China can be a democracy, says former Australian PM Scott Morrison

By Ben Westcott
 

Former Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has dismissed the idea that China is unable to become a multiparty democracy, saying there is no “anti-democratic” instinct in the Chinese people.
 

Morrison, who led Australia from 2018 to 2022, said the Chinese people “care just as much about freedom as we do” but “sadly in mainland China they don’t have the opportunity for it.” The former Australian leader was a guest on the Diving Deep podcast hosted by Olympic athlete Sam Fricker.

“There’s a view that some put around that, oh, you know, democracy can’t work in Chinese culture,” Morrison said on the podcast. “Well, that’s crap. I’ve been to Taiwan.”

During Morrison’s time as prime minister, relations between China and Australia reached their lowest point in decades. Following a call by Morrison for an independent investigation into the origins of Covid-19, Beijing placed trade restrictions on lucrative Australian imports such as wine, barley and coal. Just this week Beijing scrapped punitive tariffs on Australian wine shipments. 

Ties between the two countries have improved following Morrison’s defeat and the election of the center-left Labor government in May 2022. Earlier this year, Morrison announced he was quitting Australia’s parliament, and later joined a consulting firm run by former US President Donald Trump’s national security adviser.

Morrison said Canberra’s relationship with China will always be transactional and never “values-based” like Australia’s ties with the US.

“Not with their government,” Morrison said in reference to Beijing. “It potentially could be values-based with their people.” 

Morrison said he never held a state visit to China in his time in office but he did meet Chinese President Xi Jinping several times for informal talks. Asked what Xi was like, Morrison described him as an “able politician.”

“He knew what he wanted, he knew where he was going,” Morrison said. “But as time wore on, the sort of charismatic exterior gave way to a more autocratic, authoritarian outlook on the region.”

Morrison said the Chinese government was irritated that Australia didn’t sign up for their international Belt and Road Initiative, which he described as “effectively their empire building process.”