Beijing’s representative in Australia, Ambassador Xiao Qian, has just spent 900 words in an article this week telling us we should not spend more on defence because he says so and because China is no threat. 

But in all his words the ambassador fails to mention what the Chinese government is doing with its aggressive military and maritime militias that is threatening our region right now.

His problem is that he knows China does not have a good story to tell on its role in regional security, and so he avoids the topic almost entirely. He spends his time in a happier place, trying to refocus our attention on the benefits from engaging with China economically (without mentioning coercive trade measures on lobster or wine, of course….).

So, we get the usual misdirection from Mr Xiao that we hear from other Chinese government officials.  He tells us the worries about China’s military and how Xi Jinping seeks to use it are just from ‘some counties’ who have ‘hyped up the so-called China threat narrative’. 

It’s unfortunate for the Ambassador’s argument that Xi Jinping has said many times that he wants the PLA – China’s military – to be prepared to conquer Taiwan by force and to be able to fight and win at a moment’s notice.  Worse, China’s military is listening to Xi’s directions.  This year, it’s conducting the highest tempo and largest scale military practice runs around Taiwan for an invasion – up even from the record intimidatory presence over the last two years.

And it’s at least as uncomfortable for ambassador Xiao’s line that China has never ‘occupied an inch of foreign land’ for anyone to look at pictures of Chinese military facilities built on islands seized from South East Asian nations in the South China Sea, applying it’s illegal ‘nine dash line’ claims to the area.  Further awkwardness comes from video footage of swarms of Chinese maritime militia vessels invading Philippines’ waters in recent weeks.

Even Politburo members in Xi Jinping’s Chinese Communist Party seem to know China does not have a good security story to tell.  Last month’s Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore this year illustrated Beijing’s problem well. Ambassador Xiao mentions this meeting as the place ‘the so-called China threat’ was raised by ‘some countries’.

America’s Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth spoke clearly and openly at this premier regional security event, outlining the pacing challenge of China and the need to deter Chinese leaders from deciding on war over Taiwan and elsewhere.

In stark contrast, for the first time in years, Beijing couldn’t bring itself to even have the Chinese defence minister there. That’s because, for Beijing, it’s got increasingly embarrassing to play pretend in front of a knowledgeable regional audience when they know that despite your words of peace and goodwill, you are busily monstering many of the countries in the room and posturing to invade another place, Taiwan, where 24 million people live in peace and freedom.

So this year, Beijing sent no one to speak.

Fortunately, though, Mr Xiao is having some luck with his key audience of one here in Canberra: prime minister Anthony Albanese.  As the prime minister packs for his fourth meeting with Xi Jinping in later this month, he seems very ready to take up the Chinese government’s advice to not invest anything more in Australia’s security in the face of China’s rapid conventional and nuclear armament programs.  

When asked again, in light of Ambassador Xiao’s article, whether China is any kind of security threat, Mr Albanese came out with the same word salad language we’re getting familiar with. He’s seemingly incapable of using the words ‘China’, ‘security threat’ and ‘region’ in the same paragraph, let alone sentence.  Instead we get the confused non-response he’s used before: “it’s in Australia’s national interest for us to invest in our capability and to invest in our relationships, and we’re doing just that.”

Mr Albanese’s keenness to avoid even mentioning China’s challenges to regional security and sovereignty means he’s certainly not someone Xi or Mr Xiao will need to chastise for peddling any China threat narrative. 

Disturbingly, Mr Albanese seems to be closer to following one of Xi’s primary directives to Party members and the most ardent Chinese nationalists – to get out there and tell China’s story well.

The optics of the Chinese Ambassador lecturing the Australian government about how critical it is not to raise defence spending at the same time as Washington pressures its allies to stop free riding on American spending and power in the face of growing threats are awful. 

Combined with Mr Albanese’s continued courtship of Xi Jinping through his impending trip, this sets the context for whenever Mr Albanese manages to finally meet with US president Trump, but in the most damaging and obvious ways.

This heightens Albanese’s problem of failing, thus far, to engage President Trump. Whatever Albanese’s does now he looks like he is too deferential or too defensive. What a shame he can’t just articulate national policy.

Ambassador Xiao’s public intervention is highly unusual for a diplomat.  His timing just pushes Mr Albanese into even more uncomfortable territory as he defends his inaction on our security in Washington and here at home.  Doing nothing looks like he’s taken Xiao’s advice.

All while wanting the US Navy’s submarines for a purpose he can’t name.

A version of this article was first published in the Australian.