Interview BBC London

INTERVIEW: BBC London 11/5/26

 

JOURNALIST: Malcolm Turnbull is in London today and doing the media round, so a good chance to talk to someone who has experience of dealing direct with the two most powerful men in the world just now, Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, just as those two men prepare to meet this week. I asked Malcolm Turnbull first for his take on the latest news about the Iran War. 

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well it's in a stalemate, isn't it? 
The problem that Mr. Trump has is that the only way he will be seen to have had a victory is if there is a change of regime to one that is supportive of the United States. On the other hand, the Iranians will have won if they don't lose. That is really the nature of an asymmetric conflict like that. 
So, he's got himself in a very difficult situation politically and, of course, the whole world is in a difficult situation because of what this is doing to energy markets, helium markets, fertiliser markets, everything. 

JOURNALIST: There may be an important moment this week when President Trump meets Xi Jinping in China. Do you think China can be part of the solution to Iran / US?

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Yes, the answer is yes. China has been a real beneficiary of this. Obviously, the interruption of, particularly a long term interruption of energy flows from the Gulf is not good news for China, because they get a lot of their liquid fuels from that part of the world. On the other hand, what this does, it reinforces the move towards electrification around the world. China is the overwhelming, dominant provider of solar panels, inverters, batteries, wind turbines. They are leading the charge on renewable energy. 
And what this crisis has done is remind people of the fragility and vulnerability of fossil fuel supply chains, and underpinned the importance of energy security. 

JOURNALIST: But does that mean China doesn't really mind if this thing goes on, or will it be interested in getting its oil supplies from the Gulf restored, and saying to everyone: you need to back down, you need to find a solution? 

MALCOLM TURNBULL: China will be encouraging Iran to make a solution, but clearly the Iranians, these are tough people the IRGC. They've stood up to the Americans, carried out something that they've threatened to do but never done before, i.e. closed the Straits of Hormuz. They’ve demonstrated they've got that leverage. So I think it's a very difficult situation. But the energy dimension, notwithstanding Mr. Trump's fondness for fossil fuels, the energy situation is sending a message to just about every country in the world [that] you've got to have energy independence. And for most countries that means renewables - solar, wind, plus storage, pumped hydro, I'm president of the International Hydropower Association. So, energy and the energy transition is right at the heart of the consequences of this crisis. 


JOURNALIST: Just on the Trump / Xi meeting, you've met them both. 

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Yes. 

JOURNALIST: And I was just reading about your meetings with Xi, which is interesting, because he was talking about the Thucydides Trap. 
Can you tell us what the trap is? 

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, the Thucydides Trap is a term popularised by a Harvard Professor called Graham Allison. 
And essentially, you'll remember that in Thucydides' account of the Peloponnesian War... 

JOURNALIST: Of course I remember this…. 

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, I'm sure you remember it in the original Greek. 
Boris Johnson told me you did, anyway. Thucydides sets out the origins of the war, and he talks about various political manoeuvrings, but he says the real reason for the war was that the Spartans were frightened by the rising power of Athens. And so the Thucydides Trap is falling into war, where you get a rising power that is challenging an incumbent. 
In this case, the incumbent is the United States, and the rising power is China. Xi picked this up, and we often talked about it. We discussed Thucydides a couple of times, including some other passages in Thucydides. 


JOURNALIST: So quite thoughtful. 

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Oh, yes. Xi Jinping is a real intellect. I mean, he is a tough political operator, obviously, but he is a real intellect. He is a technocrat, he's very different to, say, a typical Western politician. 
He's got an interest in philosophy, but he also leads a very tough, Leninist political party, and he's very focussed on maintaining its hegemony in China. 

JOURNALIST: I was gonna say, he's brutal to his opponents. 

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Sure. 
Sure, no, it's tough business. 

JOURNALIST: Trump? You met him? 


MALCOLM TURNBULL: Yes, I met him several times, many times. Well, he's a different character…big man. 
He's a bully, he doesn't make any bones about that. He believes that might is right. He's performative, he's an incredible communicator, he's very charismatic, you can't take that away from him. But he operates in a very, very different way to see Xi Jinping.

JOURNALIST: 
Your most telling moment with Trump? 

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, the most important one was the first real encounter I had with him was when we had an enormous row, because we, being Australia, had a signed agreement with the United States under Obama on refugee settlement. And Trump didn't like that deal and wanted to renege on it. 
And we had a very big row, and I insisted that the Americans honour the deal, which became very, very contentious. He was very unhappy about it, but he agreed to stick with the deal. And I think that the lesson of that, one shouldn't really need to learn again, but the lesson is that when you're dealing with personalities like Trump, you should not suck up to them, buckle, you should stand up to them, stand your ground, because those types of strong personalities, bullies if you want to use that term, they only respect people who stand up to them. If you suck up to them, you just get more bullying. 

JOURNALIST: The world is changing. 
Australia is in the new jargon, a middle power. You're going to face a change from American influence to Chinese influence. 
I mean, you're on the front line of this really. I mean, you've got a significant Chinese population. You are close by, you do trade all that. 

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Yeah, well, China's by far our biggest trading partner.. 

JOURNALIST: Given that you come from mainstream Western politics, let's say, are you more frightened of the future with Chinese dominance and control…do you look ahead with fear to that? 


MALCOLM TURNBULL: No, I don't, but I think it's very important that we maintain our own sovereignty. We want, in Shinzo Abe's words, a free and open Indo Pacific. A neighbourhood where as countries, whether they're big countries,or little countries, sovereignty is respected. 
And so that is something we must stand up for, and we would prefer the United States to remain engaged in the region, and I'm sure they will, out of their own self interest. But you shouldn't assume that China can have the sort of dominance in its hemisphere… there isn't a possibility for China to do a Monroe Doctrine in our hemisphere, because if you look at our hemisphere, you've got Japan for a start, this is the third largest national economy in the world. You've got South Korea. You've got Indonesia, the fourth largest economy by population in the world, and a number of other big economies - Vietnam, Thailand, and so forth. So it's a region which is not connected in the way Europe is. It's nothing like an EU, let alone a NATO. 
But it's not a region that is open to complete domination. 

JOURNALIST: Interesting point, but Xi’s values are not Western values. 

MALCOLM TURNBULL: No, they're not. 
He doesn't pretend that they are. No.

JOURNALIST: Does that bother you? 


MALCOLM TURNBULL: No. China is different. I think the Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Hsien Loong, said very wisely to my successor you can't change China, your only concern should be that China doesn't change you. That's important. When the People's Republic of China was founded, Mao Tse-Tung climbed to the top of Tiananmen and he said the Chinese people have stood up, and that was an assertion of Chinese sovereignty. And so, our message is that we respect your sovereignty, we expect you to respect ours. 
Now interestingly, in this new world with Trump, and this is where in a sense, it's a world upside down, you have the United States, which created the post war international rules based order, now saying it's rubbish. The National Defense Strategy describes it as “a cloud castle abstraction”. 
Trump very openly says might is right. On the other hand, you have China, Xi Jinping, Wang Yi, the Foreign Minister, and others, saying, International rules based order must be preserved, International law is important, multilateralism is important. 
And they are seeking to be exactly the opposite of Trump. So where he is erratic and putting people at edge and keeping everyone in a state of uncertainty, which is a deliberate tactic he makes no bones about that, China is saying no, we're different, we're going to be consistent and reliable. So it's very disconcerting. 
We used to talk about China being the revisionist power, seeking to revise and change the international rules based order. Now, it's the creator of that order, the US, that is walking away from it, walking away from global leadership. China is saying that order is important and we're going to play an important role in it. 

**ENDS** 

 

Listen to the interview here: BBC Audio | Newshour | Trump dismisses Iran's latest negotiating position