Doorstop Interview, Hong Kong

Grand Hyatt Hotel Hong Kong

Subjects: Japan, China, Olympics

REPORTER: China’s President Hu Jintao is visiting Japan this week, does that indicate that China and Australia have the same approach to Japan?

STEPHEN SMITH: Well, I don’t know whether you’d categorise our approach as the same. China and Australia are different nations just as Japan is a different nation. But it’s very important that Australia has a good relationship with China, very important that Australia has a good relationship with Japan, but also very important that China has a good relationship with Japan. Which is why I’m very pleased that the visit is occurring. Good relationships between China and Japan are very important for both China and Japan but also very important in our region, so we look forward to a successful visit. I’ll actually be in Japan later in the week so I’ll no doubt get first-hand from the Japanese Government and my counterpart how they saw the visit. We hope it will be successful and productive.

REPORTER: Mr Smith can you talk about what you’ve heard from your people on the ground about the situation in Myanmar and have you made any specific offers of aid to the Myanmar Government?

SMITH: Well firstly can I say that we’re very pleased that all of our officials on the ground are accounted for and safe and well. We haven’t had any reports that any Australians themselves are in difficulty and we’ve be urging any Australians in Burma to make contact with our Mission or with our Department. But to date all of our own officials are safe and accounted for and we haven’t heard of any reports of Australians being in difficulty.

Having said that, of course it's a terrible tragedy and we stand ready, willing and able to render whatever appropriate humanitarian assistance we can. Whilst we have very grave difficulties with the regime in Burma, we have over the period been continuing to render modest humanitarian assistance directly to the people of Burma.

So we stand ready, willing and able to assist in conjunction with the United Nations and the relevant agencies.

My most recent advice was that the sorts of things that will be required immediately will be access to drinkable water, to clean water, to medical supplies, to shelter for displaced people. So we stand ready, willing and able to assist and we’re currently urgently assessing what we might be able to do.

In the first instance we expect that will be a financial contribution but we are, because of the enormity of tragedy, looking at all of the things that we can do in conjunction with other donor nations to render urgent assistance.

REPORTER: Mr Smith, do you think the visa restrictions that China has introduced are going to be damaging for Australian businesses operating in this part of the world?

SMITH: Well, I think in the first instance we need to make sure that there’s clarity and careful understanding. It’s an issue that has been raised with the Australian Government and our officials have raised the issue both in Beijing and here through our Consul-General in Hong Kong.

I understand the general motivation which is to make some changes in the run-up to the Olympics. Australia has had recently an Olympics as well with the Sydney Olympics, so we understand the general public policy motivation. But I think it is important that there is clarity, it is important that the Chinese authorities understand the potential practical on the ground difficulties that it’s causing and we’ll continue to take the issue up both through our Consul-General here in Hong Kong but also through our Mission in Beijing.

REPORTER: Do you think it’s strange there’s been no clarity a month after these measures were announced?

SMITH: Obviously the sooner there’s clarity the better, but it’s just something which we believe can be taken up in the normal course of pursuing issues. As I say, our starting point is that we believe the motivation is driven by a large incoming number of people for the Olympics, that’s understandable, but we do want to make sure that there are no long-term adverse repercussions for trade and business and industry exchange between Hong Kong and China and between other nation states and China.

REPORTER: So as the Olympics are coming, the US State Department is warning Americans to use caution during their time in China, will Australia have such an alert?

SMITH: Well, our travel advisory for China is at the lowest level and we see no reason to change that. We publish our travel advisories on the web for the benefit of Australian visitors and travellers overseas but our travel advice to Australians for China is at the lowest level that we can give, which is effectively to operate with common sense. So we don’t see any reason to change from what’s essentially been a long-standing travel advisory to Australians so far as China is concerned.

REPORTER: Further on Myanmar, have your people on the ground seen any sign that the military rulers didn't warn local Myanmarese about the cyclone?

SMITH: One of the difficulties that we’ve seen both over the weekend and now has been communications difficulties, so I think it will be difficult to make these longer-term assessments about what actually occurred on the ground. I know for example in my own case, over the weekend I endeavoured to speak to our people directly at our Mission in Rangoon and I was just simply not able to get through from a communications failure point of view.

So I think the first priority will be to make sure that the international community, including Australia, renders urgently the very much needed humanitarian assistance. We can do the longer term assessment subsequently.

Australia, of course, has been very, very critical of the regime for all of the obvious reasons and we do hope that the regime will be open so far as on the ground assessments to deliver the humanitarian assistance is concerned.

But I just don’t think we’re in a position to make that sort of judgement now given the difficulties of communication and also frankly, it’s not in mind, to me, the priority. The priority now is rendering assistance to thousands of displaced people who urgently need our assistance.

REPORTER: Mr Smith, will you or the Prime Minister attend the opening of the Olympics?

SMITH: Well, the Prime Minister has been invited, I’ve been invited, whether or not we attend we’ll make a judgement later down the track depending upon our other commitments and requirements. So that’s a decision we’ll make in due course in the run-up to the Olympics.

But can I make this point; whilst Australia made publicly and privately very strong points about Tibet, at all times we also made it clear that we believed that it wasn’t the right thing to do, it wasn’t the right approach to suggest that there somehow be a partial or a complete boycott of the Olympics, including a boycott of the opening ceremony. So we very strongly believe that the Olympics should be supported.

This might be an old fashioned view, but China’s engagement with the international community is very important for China and for the international community and there’s perhaps no better event to do that than the Olympics. So we publicly indicated that we didn't think that a boycott of the opening ceremony or a boycott of the Olympics was a good or a sensible thing to do.

We strongly support the Olympics being conducted in Beijing and I notice you have the equestrian events here in Hong Kong so that’s a good thing too. But whether in the event other commitments enable the Prime Minister or I to go, time will tell.

REPORTER: On Tibet, what further steps would you like to see China or the Tibetan side take in-between now and the Olympics and then going forward?

SMITH: I think both on that timetable and generally, what we need is a continuing dialogue in good faith. China needs to be open and transparent about Tibet, so far as the international community is concerned but it also needs to engage in a positive and constructive good faith dialogue with the Dalai Lama and his representatives. So I think the answer on both timetables is the same which is, in the end the only long-term solution to Tibet is a positive and constructive dialogue between China and Tibet.

Australia of course respects the territorial sovereignty of China over Tibet, that’s never been in question since Australian recognised China with the One China Policy back in the 1970s. But we do believe that human rights in Tibet should be respected. There should be openness and transparency and China’s engagement with the international community is the most effective way of ensuring in the long-term that this occurs. But good faith dialogue between the two parties is essential to making progress.

REPORTER: What sort of milestones would you recommend for measuring whether or not it’s good faith dialogue?

SMITH: Well, let’s just see the outcomes of the conversations. I welcome the conversation in the last couple of days and I welcome the fact that dialogue will continue.

[Ends]

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