Source — AITW Ep005: UN General Assembly; US-China Trade War; Australian Foreign Aid¶
Metadata¶
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Episode | 5 |
| Title | UN General Assembly meetings; US-China trade war; Australian foreign aid |
| Publication date | 2018-10-04 |
| Speakers | Allan Gyngell, Darren Lim |
| Guest | None |
| Duration | ~44 min |
Summary¶
Episode five opens with a detail that matters biographically: Allan has just returned from four days in Beijing with ANU colleagues, meeting with universities, think tanks, Communist Party researchers, and diplomats. His first sentence sets the epistemic frame: "It's hardly long enough to make long-term judgments about the future of China. But as always, I found it really useful to be engaging directly with the people who are working on these subjects." The self-limiting clause is not false modesty; it is the mark of a practitioner who has learned the difference between information and understanding. What he brings back is nonetheless specific and timely: Chinese analysts are recalibrating their view of US competition from a trade dispute to a structural long-term rivalry. That shift, observed first-hand in Beijing in September 2018, will become one of the defining themes of the entire podcast.
The analysis of Trump's UNGA speech is the most sustained ironic performance in the early episodes. Allan's voice is dry, amused, and precise. His "favourite part" is the "total lack of any irony" in Trump invoking sovereignty and the Monroe Doctrine in the same breath. He notes Trump's implication that foreign aid should flow back to the United States, and identifies the logical incoherence of the claim with evident relish — "Well, yeah, yeah" — before making his structural point: nothing in the speech "sounded like American leadership in the way that we've traditionally thought about it." The contrast with Marise Payne's UNGA debut is mapped element by element: the Human Rights Council, Iran, climate change, multilateralism. The gap is presented neutrally but the symmetry is devastating. When Jacinda Ardern is mentioned, Allan drops the irony entirely: "I think she did brilliantly." He admires her ending — "kindness" as New Zealand's national goal — without a trace of condescension: "That's not something you hear very often in the United Nations."
The episode closes with a reading recommendation that is one of the most revealing in the series. Allan says he is "feeling a bit overwhelmed by geopolitics and economics" and has turned, on the flight to Beijing, to Ian Johnson's The Souls of China — an account of the growth of spiritual thought in transforming Chinese society. The move is characteristic: when the strategic analysis feels like too much, he turns not away from the subject but deeper into it, looking for the human and cultural interior that strategy tends to miss. "If we want to get China policy right, we've got to understand the society deeply and in all its dimensions." The sentence is quiet but it describes something fundamental about how Allan thinks foreign policy should be done.
Key Topics¶
- Allan's Beijing visit: Chinese elite views on Australia and on the US
- Trump's UNGA speech: dissected for incoherence and irony
- Payne's UNGA speech: contrasted with Trump on every major issue
- Ardern's UNGA speech: praised strongly
- US-China trade war: economic arguments; "destroy the village to save the village"
- Australia's foreign aid budget: stretched, underfunded, over-tasked
- Reconceptualising aid as a legitimate security investment
Key Quotations¶
On the Beijing visit¶
"I was in Beijing for four days with some people from the ANU. It's hardly long enough to make long-term judgments about the future of China. But as always, I found it really useful to be engaging directly with the people who are working on these subjects."
— Allan Gyngell [00:01:10.510 --> 00:02:46.290]
"We were duly surprised to hear analysts say that Australia has not been as friendly to China as it should have been, but there was great hope coming from the new Morrison administration."
— Allan Gyngell [00:01:10.510 --> 00:02:46.290]
"The growing recognition among the people we were talking to anyway that the issue of the United States... is not simply a question of the immediate trade balance, but the emergence of a much longer term, deeper understanding of what they might have expected about strategic positions in the world. So there was a sort of a new seriousness, I thought, on the part of some of our Chinese interlocutors about that."
— Allan Gyngell [00:01:10.510 --> 00:02:46.290]
Direct access to Chinese policy-thinking; Allan reports it faithfully, including the criticism of Australia. His analytical discipline — "hardly long enough to make long-term judgments" — is explicit.
On Trump's UN speech¶
"A big thank you to Donald Trump, really. I argued in the first podcast we did together, the post war order was over. And you couldn't have got a better illustration of that point, really, than Donald Trump, in his second speech to the United Nations, the very core of the post-war order."
— Allan Gyngell [00:09:14.110 --> 00:13:16.390]
"My favourite part, though, was the total lack of any irony in the emphasis on patriotism and sovereignty followed immediately by an enthusiastic recapitulation of the Monroe Doctrine."
— Allan Gyngell [00:09:14.110 --> 00:13:16.390]
"The president's claim that the United States was the largest giver of foreign aid... He seemed to be implying that others should be giving foreign aid to the United States."
— Allan Gyngell [00:09:14.110 --> 00:13:16.390]
Sharp ironic analysis. The "total lack of any irony" line is a precision instrument. Allan identifies logical contradictions in Trump's speech with evident relish — but without venom; the analysis is what matters.
On Payne vs. Trump¶
"Senator Payne began by saying we are all proud members of this venerable institution and, you know, we stand for an international order based on rules and cooperation. Trump made a great play of the fact that the United States was withdrawing from the UN Human Rights Council; Maurice Payne made great play of the fact that Australia had joined it for the first time."
— Allan Gyngell [00:15:34.470 --> 00:17:13.470]
The contrast mapped element by element; a systematic rhetorical analysis.
"I think it'll mostly go under President Trump's radar for a while and there's no doubt that the government will continue to emphasise our support for the US alliance... it's really the tonal differences that I thought were most interesting."
— Allan Gyngell [00:17:27.470 --> 00:17:50.470]
On Jacinda Ardern's speech¶
"This generation, she proclaimed, see themselves as global citizens. Now global citizens is not something that exists in the Trumpian universe. She said she ended it by talking about New Zealand's national goal as being kindness. Now, that's not something you hear very often in the United Nations. So I think she did brilliantly."
— Allan Gyngell [00:20:01.310 --> 00:21:06.470]
Warm and direct approval. "Kindness" as a national goal: Allan finds this admirable, not naive.
On the trade war¶
"Either economists are right in what they've been saying for 200 years or they're not... tariffs are a tax on consumers, and a spiral downwards would result in declining living standards in Australia."
— Allan Gyngell [00:26:33.710 --> 00:27:34.390]
"It's the same as the argument that you've got to destroy the village in order to save the village. It just makes no sense unless you have no faith whatever in the capacity of other negotiating tactics."
— Allan Gyngell [00:29:29.070 --> 00:30:27.910]
Uses the Vietnam-era aphorism ("destroy the village") — a historical allusion most listeners will recognise. Grounds trade war critique in both economic orthodoxy and historical analogy.
On the aid budget¶
"The Australian aid budget is now 0.19% compared with the government's original commitment... In real terms, it's the same level that it was at 10 years ago, but much more is being asked of it."
— Allan Gyngell [00:39:09.430 --> 00:40:40.430]
"The views of other countries is as valid an expenditure as spending money on the instruments of deterrence or of warfighting or of national security... I think it's possible to argue that to the Australian people."
— Allan Gyngell [00:42:46.830 --> 00:43:23.910]
Reading Recommendation¶
Allan recommends Ian Johnson's The Souls of China (Penguin):
"I started reading Ian Johnson's book, The Souls of China, which is published in Penguin. Johnson is a journalist and researcher who knows China well. It's a wonderfully deep and insightful account of the growth of spiritual thought in China as the economy and society transform... it's a real reminder to me that if we in order to get for Australia to get China policy right, we've got to understand the society deeply and in all its dimensions."
— Allan Gyngell [00:43:32.150 --> 00:44:32.510]
Telling: he is "overwhelmed by geopolitics and economics" and turns to a book about the spiritual interior of Chinese society. The move from strategy to society — from interests to people — is characteristic of his analytical breadth. The implicit argument: policy without cultural depth is incomplete.
Evidence Relevant to Allan's Views¶
- Trump's UN speech exposes post-war order's collapse more vividly than any academic argument
- Australia's diplomatic divergence from the US is deliberate, quiet, and growing
- China's elite is recalibrating its understanding of US competition as structural, not merely transactional
- Trade wars are economically illiterate and diplomatically counterproductive
- Aid is as legitimate a security investment as submarines, but this argument needs to be made politically
Evidence Relevant to Allan's Style and Persona¶
- Epistemic humility: "hardly long enough to make long-term judgments" (4 days in Beijing)
- Irony as analytical tool: "total lack of any irony" in Trump
- Warm toward Ardern; finds "kindness" as national goal admirable
- Economic arguments grounded in 200 years of economic thought and historical analogy
- Reads to escape geopolitics — and finds himself back in it (Souls of China)
- "Overwhelmed by geopolitics" — vulnerability admitted casually
Biographical Fragments¶
- Recently visited Beijing with ANU colleagues, meeting with universities, think tanks, Communist Party researchers, and diplomats
- Part of an active network of ANU researchers engaged in Track 1.5 dialogue with China
Characteristic Phrases¶
- "Total lack of any irony"
- "Destroy the village in order to save the village"
- "Hardly long enough to make long-term judgments" (epistemic humility)
- "Overwhelmed by geopolitics and economics at the moment"
- "Not simply a question of the immediate trade balance"
Relevance to Central Biographical Question¶
The Trump UN speech analysis is one of Allan's most sustained ironic performances in the early episodes. He dissects the logical contradictions without becoming polemical — the pleasure is analytical, not partisan. His ability to be both serious and amused, rigorous and wry, is part of what made him compelling. The Souls of China recommendation shows the depth of his intellectual engagement: he is not satisfied with strategic analysis alone; he wants to understand the people.
Open Questions¶
- Does the shift in Chinese elite thinking about US-China competition (from trade to structural rivalry) that Allan observes in October 2018 become more clearly articulated in later episodes?
- How does the Indonesian earthquake and Australian aid response affect the bilateral relationship in subsequent coverage?