When I asked Jocelyn Chey about her experience at the lunch in Parliament House in honour of Chinese Premier Li Qiang, she said, “I thought the best part of the lunch was Dutton’s speech through gritted teeth about how everyone wants relations with China to improve.”

Also, speaking to 2GB, Dutton said, “I’m pro-China and the relationship that we have with them.” He also wanted to increase trade with China. Dutton’s almost gushy remarks caught many, including journalists, by surprise, prompting Sydney Morning Herald’s Matthew Knott to ask whether ‘pro-China’ Dutton has ‘morphed from a hawk into a dove’.

Dutton’s about-face on China was met with a mixture of pleasant surprise and acerbic cynicism. Many see this as yet another example that some politicians would say just about anything in order to get themselves elected. But despite the different reactions, the general consensus is that his change of rhetoric, if not his change of heart, can only be a good thing.

Of course, no one can predict what Dutton and his party will say and do about China if the Liberals win the next election. But as James Laurenceson points out, at least it can be fairly certain that China won’t be a wedge issue in the next election.

Dutton has to reckon with the fact that Scott Morrison left behind a party that not only has a ‘women’s problem’ but also a ‘China problem’. It seems that when Dutton said ‘I’m not Morrison’ in his attempt to woo back women and urban professional voters, he might as well be pitching the same message to Chinese-Australian voters.

As is made painfully clear to the Liberals, the Coalition’s anti-China position cost them dearly in electoral........

© Pearls and Irritations