Three dinosaurs and a dragon. (Foreign Affairs).(Bill Clinton, Malcolm Fraser and Bob Hawke at the Australian Council for the Promotion of Peaceful Reunification in China)

FROM THURSDAY 21st to Saturday 23rd March this year, a conference was held in Sydney to promote the reunification of Taiwan with China. It was organised by a Chinese-government-sponsored body called the Australian Council for the Promotion of Peaceful Reunification in China (ACPPRC). The Chinese character title for the conference, as published in the Chinese-language press in Sydney, was "Global Conference about Ending Independence and Enforcing Chinese Unification". The discrepancy between the two is worth thinking about.

Three distinguished speakers were scheduled to address the conference on Saturday morning: Bill Clinton, Malcolm Fraser and Bob Hawke. The degree of awkwardness surrounding the subject matter may be gauged by the fact that Bob Hawke withdrew from the schedule altogether; Malcolm Fraser had his speech read out for him but did not attend; and Bill Clinton spoke in bland platitudes while avoiding the issues that are at stake in the matter.

Hawke sent a brief message, which indicated that pressing business commitments made it impossible for him to attend, but that, as he had stated many times, he believed in both the One China policy and peaceful reunification of China. Not even this message was read out at the conference. The old silver bodgie simply disappeared from the proceedings as if he had never been scheduled to appear.

Clinton did appear--for a speaker's fee of $US300,000. Asked whether it was true that the money had come from Beijing, he replied that as far as he knew the money had come from Sydney. This was a neat variation on the "I did not have sex with that woman" defence. The money had come from the ACPPRC in Sydney--but they had received it from Beijing; some $US2 million in all, according to well-informed sources.

Money aside, Clinton spoke with his accustomed fluency. He made very clear how serious he sees the problems of AIDS and environmental deterioration to be, how much he deplores world poverty, lack of education in developing countries and social conditions which breed terrorism. Concerning China and Taiwan, on the other hand, he managed to say remarkably little and all of it innocuous.

Fraser sent an apology for not attending in person, stating that he had recently had a knee operation and was still recovering. Inevitably, I think, the thought flashed across my mind that this was an elegant way of saying that he had gone a bit weak at the knees and did not feel able to stand up to questions about his views on China and Taiwan. This may be unfair of me, though, since the views expressed in his speech were forthright and fully consistent with the agenda of the people who had orchestrated the conference.

Since neither Hawke nor Clinton had anything of substance to say, there is little point in dwelling on their views regarding this important subject. Fraser is another matter entirely and I shall address his speech in some detail. To set it in a strong context, however, I would like first to draw attention to substantial remarks by two other figures in recent weeks. The first figure is Hugh White, the newly appointed head of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in Canberra. The second is Gough Whitlam.