Editorial: Australia and China have to save face

During her visit to Beijing, Helen Clark was able to talk in the abstract while skating across the thin ice of human rights and trade. Without fear of nasty complication, she was free to raise New Zealand's concern about China's human-rights record while also emphasising that this would not be allowed to derail free-trade talks. Right now, Australia must wish it had this luxury. A Chinese diplomat seeking asylum in Sydney has put a human face - and a heightened complexity - on that very issue.

Chen Yonglin abandoned his post as the consul for political affairs at the Chinese consulate general in Sydney late last month, saying he feared persecution if he returned to China because of his democratic beliefs. His request for political asylum was, he says, swiftly rejected. Now he is in hiding with his wife and daughter while immigration officials assess his claim for a temporary protection visa and the right to stay permanently in Australia. Over the weekend he upped the ante by saying China had up to 1000 spies in Australia and that agents had been sent to abduct Chinese nationals and repatriate them.

Such claims seem exaggerated, even if Australia's counter-espionage resources have been increased. But in any event, they are a sideshow to the difficulty confronting the Howard Government. China is Australia's third-largest trading partner and Canberra is eyeing even greater rewards. Free-trade talks with Beijing lag behind those of New Zealand but a multibillion-dollar prize is on the horizon, close enough, indeed, for the likes of the Australian Workers Union to claim that it provided the basis for the Government's disengagement from Mr Chen's application for political asylum.

In fact, visas for political asylum are a rarity. Thus, the response from immigration authorities was hardly unexpected. But whatever the flaws in that process, the dilemma confronting Australia remains the same. On the one hand, Mr Chen faces severe punishment if he returns to China. So much so that it was trite for the Chinese Ambassador to suggest that Beijing has no reason to penalise him. At the very least Mr Chen's attempted defection, allied to his claims about Chinese spying activities, would attract a long prison sentence.

This stark reality must be set against Australia's blossoming trade relationship with China. Clearly, Beijing would like Mr Chen back and is loath to see Canberra grant him refugee status. It would see Australia's granting of protection as breaching the fine line that governs the trade and human rights conundrum. Australia would have intruded into an area of domestic politics that China does not consider the domain of a favoured trading partner.

Fortunately for Canberra's blushes, however, this incident is also a considerable inconvenience to Beijing. Trade is a two-way street, and China has reasons to ensure that, whatever the temporary kerfuffle over Mr Chen, relations do not deteriorate too seriously. Australian raw materials and fuel provide impetus for its rapidly expanding economy. And Beijing's ambition to stage the best-ever Olympics in 2008 will rely heavily on Australian expertise derived from the Sydney Games.

And Chinese politics emphasises the pragmatic, not the ideological. Beijing will not wish the disillusionment of a relatively minor diplomat to sour the potential gains of its relationship with Australia. It will comprehend, if not fully appreciate, Canberra's difficulties: that the Howard Government, whatever its realpolitik impulse, is bound to show some form of commitment to human rights values. A compromise will not be easy to fashion, but that is the most likely outcome. Delicate diplomacy will seek to shape a solution, probably applicable after much of the heat has gone from the issue. Mr Chen will get to stay in the West but in a manner guaranteed to cause the minimum embarrassment to China. Face will be saved all round.