In a day of pomp and ceremony, mutual backslapping and genuine progress in furthering the mutual benefit of relations between Australia and its biggest customer, one incident was a jarring reality check.

Attempts by Chinese officials to block cameras from recording formerly detained Australian journalist, Cheng Lei’s presence at a signing ceremony in Parliament House were as baffling as they were cack handed.

Cheng Lei later said perhaps they were afraid she might try to embarrass the Premier, but it was a counterproductive piece of media management typical of a police state.

An Australian citizen, Lei was detained on charges of breaching national security when she was a news anchor on state television in China. Her release in 2022 came after diplomatic representations by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong, though Albanese at the time said it was the result of judicial processes being concluded.

A diplomatic answer, no doubt just as his claim that he didn’t see the incident at the signing and was unaware of the kerfuffle when asked about it at his news conference.

Diplomacy in action

Shadow home affairs minister James Paterson said it is “completely not credible for the Prime Minister not to know when he walked into the press conference”.

The Liberal senator said Albanese’s staff would have told him as “standard operating procedure”.

Really?

But even if they did, why would the PM want this piece of officiousness to be elevated to a major diplomatic incident marring the much bigger purpose of the day?

Wolverines barking

It was a timely reminder that Paterson was a proud member of the “wolverines” – the name a group of China hawk politicians gave themselves, to counter China’s “wolf warrior diplomacy” and to warn of the menace of President Xi Jinping.

Paterson claimed on the eve of the Li visit that Chinese cyber attacks and meddling in Australian institutions, including key utilities, had “never been more prolific”.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported Paterson saying, “It’s up to the Prime Minister to explain how you have a stable relationship with an authoritarian power that is determined to threaten our infrastructure assets, interfere in our democracy and intimidate Australian citizens into silence.”

Of course Australia should have eyes wide open in dealing with China. But assessments by elements of the Australian security establishment encouraged by  China hawks in Washington and their surrogates at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute who would have us believe Beijing is about to invade us are  overreach, according to senior diplomatic sources.

Silence on India

Paterson is strangely reticent about the activities of Narendra Modi’s India – we have expelled spies linked to intimidating citizens of Indian heritage and as Four Corners revealed on the ABC on Monday night it is increasingly authoritarian and intolerant of diversity.

Apparently the “shared value” of democracy exculpates the sub-continent’s behaviour, never mind that in the latest Press Freedom Index, India ranks 159 out of 180 countries.

To what extent India shares our national values is at best arguable and for that matter even a nation like the United States, which is much closer to the mark, is shocking in its cruel pursuit of the Australian citizen Julian Assange.

In foreign relations – as Allan Behm the director of international and security affairs program at the Australia Institute says – it is shared interests that take precedence.

Shared reality

Something the Whitlam government appreciated when it formally recognised the Chinese Communist Party as the legitimate government of China and accepted the “one-China policy”, which was reaffirmed on Monday in Canberra.

We are certainly a much more prosperous nation as a result.

The Joint Leaders Statement should give the wolverines pause for thought. It says both China and Australia “agreed to grow the bilateral relationship and uphold their respective national interests”.

The statement promised, “both sides would continue to navigate their differences wisely”.

Trade secrets

It’s a long way from former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce, who on morning television said China can take its “pandas back” and Australia is “weak” for not standing up to Beijing after a series of incidents involving our militaries in international waters adjoining China.

Joyce said the biggest issue for “your kids and grandkids … is not a war against the weather, it’s how we can sustain ourselves with a military superpower that’s run by a totalitarian regime”.

A key way we sustain ourselves is the massive trade surplus we have with China in the $327 billion annual two-way trade.

James Laurenceson of the Australia-China Relations Institute at the Sydney University of Technology said China hawks were right to call out foreign interference, but they failed to grasp that “China isn’t just about foreign interference or military threats”.

Laurenceson told the Nine newspapers, “they are also about trade, family and friendship ties, and global challenges like climate change. And the way you manage all that is through calm and professional diplomacy”.

Albanese seems to get it.

He says Australia’s approach to China is “patient, calibrated and deliberate”.

And there are billions of shared interests there.

Paul Bongiorno AM is a veteran of the Canberra Press Gallery, with more than 40 years’ experience covering Australian politics