In the days before leaving Australia, I twice went to Pearce airbase near Perth to thank the international team that’s been searching almost four weeks for missing Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370.
This is one of the great mysteries of our time.
It is probably the most difficult search in human history.
Amidst tragedy, though, there is hope: the main countries of North Asia – China, Japan and Korea – have joined Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand, the United States and the United Kingdom in scouring the remote ocean looking for the wreckage that could help solve this riddle.
I thank the government and the people of China for the help that they have given to Australia as we lead this search and recovery effort.
China was the first country to despatch vessels once the search moved to the Indian Ocean.
I look forward to providing President Xi with the latest update on the search when I meet him in Beijing this afternoon.
We are confident that we know the position of the black box flight recorder to within some kilometres.
Still, confidence in the approximate position of the black box is not the same as recovering wreckage from almost four and a half kilometres beneath the sea or finally determining all that happened on that flight.
I grieve with all the bereaved, especially the friends and family of the 154 Chinese victims, and offer them the assurance that Australia will not rest until we have done everything we can to provide comfort and closure.
You will be among sorrowing friends should you choose to come to Australia.
Of the six Australian citizens on that flight, two – Naijun Gu and Yuan Li – were residents of Beijing.
Almost a million Australians now have Chinese ancestry and Mandarin is Australia’s biggest minority language.
Australia’s relationship with China is different from that with the United States, the United Kingdom or even Japan – yet it is of incalculable importance.
It has deeper roots than most people think.
There were thousands of Chinese gold diggers who never went back. Trooper Yin Gan was one of the first Australians to land at Gallipoli.
Senator Thomas Backhap served in the Federation parliaments.
I’m proud that the first Chinese-born member of an Australian parliament and the first Chinese-born member of the Commonwealth parliament happened to be members of my own political party.
Everyone knows that China is by far Australia’s largest trading partner.
Not everyone realises that China is also our largest source of immigrants in most years, our largest source of overseas students and our largest source of international tourists.
Few are aware that total Chinese investment in Australia, at about $60 billion, is only a little less than total Chinese investment in the United States.
Far more than trade, investment in another country is a sign of trust.
You don’t put your hard-earned cash into another country unless you are absolutely certain that your investment will be respected, that you are likely to make a reliable profit and that you will be able to repatriate the money.
The fact that China has invested almost as much in our economy, as it has in an economy ten times our size, is a sign of trust in Australia.
Australia’s investment of about $40 billion in China, with a very different legal and political system, is much more than just a bet on the world’s coming economic superpower.
It’s proof of our trust in China.
The purpose of this trip is to seal that mutual trust and to establish further mechanisms that will deepen our strong strategic partnership.
That’s why Team Australia is here, for the inaugural Australia Week in China.
I am accompanied today by no fewer than two ministers, five state premiers and a chief minister – as well as Chairmen and CEOs representing over half the value of our stock exchange.
It’s the most high-powered delegation ever to leave Australia.
It’s more than we have ever done with any other country.
When I say that Australia is “Open for Business”, I meant it.
Finalising, on this trip, free trade negotiations with Japan and signing an agreement with Korea, makes concluding the China-Australia FTA more imperative than ever – for both sides.
Soon, officials will begin the 20th – yes 20th – round of negotiations since Prime Minister Howard proposed an FTA way back in 2005.
I welcome Premier Li’s commitment to accelerate these talks and hope that they might be concluded by the time President Xi visits Australia in November.
Australia hopes for much more Chinese investment – on the same basis that we welcome investment from our other FTA partners such as the United States.
We now appreciate that most Chinese state-owned enterprises have a highly commercial culture.
They’re not the nationalised industries that we used to have in Australia.
That’s why Australia has never rejected any investment application from a Chinese SOE and recently approved a large SOE investment in critical infrastructure.
Australia and China have complementary strengths.
Australia is already the world’s number one exporter of coal, iron ore and beef.
We will soon be the world’s number one exporter of natural gas.
This means that Australia can offer China (and the other big economies of North Asia) the resource security, the energy security and the food security that all seek.
It’s hardly surprising that Australia’s friendship with China has grown as our trade has increased; and that this friendship has broadened from trade, into more extensive ties in a whole range of areas from education to science to defence.
Even in the short term, more trade means more jobs.
In the long term, more trade means better jobs for everyone because more people work in world-class industries.
But it doesn’t stop there. More trade means better friendships.
From next year, China has agreed to take hundreds of Australian government-funded students under the New Colombo Plan.
For decades, some of the best and brightest students of our region have come to Australia to study – but there was very little return traffic.
We do have much to offer; but we have much to learn as well.
The New Colombo Plan is our way to honour the cultures of Asia.
As well, Australia has agreed to renew funding for the Australia-China Science and Research Fund.
We’re expanding the approved destination status scheme to help more Chinese tourists come to Australia.
And we’re working towards making Sydney an offshore R.M.B. centre.
Along with the Senior Business Leaders’ Forum, there’s now a new High-Level Dialogue, which former Treasurer Peter Costello chairs for Australia.
This aims to do for us and for China what the long-established Leadership Dialogue has done for us and the United States.
It’s my hope, following Military Commission Vice-Chairman, General Fan’s visit this year, that Australia and China might expand our defence contacts to officer exchanges and more participation in exercises, including trilateral ones.
The co-operation, right now, of pilots from China, Japan and Korea – alongside those of Australia and the United States – shows that we can achieve far more together than apart.
It’s a good antidote to the strategic pessimism that sometimes clouds consideration of our region’s future.
This region, after all, has been a marvel to the whole world.
Over the past few decades, the countries of North Asia have achieved an economic transformation unparalleled in human history.
Japan has arisen from the ashes of defeat to become one of the world’s most prosperous democracies.
Korea has moved from the third world to the first in less than half a century.
Most extraordinarily of all, China has emerged from war and internal turmoil to shift hundreds of millions of people into the middle class.
This is the greatest advance in human welfare of all time.
Putting all this at risk should be unthinkable.
That’s why it’s more important than ever that disputes in our region be resolved peacefully and in accordance with international law.
We will all advance together – or we won’t advance at all.
Luckily for the world, all the countries of North Asia have grown accustomed to choose cooperation over confrontation.
My predecessor John Howard once said of an Australia supposedly torn between Europe and Asia that “we do not need to choose between our history and our geography”.
My own response to those urging Australia to choose between our economic and our security interests, is that you don’t make new friends by losing old ones; and you don’t make some friendships stronger by weakening others.
My presence here, so early in my prime ministership and prior to any travel beyond our region, is a deliberate statement of my government’s priorities.
I am determined that the Asian Century will be Australia’s moment too.
We are in the right place, at the right time, with the right spirit and will strive to make the most of all the advantages we have.
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