few benefit from China's rise as much as we do, in terms of our raw material exports and via regional tourism by China's burgeoning middle class. But China is no democracy. It is an authoritarian state.
Julia Gillard has spent the past week in China, achieving diplomatic and economic outcomes not to be sniffed at - further steps towards a free trade agreement
Yearly meetings between Australian prime ministers and China's president. (I'm sure Tony Abbott will appreciate the forward planning for his diary for next year.) Only Britain, Germany and Russia have enjoyed such access, until now. A currency deal that will save Australian businesses millions of dollars in transaction costs. We will even hold joint military training operations thanks to the Prime Minister's trip.
There is no denying the importance of the growing ties between Australia and China in the context of a global rush to engage with the Middle Kingdom. The Asian Century white paper clearly spells out the opportunities a growing China presents, and no one nation (especially not a middle power like us) can unilaterally stand up to China. I just wonder if democratically elected leaders the world over worry enough about the risks attached to the untamed, uncaged beast an undemocratic China may become.
It is perhaps too late to lament the terms of engagement with China as I do now. The time for conditioning its rise within the international community probably came and went when it was admitted into the World Trade Organisation, without conditions.
But the rush to engage should at least be tempered by the reality that China is not a democracy and shows few, if any, signs of making the transition. We shouldn't praise the fact the Prime Minister on her visit raised concerns over Tibet and the jailing of Australian businessmen without fair trials. These are tokenistic in the extreme, especially given that Gillard refused to elaborate on what she said when asked by journalists.
Fawning over China forgets the disgraceful political culture of censorship, a shaky rule of law and disregard for democratic principles and political rights. These important cornerstones of Western (democratic) capitalism should not be cast aside in a mad scramble to embrace a newly capitalist China. One can't even visit a burgeoning metropolis such as Shanghai and Google the name of the city and a particular landmark without having your search blocked, such is the extent of internet censorship. The difficulty with China being so central to global growth is to know what to do about its lack of democratisation.
I suspect the best we can hope for is that in time the growing middle class will demand political rights as a follow-up to economic opportunities. Promoting democracy in China may now be a wholly domestic consideration (despite the risks citizens face when doing so), especially given the international fawning for economic agreements with China we see from governments.
But democratisation didn't happen in Singapore. A small Asian economic miracle such as Singapore (despite remaining authoritarian) is one thing. A nation with China's military, population and growing international clout is quite another.
