Speaker 1: I'm Daniel James and you're listening to seven am. Donald
Speaker 1: Trump and Ggping have met face to face for the
Speaker 1: first time in six years. The meeting on the sidelines
Speaker 1: of the Apex Summit comes at a time of deep
Speaker 1: tensions between the world's two largest economies. Tariffs are souring,
Speaker 1: critical minerals are being weaponized, and the battleover tech dominance
Speaker 1: is reshaping global supply chains. Trump likes quick wins while
Speaker 1: g plays the long game. And for Australia, the stakes
Speaker 1: couldn't be higher as we rely on China for our
Speaker 1: prosperity and the US for our security. Today, host of
Speaker 1: the ABC podcast Global Roaming Hamus McDonald and what happened
Speaker 1: at the meeting between the world's two superpowers are what
Speaker 1: it means for Australia. It's Friday, October thirty one, Hamish,
Speaker 1: thanks for speaking with me again. The two men most
Speaker 1: responsible for Australia's prosperity and security, Jijingping and Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: have just met.
Speaker 2: A great honor to be with a friend of mine
Speaker 2: really for a long time now, if you think about it,
Speaker 2: the very very distinguished and respected president of China.
Speaker 1: So just how significant was this meeting?
Speaker 3: Well, you might say it really mattered for us, wouldn't
Speaker 3: you when you think about the influence they have both
Speaker 3: on as you say, in our security arrangements, but also
Speaker 3: our economic livelihood here in Australia, not to mention the
Speaker 3: fact that if they're not getting along jointly, that poses
Speaker 3: an even greater set of risks and even threats to
Speaker 3: US as a nation. So yeah, we as a country
Speaker 3: had a lot riding on this. It went for an
Speaker 3: hour and forty minutes, and at least on the face
Speaker 3: of it, coming out this side of the meeting, it
Speaker 3: seems to have gone about as well as anyone might
Speaker 3: have hoped estions.
Speaker 2: I think we've already agreed to a lot of things,
Speaker 2: and we'll agree to some more right now. But President
Speaker 2: she is a great leader of a great country, and
Speaker 2: I think we're going to have a fantastic relationship for
Speaker 2: a long period of time. And it's an honor to
Speaker 2: have you with us. Sake you very much.
Speaker 3: In terms of Trump's visits to different parts of the world,
Speaker 3: his interactions with other world leaders, it kind of went
Speaker 3: without too many speed bumps even along the way during
Speaker 3: this kind of swing through Southeast Asia up into South
Speaker 3: Korea and then off onto Air Force one and home
Speaker 3: twelve and ten. According to President Trump, he would say that,
Speaker 3: wouldn't he But I don't know if I'd go quite
Speaker 3: that far. But I think you can't ignore the fact
Speaker 3: that Trump came to the AZION summit. That's a big deal.
Speaker 3: That's a kind of a kup for a my Ibrahim,
Speaker 3: the Malaysian Prime minister who's got the current chair of AZION.
Speaker 3: You can't ignore the fact that Trump had very kind
Speaker 3: words to say about Southeast Asia, spoke admiringly of its growth.
Speaker 3: You know, the fastest growing region economically in the world.
Speaker 3: But if you look at I guess from our perspective, Australia.
Speaker 3: Albanesi sat next to him at that dinner in South Korea.
Speaker 3: Trump effusive in his praise for Albanesi, pointing both to
Speaker 3: what they've agreed on so far but the possibility of
Speaker 3: further agreements. Then meeting Sanai Takeichi, the Japanese Prime minister,
Speaker 3: you know, a week and a half into the job,
Speaker 3: she gets this kind of rapturous welcome on board a
Speaker 3: US naval ship. Applause. She's jumping around on the stage waving.
Speaker 3: He says, you know, Japan. You can have anything you want.
Speaker 3: Think about that in the context of some of his
Speaker 3: meetings with European leaders, with Zelenski, even with leaders from
Speaker 3: the Middle East. This is a really very different version
Speaker 3: of Trump, and even the tone and the manner of
Speaker 3: the meeting with Shi Jimpin going in with some pretty
Speaker 3: kind words not although I should point out he did
Speaker 3: say we're going to resume nuclear testing just before going
Speaker 3: into the meeting, so as always playing a couple of
Speaker 3: cards at once.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the meaning comes at a time where the China
Speaker 1: and US relationship has been dodgy. It best in the
Speaker 1: middle of a trade war. So how has the US
Speaker 1: China relationship unfolded under the Trump.
Speaker 3: We've been in a period of what appeared to be
Speaker 3: deliberate antagonism, at least from the US point of view.
Speaker 3: You know, the Liberation Day taris, I think were viewed
Speaker 3: by most of the rest of the world as a
Speaker 3: pretty antagonistic move.
Speaker 2: April second, twenty twenty five will forever be remembered as
Speaker 2: the day American industry was reborn, the day America's destiny
Speaker 2: was reclaimed, and the day that we began to make
Speaker 2: America wealthy again. Going to make it wealthy good.
Speaker 3: So I've seen this description used a lot in terms
Speaker 3: of the Chinese approach in recent months, which is escalat
Speaker 3: to de escalate, And I think to understand that, it's
Speaker 3: worth going back six months in time to when the
Speaker 3: US introduced those tariffs on Chinese goods one hundred and
Speaker 3: forty five percent. The Chinese then responded with one hundred
Speaker 3: and twenty five percent tariffs, So that's kind of escalation one.
Speaker 3: But then there's the whole question of chips and then
Speaker 3: rare earth minerals. So the thing that's really upset the
Speaker 3: Chinese is that the Trump administration suddenly clamped down on
Speaker 3: how much the US and Nvidia, being the big player here,
Speaker 3: could export these much needed chips, advanced chips to China
Speaker 3: used for advanced computing, but weaponry, A lot of the
Speaker 3: things that China is so madly trying to develop they
Speaker 3: relied on that. Suddenly the supply of that was radically reduced.
Speaker 3: In recent weeks, China escalated and decided to put export
Speaker 3: controls on process rare earth minerals.
Speaker 2: Fury Secretary Scott Besson says China is trying to hurt
Speaker 2: the world's economy.
Speaker 1: Whether it's sweeping where Earth controls because of a sign
Speaker 1: of how weak the country's economy is.
Speaker 3: The Financial Times published this is where Australia was dealt
Speaker 3: into the picture. Kind of luckily for Anthony Alberizi because
Speaker 3: it happened just before he went to Washington for that
Speaker 3: long awaited meeting, and an issue that Australia had wanted
Speaker 3: to deal with in America for a long time was
Speaker 3: the processing an extraction of rare earth minerals from here,
Speaker 3: and Beijing kind of offered this kind of golden opportunity
Speaker 3: for Albanesi to offer something to Trump that he really wanted.
Speaker 3: But that kind of escalate to de escalate seems to
Speaker 3: have worked. I've already seen lots of people saying who
Speaker 3: blinked first, but I think clearly to some degree Trump
Speaker 3: blinked because it did go to this willing to ratchet
Speaker 3: things down, and coming out of the meeting, we're told
Speaker 3: that the hurdles on rare earths have been removed, that
Speaker 3: the Chinese are going to get a meeting with the
Speaker 3: Nvidia CEO. There's an indication that the soybean purchased from
Speaker 3: China from America was going to begin again. So certainly
Speaker 3: positive sounds.
Speaker 1: So he's saying they've escalated in the lead up, and
Speaker 1: they've both now de escalated as they've gone into this meeting.
Speaker 3: I saw someone describe this as like two people that
Speaker 3: started a fire coming together to try and put it out.
Speaker 3: Maybe that's a helpful way of thinking about it. And
Speaker 3: you know, she, in many ways, he's like the complete
Speaker 3: polar opposite of Trump. Trump goes in swaggering, saying things
Speaker 3: off the calf, nothing is on script. She is totally
Speaker 3: on script. And he's talking about these two men that
Speaker 3: can sail ships together through choppy waters and that the
Speaker 3: world can find sort of smooth sailing ahead if they're
Speaker 3: able to work together. You know, it's not like this
Speaker 3: meeting could ever resolve everything. There are key geostrategic issues
Speaker 3: which haven't been resolved. I don't think we know yet
Speaker 3: what's going to happen with TikTok. That was one of
Speaker 3: the other things that Trump wanted to deal with in
Speaker 3: this meeting. But that said, and to their credit, they've
Speaker 3: emerged from this with Trump saying that she is going
Speaker 3: to visit him in America, that Trump is going to
Speaker 3: before that visit China. So at least, and this is
Speaker 3: maybe the thing that we can take away from this
Speaker 3: is that the stuff that remains unresolved at least has
Speaker 3: a context to be resolved. You know, that framework that
Speaker 3: underpinning is there because the leaders are due to have
Speaker 3: meetings and that need to cancel them. They need to
Speaker 3: pull out of them, and that would in itself be
Speaker 3: a big thing to do. So I think we can,
Speaker 3: you know, with all the usual caveats around everything to
Speaker 3: do with Donald Trump, we can have a bit of
Speaker 3: cautious hope that the trade war is not going to
Speaker 3: at least escalate at this point. They're still going to
Speaker 3: be trade barriers there by the way, you know, don't forget.
Speaker 1: That coming up. Jijiping says tensions between the two countries
Speaker 1: is normal. So where does this leave Australia. Can you
Speaker 1: tell me a little bit more about Jijiping's vision for
Speaker 1: China's future and how America plays into that or has
Speaker 1: the potential to thwart it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So we actually we did an episode on this just
Speaker 3: last week on Global rhyming about the picture domestically in China,
Speaker 3: because you know, the reality is, Trump sucks up so
Speaker 3: much of the global news oxygen that in a way,
Speaker 3: even though we talk about this great power rivalry, we
Speaker 3: don't often look that closely at what exactly is going
Speaker 3: on inside China. And they've just held the Fourth Plenum,
Speaker 3: which is this kind of meeting where not actually a
Speaker 3: lot happens at the meeting. It's pretty boring itself, but
Speaker 3: it's all of the planning and the decisions that go
Speaker 3: into that that then get delivered at the meeting that
Speaker 3: give us some insight into what China is trying to do.
Speaker 3: And there's enormous challenges domestically in terms of the economy.
Speaker 3: There's a kind of looming pension crisis. Some economists argue
Speaker 3: because of the aging population, they've got a demographic problem
Speaker 3: because not enough people are being born's actually, you know,
Speaker 3: likely to have a reducing population in the years ahead.
Speaker 3: As well as that sort of domestic consumption is not
Speaker 3: where it should be, and that does also have broader
Speaker 3: geopolitical implications because you can't spend as much on your
Speaker 3: defense advancements and the growth of your military if you're
Speaker 3: trying to kind of stock up the internal economy. There
Speaker 3: was some speculation going into this Fourth Plenum that there
Speaker 3: might be some hints at succession planning Fashijinping. I don't
Speaker 3: think anything's come out that's given a clear pointed to that,
Speaker 3: but there was a pretty big purge of both military
Speaker 3: officials and Communist Party officials leading into this fourth Plenum,
Speaker 3: So you interpret from that what you will. Obviously, there's
Speaker 3: the question of whether a communist system can engage in
Speaker 3: active renewal because it's not kind of inbuilt in the
Speaker 3: way that it is in a democracy. So I guess
Speaker 3: probably people that are admirers of Shi Jinping might say, well,
Speaker 3: that's an example of him being both tough on corruption,
Speaker 3: weary of internal threats, but also eager to make sure
Speaker 3: that the system itself is engaged in some sort of
Speaker 3: process of renewal.
Speaker 1: Australia's been in a tricky position over the last a
Speaker 1: little while by having our security partner in the US
Speaker 1: in a trade war with China, who we rely on
Speaker 1: for our prosperity. What will Anthony Albanez you be hoping
Speaker 1: for when it comes to the next chapter in the
Speaker 1: US China relationship.
Speaker 3: Okay, so stability, that's a fundamental for Australia. I imagine
Speaker 3: that our Prime minister would be hoping that the US
Speaker 3: doesn't get more aggressive in asking us to limit what
Speaker 3: we do with China. That's a real risk for us
Speaker 3: on the security front, that if this kind of trade
Speaker 3: war scenario were to escalate or to hit another low
Speaker 3: point or friction point, that we might be asked to
Speaker 3: limit our supply of say rare earths or iron ore
Speaker 3: or other commodities to China as part of our alliance
Speaker 3: with the United States. That would be a pretty dire
Speaker 3: scenario for Australia.
Speaker 1: I don't think we're.
Speaker 3: Anywhere close to that, but I think certainly some of
Speaker 3: the language that we've heard out of the United States
Speaker 3: has meant that a lot of people here have been
Speaker 3: asking that question. What happens if I think Taiwan wasn't
Speaker 3: discussed at this meeting between Trump and Hijinping, but it's
Speaker 3: still there. It's still probably the security question in this
Speaker 3: region of the world, and Australia's position is to support
Speaker 3: the status quote. It would be quite easy to rock
Speaker 3: that status quo, and that status quo shift would have
Speaker 3: big implications for US, not just in terms of security,
Speaker 3: but also in terms of our trade relationships. So I
Speaker 3: think as long as no one's really making a big
Speaker 3: move to change the status quo. I think our Prime
Speaker 3: Minister would be maybe not relaxed, but that would probably
Speaker 3: be a good outcome in terms of, you know, the
Speaker 3: immediate next chapter. If there's no big move, no big shift,
Speaker 3: that's kind of good for Australia.
Speaker 1: I guess Albanez would be happy that mum and dad
Speaker 1: are at least talking to each other again.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think, look, he's probably just focused on making sure
Speaker 3: he's not wearing a T shirt when he gets off
Speaker 3: the plane.
Speaker 1: Amy, thank you once again for coming on the show.
Speaker 1: Really appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Thanks Daniel.
Speaker 1: Also in the news, a seventeen year old boy has
Speaker 1: died after being hit by a cricket ball. Ben Austin
Speaker 1: was practicing in the nets in Melbourne's East earlier this
Speaker 1: week when he was struck in the neck while wearing
Speaker 1: a helmet. He was rushed to hospital in a critical condition,
Speaker 1: but died in hospital yesterday. The incident was similar to
Speaker 1: the one that killed cricketer Philip Hughes a decade ago.
Speaker 1: The teenager's family said their hearts go out to the
Speaker 1: boy he bowled. The fatal ball and barleyby Joyce is
Speaker 1: being investigated by the Parliamentary Workplace Support Service following an
Speaker 1: allegation he shouted at a female staffer of a National's colleague.
Speaker 1: Joyce denies the claim that he yelled at the warning
Speaker 1: after she asked him to fill out a leaf form
Speaker 1: to attend a funeral. Both Michelle Landry, the MP who
Speaker 1: the staffer works for, and National's leader Dave a Little
Speaker 1: Proud released matching statements saying they trust the support Services
Speaker 1: to do its job and would not comment further. Daniel James,
Speaker 1: This is seven am. See you tomorrow for a breakdown
Speaker 1: of the biggest political stories of the week with Press
Speaker 1: Gallery journalist Karen Middleton. Thanks for listening.