Albanese’s Beijing visit sends mixed signals across Southeast Asia

The region sees independence where Australia sees relationship management.

Susannah Patton

11 August 20253 min read

In the last couple of weeks, my colleagues and I have hosted a flurry of delegations from officials and experts from Southeast Asia. Since Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s July visit to China, Australia’s relationship with China has been a topic of high interest.

When Australia’s relations with China were at a low ebb, many in the region saw this as contributing unhelpfully to tension, mistrust and polarisation. They were relieved when the Albanese government restored political dialogue with China after its election in 2022.

But how do they see Australia’s China policy now, after Albanese’s recent visit, which saw Australia’s leader feted over six days?

All were favourable. All interpreted it as a deliberate statement of policy. One commented that it was “smart strategy” to go to China at a time when relations with the United States were under strain, potentially strengthening Australia’s position with both partners. Another interpreted Albanese’s visit as demonstrating that Australia was developing a “more independent foreign policy”.

To me, this reaction raises two possibilities.

Winning praise for Australian policies in Southeast Asia is good, but the warm and positive messages of Albanese’s visit are out of step with the broader tenor of Australian official messaging on China.

The first is that if Australian policy is winning such plaudits in Southeast Asia, we’re getting it badly wrong. Australia is not a non-aligned country in Southeast Asia, but an ally of the United States. Far from adopting the Southeast Asian position of avoiding choice, Australia made its choice long ago. The Australian national security establishment remains deeply concerned about China. In fact, one independent expert from the region complained with exasperation that Australian officials he had met “only wanted to talk about the problems posed by China”, even though most Southeast Asian leaders were far more worried by the challenge of dealing with the Trump administration. Winning praise for Australian policies in Southeast Asia is good, but the warm and positive messages of Albanese’s visit are out of step with the broader tenor of Australian official messaging on China.

The second possibility is that Australian policy has not fundamentally shifted but is misinterpreted in Southeast Asia. Just as Australian officials are often too ready to see Southeast Asian foreign policy choices as aligning with their own, the reverse may be true: Southeast Asian officials will see Australia’s China policy as affirming their own choices. This is noteworthy, given that communication from Canberra has not been lacking. Foreign Minister Penny Wong gave a clarifying speech ahead of Albanese’s travel, and Albanese himself held regular press conferences during his travel to China. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has dedicated resources to the task of outreach on China engagement policies. But despite these efforts at transparency there is still genuine curiosity about the goals of the visit and the future direction of Australia-China relations. One senior official asked us, what were the real outcomes of the visit?

These possibilities are, of course, not mutually exclusive. Perhaps the simplest explanation is that so lengthy a visit to China was ill-conceived, and as a result is being misinterpreted by Australia’s neighbours in Southeast Asia.

About the author

Susannah Patton

Susannah Patton is Director, Asia Engagement at RMIT and a Nonresident fellow at the Lowy Institute.

Topics

ASEAN China Australia