Is Beijing Calling the Shots on Australia's Foreign Policy?

Australia's relationship with China is once again under the spotlight after Beijing's newly arrived ambassador declared that Canberra must respect China's "core interests" — language that defence experts say is anything but diplomatic boilerplate.

Michael Shoebridge, founder and director of Strategic Analysis Australia, says the phrase is a thinly veiled instruction for Australia to stay silent on a range of sensitive issues. "It's code for: don't say a word about human rights abuses in Xinjiang, let us take Taiwan when we choose, and don't challenge our claims in the South China Sea — which violate international law and a treaty China itself signed," he told 4BC Brisbane.

Shoebridge argues the ambassador's opening remarks are less a message to Australians than a performance for Beijing — a demonstration that the new envoy has absorbed his talking points. "He talks about mutual respect, but what he means is respect for Chinese priorities, not a two-way street," he said.

The exchange raises a question that has shadowed Australian strategic debate for years: when trade and security pull in opposite directions, which wins? Australia's two-way goods trade with China runs to more than $300 billion annually, a figure that gives Beijing considerable leverage. Shoebridge is blunt about how that leverage has been used. "China uses economic power coercively — it's a deliberate strategy to make other countries more dependent so they have less freedom to act."

Rather than pushing back, Shoebridge expects the federal government to quietly accommodate the ambassador's framing, emphasising cooperation and continuing to welcome Chinese investment and export revenue. The government has described its recent diplomatic reset with Beijing as a significant achievement, a characterisation Shoebridge is sceptical of.

The deeper concern, both men agree, is structural. Australia has spent decades deepening its reliance on Chinese demand for raw materials while simultaneously flooding domestic markets with cheap Chinese manufactured goods — including, most recently, a surge in Chinese vehicle sales. "That is the easy path we've been on, and we're happily doubling down on it," Shoebridge said.

At the same time, Australia's investment in the infrastructure needed for genuine strategic self-reliance has stalled. Standard-gauge rail — the network capable of moving heavy freight — still terminates at Roma Street station in Brisbane, the same endpoint it reached more than a century ago. Projects like the Inland Rail corridor, which could eventually link Melbourne to Townsville and open up northern Australia, remain incomplete or under-scoped.

The United States, by contrast, is accelerating its military footprint in the north. The Marine Rotational Force in Darwin has expanded, and facilities near Tindal and Katherine are being upgraded to support American operations across the Indo-Pacific. Washington clearly views northern Australia as strategically indispensable — a judgement Australian infrastructure spending has not yet matched.

"We are becoming more dependent, not more self-reliant — economically on China and militarily on America," Shoebridge said. "There's no long-term vision. No sense of where we want to be in 25 years."

The call from both commentators is for Australia to develop a coherent national strategy — one that rebuilds domestic industrial capacity, invests in infrastructure with dual economic and strategic value, and engages Beijing on Australia's own terms rather than those delivered with a smile by the latest envoy from Beijing.