Museografía Accesible: una oportunidad para el discapacitado y el

Ever since the development of iron ore and coal exports to Japan in the 1960s, followed by the development of similar relationships with South Korea and Taiwan, trade and investment in resources have played a crucial role in Australia’s security in the broadest sense, including economically and socially. Through growing levels of prosperity, it has also strengthened the country’s abilities and credentials as a security partner in a narrower, strategic sense. However, its increasing trade and investment links with China have far outstripped any of these earlier relationships in both speed and scale, and Canberra is still feeling its way as to the longer-term impact of this.

China is now Australia’s top trading partner, accounting for over 22% of total trade. Two-way trade today stands at around A$100 billion while it broke the A$10-billion mark in 2002. The current figure is over 80 times that of 1982. Further, since 2001 the balance has been clearly in Australia’s favour. In 2010 resource exports made up 57% of Australia’s total export receipts. Almost 70% of iron ore and 18% of coal exports went to China. In the same year, 37% of Australia’s total resource exports went to China.

Looking at the terms of trade, they are currently 65% higher than the average for the 20th _{century, and 90% higher than the average for the}

1990s. China is in large part responsible for this—as it is for the fact that of all OECD countries, Australia was one of the few that did not go into

recession during the global financial crisis of 2007-09.

In 2008-2009, China was the second largest investor, with investments totalling A$26.6 billion. In 2009-2010, it ranked third largest with A$16.3 billion. Around 80% of this investment is in mineral exploration and resources processing. It should be pointed out, however, that despite the dramatic growth of Chinese investment in Australia, in terms of total foreign direct investment (FDI) into Australia Beijing lags far behind the UK, the US and Japan, for many years the largest overseas investors down under. Precisely because of the speed and scale of these unprecedented developments, Australia is now on a very sharp learning curve, and this applies equally to popular opinion, media, business, academia and a range of government processes, analysts and decision-makers.

This was highlighted dramatically by the almost perfect storm in Australia- China relations between 2008 and 2009. It began with the events in Lhasa in 2008 and the way this played into the progression of the Olympic Torch around the world. In Australia, there were no seriously untoward incidents, but on the day of the torch’s run through Canberra we saw the nation’s capital turned into a sea of red flags waved by patriotic Chinese students from across the country, assisted by the Chinese embassy and consulates. The impact on the citizens of Canberra, and across the country, was significant. Then came a series of controversies: the mining company Chinalco’s attempted bid for a larger stake in an Australian competitor, Rio Tinto; the crude and badly handled Chinese interference in the 2009 Melbourne Film Festival over a film about Uyghur exile leader Rebiya Kadeer, and her subsequent visit to Australia; the arrest of Rio Tinto’s representative in Shanghai, Stern Hu, seen by some as retaliation for the rejection of Chinalco’s bid (by British shareholders, not the Australian government, as some in China believed to be the case); and the ambiguous messages regarding China in Australia’s 2009 Defence White Paper, which went down badly in Beijing, prompting defensive responses in Australia. The Chinese were also disappointed in Kevin Rudd’s failure to be a “friend of China”, as they would have preferred it, rather than in his chosen capacity as a “zhengyou” (one who demonstrates his friendship through frank criticism when it is called for).

This was the strained bilateral environment in which vigorous if not always well-informed debate about Chinese investment, most particularly

investment in natural resources (later expanded to include the equally if not even more visceral issue of agricultural land) unfolded. To the typical concerns about foreigners investing in these areas was added the fact that, in China’s case, many of the real or potential investors were from state- owned enterprises (SOEs). Through this period the image of China, which had been generally quite positive in Australia, was also beginning to change for the worse. It was not only SOEs per se that presented a problem, but also the nature of the state that owned them. More generalised concerns about a rising China as a Party-state beginning to challenge the

US-dominated Asian-Pacific order also influenced reactions to Chinese investment and the question of the longer-term implications of Australian dependence on the resource trade with China.

In a 2011 poll conducted by the Lowy Institute for International Policy, some 75% of Australians agreed that China’s growth had been good for Australia, up 8 percentage points since the question was first asked in 2008. However, the Lowy also runs a chart tracking the feelings Australians have towards a number of major countries which trend negatively for China. In 2006, China

and the United States were on the same level. Six years later, a gap of 19 percentage points had developed, with a simultaneous rise in US popularity and fall in that of China—to the same level as Indonesia, traditionally

regarded with suspicion, at least at the popular level. According to the Lowy, in 2011 57% of Australians polled said the Australian government was allowing too much investment from China, the same figure as for 2010, up 7% from 2009. Also, 35% said the amount was right, and only 3% said more was needed.

Most significantly, despite the extraordinary rise of China’s economic

importance to Australia, fully acknowledged by those polled, around 44% felt that China would become a military threat to Australia in the next twenty years.

For the Australian government, in terms of managing investments, as well as handling public perceptions and domestic politics, a crucial element concerned the operation of the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB). The FIRB was originally established in 1976 in response to public concerns over growing investment from Japan (and from the United States). It was tasked with reviewing larger foreign investment proposals using the test of “national interest” in order to maintain community confidence and

de-politicise the approvals process. Since its establishment, the government has officially rejected only two proposals, although several have been withdrawn as a result of what the initiators considered unacceptable amendments being required prior to approval.

The application of the national-interest test, however, has not been without its critics, not least for its opacity. While the original intention in creating the FIRB was to reduce the political pressure on decision-making regarding FDI proposals, heightened levels of concern over Chinese investment in the context of the bilateral troubles of 2008-2009 were directly reflected in additional, and arguably unnecessary, considerations and amendments being included in the review process following FIRB reviews in 2008. Significantly, this period also saw a breakdown in the bi-partisan approach to foreign investment issues, with the opposition taking a more populist stance. This stood in contrast to that enunciated by former coalition Prime Minister John Howard, who said: “You’ve got to remember that when a company invests, whether it’s state-owned, partly state-controlled or not, it still has to comply with the laws of Australia and it’s quite possible for the treasurer of the day to impose conditions on investment”. This statement touches on two crucial issues: the question of state ownership, and the overall regulatory framework and the ability of the government to ensure its proper functioning.

The prevalence of SOEs in Chinese investments in Australia has raised concerns that the Chinese authorities may use these investments as a vehicle for pursuing geopolitical strategies. It is feared that, because every SOE includes a Party committee in its midst which is ultimately responsible to the Party centre, Beijing could exert pressure if it decided to punish Australia or use its economic clout to pursue its goals. It is not unreasonable

to make this assumption in considering the security implications of Chinese SOE investments and a good deal of work has been done to test this assumption. However, most scholars and officials who have worked in this area are struck by the degree to which SOEs abroad tend to behave more like commercial entities, including in quite competitive fashion, than as obedient followers of Chinese government strategies. Domestically, too, corporate governance of Chinese SOEs is evolving towards a system increasingly driven by market disciplines, and reform is likely to intensify as their international interests are subjected to more scrutiny by Chinese authorities as well as host-country regulatory processes. It seems the most we can say about the worst-case scenario is that, while it is theoretically possible, the evidence is not yet available. This does not mean we should not be continually alert to any signs of such behaviour, but neither should we allow such concerns to lead us to act in ways which damage our own economic security interests.

There is a separate issue concerning the quality of SOE businesses. Many have been characterised by less than optimal efficiency, with “fat and lazy” managerial and work practises encouraged by their links to government, subsidies, etc. Over time, too great a presence could lead to an overall pollution of the business environment in the host country. Some are simply inexperienced and do not understand the local business environment. However, here too, as with the previous consideration, local regulation and oversight form the first line of defence.

An additional consideration is the danger of China using its SOEs to behave in a mercantilist fashion for strictly political purposes, as we saw in the case of rare earths and Japan. That is for two reasons. First, China’s action was extremely short-sighted and in the longer term more damaging for China’s

It is feared that, because every SOE includes a