Thank you very much Mr Dixon, Minister of Commerce Bo, Vice Foreign Minister Yang, Vice Chairman Zhang, Vice Minister Yang, and Ambassador Fu Ying. Dr Alan Thomas, the Australian Ambassador to China, other distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen.
This is the fifth visit that I have paid to China since I became Prime Minister in March of 1996. It is the case that this has, in the context of relations between Australia and China, this visit has special historic resonance because last night a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between Australia and China which was the commencement process in negotiations between our two countries to see if we can conclude a Free Trade Agreement. Australia enters those negotiations with great commitment and great enthusiasm. We enter the negotiations seeing in China a nation which is very important, not only to Australia's future but also very important to the future of our region and indeed the future of the world. China's rapid economic growth over the past 10 years is increasingly written about and remarked upon because it is a reality which has implications, I believe of a beneficial kind, not only for China herself but for the rest of the world.
I don't intent to bore you with statistics about what has happened to the relationship between Australia and China economically over the past few years, except to remark in that in the past decade our exports to China have quadrupled. And we all can recall different contributions that have been made to that remarkable economic growth. At a political level in my experience as Prime Minister the foundation for the current very strong and positive nature of the relationship was in fact laid in a meeting that I had with the former President Jiang Zemin in the margins of the APEC meeting in Manila in 1996. In fact when I first became Prime Minister our relationship went through some difficult times. I don't of course accept any responsibility for that, I am simply locating it in the context of relations between our two nations. But I set about and my Government and particularly my Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, set about building the relationship. And that meeting I had with the former President proceeded upon a very realistic basis and that was that our two nations were very different - we were different in population, we were difficult in culture, we were different in political structure and we looked at the world from different perspectives. But we shared a number of things that we believe if properly addressed could build a very positive and strong relationship. And in our discussions in Manila in 1996 we laid that groundwork and the groundwork simply meant that we would focus on those things that we could build together for the future, we would understand our differences, we would respect them, we would recognise that we would disagree on a number of strategic political issues and always would, but we would not allow those disagreements to contaminate the relationship, not only of the economic character but also the growing people to people links that exist between our two countries.
Whenever I address a gathering of people concerned about the relationship between Australia and China, I point out that in Australia after English the most widely spoken languages are of course the two Chinese dialects of Mandarin and Cantonese. It is a measure of the investment that Australia now has in Australians of ethnic Chinese background. I can also say on a personal note that my own electorate of Bennelong has something like 13 to 15 per cent of its current enrolment of constituents who are of ethnic Chinese background and I can report favourably on those habits of theirs that I'm most interested in because I am still the Member for Bennelong.
But ladies and gentlemen, the point I make about the history of the contemporary relationship between Australia and China is that it is built upon a sensible foundation. It is built upon a recognition that if you want to build an enduring association with a nation you should do it within a realistic framework. You should not pretend that it has a character that it doesn't have. You should not allow it to be dominated by differences and dominated by history, although it should be informed and instructed by history. Rather it should be dominated by those areas of agreement and positive endeavour together that can take to the two countries forward. And that's been the reason why at a political level our relationship has been productive. It's why with the cooperation of men and women of business from both countries our economic relationship has grown so remarkably. And it's why we have now come to the point where Australia and China can try and achieve an even greater level of economic and commercial involvement and commitment to each other. I have frequently said over the past few weeks that whether or not Australia and China can achieve a Free Trade Agreement will not alter the central reality that our relationship is already strong and that China is a remarkable export destination and has grown to the extent that I have described, nothing can alter that, the worst that could happen is that we will still be in the marvellous position we are at the present time. But we from the Australian side are inherently optimistic. We believe that there is a lot more that we have to offer each other and we believe that the negotiations that we are about to embark on, and I want to record my immense gratitude to Mark Vaile, the Australian Trade Minister, and to his Chinese counterpart, for the contribution that both of them have made to the point that we have now reached.
So we are close, we are great trading partners and we will be even greater trading partners even without the Free Trade Agreement. But if we can achieve it, it will be a model to the rest of the world of the capacity of two countries, so different in many respects, yet sharing not only in the region and particularly given the complementarity of our economies an economic future, it will be a wonderful example to others around the world.
My discussions of course have not only centred on commercial and economic issues - they have also centred on strategic and political issues which are of immense importance to Australia and immense importance to China. Both countries share a commitment to a peaceful resolution of outstanding issues across the Taiwan Straits. Australia has for many years supported a One China policy and I have reaffirmed my Government's commitment to that policy during my discussions with the President and the Premier. We have also communicated our view, a very strong view, that differences should be resolved in a peaceful manner and I am reassured by the statements that have been made to me that that is the overwhelming desire of the Chinese leadership. We appreciate very much indeed the role that China has played in bringing North Korea to the negotiating table. There is no country in the world that has a greater influence on North Korea than China. There is no issue in our region which if mishandled by any of the participants has a greater potential to damage us all than the North Korean issue. And we all share a responsibility to make a contribution towards a proper resolution of that, not least of course North Korea herself, and the more outlandish pretensions of North Korea in relation to nuclear capacity are of concern to all of the countries in the region and I am again immensely reassured by the commitment of China to a proper resolution of that issue.
In recent months of course Australia has demonstrated in different ways her very deep commitment to the affairs of the region. The overwhelming and spontaneous response of the Australian public, as well as the Government's response, to the devastation of the Indian Ocean tsunami, particularly as it was visited upon the people of Indonesia, was a reminder of how we saw ourselves helping our neighbours, helping at home so to speak because we see the region as our home in a very practical fashion. It follows from that of course that Australia sees herself naturally and properly being part of evolving regional political arrangements and political structures. Not as a supplicant but as a contributing player to the evolvement and the development of the region.
Ladies and gentlemen, China has changed enormously over the past 10 years. It has changed dramatically, even more dramatically over a longer period. And let me here, as the current Prime Minister of Australia, having held that position now for more than nine years, acknowledge the contribution that my predecessors on both sides of Australian politics have made to the development of the relationship. And I mention that very deliberately because it is a given of Australian politics, we will argue about the detail, we will argue about who is entitled to claim the bulk of the credit, but we won't do it today, we'll do all of that, but we will not argue about the reality that Australia and China have much to offer each other. China's greatest contribution to Australia is of course the some 500,000 now almost Australians of ethnic Chinese descent, not all of them have come directly from mainland China, indeed many have come from other parts of the Chinese diaspora in our region, but they have all made a wonderful contribution to our country and one of the enduring strengths of the modern relationship is the ability of so many Australians of Chinese descent to relate to the bilateral contact between our two nations, it is a constant source of nourishment and renewal to all of us.
And very finally Mr Chairman can I pay a tribute to the two chambers, the two bodies that have brought this luncheon together. The dynamism and the commitment of businessmen and women from both countries is so important to the development of the relationship. I have forgotten, and I never will, it will be one of the more enduring recollections in the time that I've been Prime Minister, my association with the consortium and with (inaudible) and the Guangdong province and the Chinese Government in the negotiation of the LNG contract back in 2002. It was a wonderful coming together of the commercial commitment of two countries and also the political leadership which made together as a group that contract a possibility and made through it an enormous contribution to the future development of the economies of the two countries and I'm cheered by the news that it is ahead of schedule and the deliveries, the first deliveries are likely to occur next year. That is a reminder to my Chinese audience that we Australians are dependable, reliable, we do what we say we're going to do, we do it with a minimum of fuss, we do it with no interruption, we do it not only on time but occasionally ahead of time and I know that is a message that my fellow Australians would very much like me to convey to all of you very strongly.
So can I say our Chinese guests, to the Minister and to the Ambassador, to convey again to your colleagues in the government how much Janette and I have appreciated the hospitality that you have extended to us, it has been a short trip, I will be returning to China in a few days to take part in the Boao Forum and I will have something more detailed to say about the relationship between Australia and our involvement in the region. But this last 24 hours in Beijing has achieved a lot, I hope that the negotiations will, when they're completed and they will be difficult, that will achieve even more. I thank you very warmly, I am sure that the relationship between our two countries will go from strength to strength.
Thank you.