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| Indigenous Australia should look to China, the global beacon of poverty reduction Indigenous Australia should look to China, the global beacon of poverty reduction | |
| (4 months later) | |
| “It’s all so bloody marvellous.” | “It’s all so bloody marvellous.” |
| An excited 18-year-old Cheryl Buchanan could hardly contain herself when she touched down in China more than 40 years ago. | An excited 18-year-old Cheryl Buchanan could hardly contain herself when she touched down in China more than 40 years ago. |
| She was young, black and idealistic. In a communist country at the height of a bloody cultural revolution she believed she had found her humanity. | She was young, black and idealistic. In a communist country at the height of a bloody cultural revolution she believed she had found her humanity. |
| “There’s just no pressure on us. We are being treated as human beings for the first time in our lives. At home we are treated like animals.” | “There’s just no pressure on us. We are being treated as human beings for the first time in our lives. At home we are treated like animals.” |
| As Australia sends its biggest ever trade delegation to China, it is worth recalling another group who made the trek to Beijing – then Peking – in 1972. | As Australia sends its biggest ever trade delegation to China, it is worth recalling another group who made the trek to Beijing – then Peking – in 1972. |
| In photos you can see them in the garb of the times: grey Mao suits and fur hats, posing with Chinese farmers. | In photos you can see them in the garb of the times: grey Mao suits and fur hats, posing with Chinese farmers. |
| For two months a nine member Aboriginal delegation was a guest of the Chinese Communist Party. It angered the Australian government and was a PR coup for the Chinese. At the time China remained in the cold – US President Nixon had only that year made his historic visit. | For two months a nine member Aboriginal delegation was a guest of the Chinese Communist Party. It angered the Australian government and was a PR coup for the Chinese. At the time China remained in the cold – US President Nixon had only that year made his historic visit. |
| In the naivety and headiness of the times they were caught up in the revolutionary fervour of a country in the midst of a brutal purge that would end with more than a million people killed and millions more imprisoned, tortured and humiliated. | In the naivety and headiness of the times they were caught up in the revolutionary fervour of a country in the midst of a brutal purge that would end with more than a million people killed and millions more imprisoned, tortured and humiliated. |
| Another member of the group, Lilla Watson, was on her first trip abroad and said it made her realise what a racist country Australia was. | Another member of the group, Lilla Watson, was on her first trip abroad and said it made her realise what a racist country Australia was. |
| Delegation leader Chicka Dixon said in China “we were never called boongs or niggers”. | Delegation leader Chicka Dixon said in China “we were never called boongs or niggers”. |
| This was the height of the black power movement in Australia. Aboriginal people had pitched a tent embassy on the lawns of Parliament House, some had formed a nascent chapter of America’s Black Panther Party. | This was the height of the black power movement in Australia. Aboriginal people had pitched a tent embassy on the lawns of Parliament House, some had formed a nascent chapter of America’s Black Panther Party. |
| With hindsight it was obviously misguided, but in those days some in the delegation saw Mao’s China as pot of gold that could help finance social revolution back home. | With hindsight it was obviously misguided, but in those days some in the delegation saw Mao’s China as pot of gold that could help finance social revolution back home. |
| Of course none of this went further than a headline. | Of course none of this went further than a headline. |
| Fast forward to 2016 and Malcolm Turnbull is leading thousand captains of business and politics to Beijing. Like the Aboriginal delegation of 1972 – but for very different reasons – China is a beacon. | Fast forward to 2016 and Malcolm Turnbull is leading thousand captains of business and politics to Beijing. Like the Aboriginal delegation of 1972 – but for very different reasons – China is a beacon. |
| The country once mired in violence and revolution, the sick man of Asia that could not feed itself is by some measures the world’s biggest economy and an emerging superpower to rival the United States. | The country once mired in violence and revolution, the sick man of Asia that could not feed itself is by some measures the world’s biggest economy and an emerging superpower to rival the United States. |
| China’s hunger for our natural resources helped drive Australia’s mining boom and cushioned the impact of the global financial crisis. China is unavoidable and indispensable. It challenges – some suggest threatens – the regional order while underpinning economic growth. | China’s hunger for our natural resources helped drive Australia’s mining boom and cushioned the impact of the global financial crisis. China is unavoidable and indispensable. It challenges – some suggest threatens – the regional order while underpinning economic growth. |
| There are storm clouds looming. China’s economy is slowing as it transitions to what its leaders hope is a broader, more sustainable base. It wrestles with the environmental impact – choking skies and toxic rivers – of two decades of breakneck growth. There is growing protest and increasing demands from an emerging educated, tech-savvy and more worldly middle class. | There are storm clouds looming. China’s economy is slowing as it transitions to what its leaders hope is a broader, more sustainable base. It wrestles with the environmental impact – choking skies and toxic rivers – of two decades of breakneck growth. There is growing protest and increasing demands from an emerging educated, tech-savvy and more worldly middle class. |
| For the west there remains the challenge of incorporating China into a peaceful global order and avoiding what prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has identified as a Thucydides trap – when a rising power causes fear in an existing power and triggers inevitable conflict, as in Athens and Sparta in Ancient Greece or Germany and England a century ago. | For the west there remains the challenge of incorporating China into a peaceful global order and avoiding what prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has identified as a Thucydides trap – when a rising power causes fear in an existing power and triggers inevitable conflict, as in Athens and Sparta in Ancient Greece or Germany and England a century ago. |
| These concerns and opportunities are uppermost for Australia’s delegation as it seeks to build on our free trade agreement. But amid the geopolitics and business deals does anyone consider there may be some lessons for Indigenous policy? | These concerns and opportunities are uppermost for Australia’s delegation as it seeks to build on our free trade agreement. But amid the geopolitics and business deals does anyone consider there may be some lessons for Indigenous policy? |
| Surely anyone seriously engaged in charting a successful secure future for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people fully integrated into the Australian economy should look at China’s extraordinary program of poverty reduction. | Surely anyone seriously engaged in charting a successful secure future for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people fully integrated into the Australian economy should look at China’s extraordinary program of poverty reduction. |
| China has led the world in this area. The United Nations aimed to halve global poverty between 1990 and 2015. This was met five years early. China was responsible for three quarters of that achievement. | China has led the world in this area. The United Nations aimed to halve global poverty between 1990 and 2015. This was met five years early. China was responsible for three quarters of that achievement. |
| How? Economic growth. Building infrastructure, creating jobs, educating an increasingly agile and mobile population. | How? Economic growth. Building infrastructure, creating jobs, educating an increasingly agile and mobile population. |
| I hope I am not wrong in assuming this is on the agenda this week. | I hope I am not wrong in assuming this is on the agenda this week. |
| In the decades since the Aboriginal delegation visited in 1972, China has lifted more than half a billion people out of poverty. I reported this up close for years living in Hong Kong and Beijing. I saw how a country engineered a change from a rural-based society to an urban one. As people moved – albeit sometimes reluctantly – from small villages to towns and cities seeking employment their lifestyles were transformed, their health outcomes, quality of housing and educational attainment improved markedly. | In the decades since the Aboriginal delegation visited in 1972, China has lifted more than half a billion people out of poverty. I reported this up close for years living in Hong Kong and Beijing. I saw how a country engineered a change from a rural-based society to an urban one. As people moved – albeit sometimes reluctantly – from small villages to towns and cities seeking employment their lifestyles were transformed, their health outcomes, quality of housing and educational attainment improved markedly. |
| In this China it is not inconceivable that the grandchild of a Chinese peasant farmer would go to university. | In this China it is not inconceivable that the grandchild of a Chinese peasant farmer would go to university. |
| It is far from perfect. There are strains on culture and society, the Confucian based model of hierarchy and subordination is having to adapt to a world of nuclear families and competitive crowded city streets. These are the consequences for peoples in transition. | It is far from perfect. There are strains on culture and society, the Confucian based model of hierarchy and subordination is having to adapt to a world of nuclear families and competitive crowded city streets. These are the consequences for peoples in transition. |
| I wouldn’t pretend that the situation of Indigenous people here and impoverished Chinese is perfectly analogous – a command economy, single party rule that can run roughshod over individual rights have helped underwrite China’s transformation. But we can’t ignore that fact that a country that could not feed itself has enriched its people while Indigenous Australians remain trapped in cycles of poverty in a country that is among the richest in the world still with a higher per capita income than China itself. | I wouldn’t pretend that the situation of Indigenous people here and impoverished Chinese is perfectly analogous – a command economy, single party rule that can run roughshod over individual rights have helped underwrite China’s transformation. But we can’t ignore that fact that a country that could not feed itself has enriched its people while Indigenous Australians remain trapped in cycles of poverty in a country that is among the richest in the world still with a higher per capita income than China itself. |
| In China people moved. They seized new opportunities. I met a man who left his village to try his luck in Shanghai. At the height of the building boom he found a job on a construction site, he collected scraps and timber and metal off cuts and used tools. He sold them on street corners and eventually owned a string of hardware stores. These stories were not uncommon. | In China people moved. They seized new opportunities. I met a man who left his village to try his luck in Shanghai. At the height of the building boom he found a job on a construction site, he collected scraps and timber and metal off cuts and used tools. He sold them on street corners and eventually owned a string of hardware stores. These stories were not uncommon. |
| I met rural farmers and people on remote mountain tops now doing business online, using mobile phones. People who had grown up in a country cut off from the world were now connected. Their children found new lives away from their traditional villages. Their remittances supported their parents back home. | I met rural farmers and people on remote mountain tops now doing business online, using mobile phones. People who had grown up in a country cut off from the world were now connected. Their children found new lives away from their traditional villages. Their remittances supported their parents back home. |
| This isn’t an argument for abandoning remote communities here, not everyone will find their future in cities, but we need serious people seeking smart solutions and part of that means confronting – as China and so many others have – a fundamental lesson of humanity, that isolation is ultimately untenable. | This isn’t an argument for abandoning remote communities here, not everyone will find their future in cities, but we need serious people seeking smart solutions and part of that means confronting – as China and so many others have – a fundamental lesson of humanity, that isolation is ultimately untenable. |
| The Chinese speak of “astronauts”, those who can orbit their communities and the world beyond their borders. They are equipped with the knowledge, capacity and confidence necessary for success. Aboriginal people are proving equally agile here and we need more of it. | The Chinese speak of “astronauts”, those who can orbit their communities and the world beyond their borders. They are equipped with the knowledge, capacity and confidence necessary for success. Aboriginal people are proving equally agile here and we need more of it. |
| The China of the cultural revolution gave way to the China of the economic revolution. The Aboriginal activists of 1972 found inspiration in Mao’s slogans like “smash the four olds” perhaps a new generation may take their lead from the words of Mao’s successor Deng Xiaoping - “to get rich is glorious”. | The China of the cultural revolution gave way to the China of the economic revolution. The Aboriginal activists of 1972 found inspiration in Mao’s slogans like “smash the four olds” perhaps a new generation may take their lead from the words of Mao’s successor Deng Xiaoping - “to get rich is glorious”. |