Source — AITW Ep073 — Linda Jakobson (Part 1): On China, Chinese Politics, and Finlandisation¶

Episode Metadata¶

Field	Value
Episode number	73
Title	Linda Jakobson (Part 1): On China, Chinese politics, and Finlandisation
Publication date	2021-05-27
Recording date	Wednesday, 19 May 2021
Guests	Linda Jakobson — Founding Director and Deputy Chair, China Matters; Finnish sinologist; 22 years in China; former Programme Director East Asia, Lowy Institute
Allan present	Yes — in interviewer role
Format	Guest interview (Part 1 of 2); no reading segment

Summary¶

Part 1 of a two-part interview with Linda Jakobson. Allan is in interviewer mode; content is almost entirely Jakobson's. She covers: (1) her trajectory from Finland to China (arrived 1987–88, a "pivotal" political moment); (2) Finlandisation — three lessons for Australia in managing great-power pressure (leadership and deep expertise; public narrative; the social rot created by sustained pressure); (3) What China wants — a systematic account from Xi Jinping down to ordinary citizens and political elites; (4) the size and opacity of China's governing elite; (5) gender imbalance in CCP leadership.

Allan's contributions are primarily framing questions. The episode's biographical significance lies in two moments: Allan's disclosure that he sits on the China Matters board, and Linda Jakobson's live citation of Fear of Abandonment as an analytical framework — applying it critically to Australian-American kowtowing behaviour. Part 2 will address Australia-China relations directly.

Key Quotations¶

Linda cites Fear of Abandonment as a live analytical instrument¶

"So that fear of abandonment, Allan, that you've so eloquently written about, still haunts Australians and leads to unhealthy manifestations in how those in Canberra deal with their counterparts in Washington, D.C."

— Linda Jakobson [00:05:52.700 --> 00:17:18.700]

The most significant moment in the episode for the wiki. Jakobson is not endorsing the book as academic argument — she is applying it in real time as an explanatory framework for observable behaviour: "How many times have I heard a public servant or minister saying in private, oh, there's been constant pressure from the Americans on this issue." The fear of abandonment produces unhealthy manifestations — kowtowing to Washington in ways that mirror (she implies) the kowtowing to Beijing she has also observed in Australian business circles. The parallel is the analytical core of her Finlandisation argument: the lesson is not just about China, but about how small countries deform their own politics under big-power pressure from either direction. Allan receives this without comment — no response is recorded. That silence is itself revealing: she has named something he has diagnosed structurally, and he lets it stand.

"Wouldn't that be nice" — China Matters and public discourse¶

"China Matters aims to advance sound China policy and stimulate a nuanced and informed public discourse about China's rise — wouldn't that be nice — and its implications for Australia without taking any specific institutional view itself."

— Allan Gyngell [00:00:40.700 --> 00:02:24.700]

A parenthetical aside in Allan's introduction of Linda, and the only moment in the episode where he editorialises. "Wouldn't that be nice" is wry self-deprecation — he is describing a goal while signalling its distance from the current reality. Consistent with his "bumper sticker nature" frustration from Ep072. The aside is brief but it tells the listener everything about his assessment of the public discourse environment he is working within.

Finlandisation — three lessons for Australia (Linda Jakobson)¶

"First, leadership matters. Deft leaders craft policy based on deep knowledge of the hegemon... In Australia, the very few senior officials, I should say public servants, with deep knowledge of China, have been sidelined in the policy deliberation processes. The intelligence and security establishment today drive the agenda when it comes to China, rather than function in a supportive role... The second lesson... is the need to not only secure the support of the population... the present Australian government is promoting a one-sided negative view of China, instead of a multi-thronged narrative about, as I like to say, the good, the bad, and the ugly... [Third,] this oppressive cloud created by Moscow led to undeniable rot in Finnish society."

— Linda Jakobson [00:05:52.700 --> 00:17:18.700]

The intellectual core of the episode. Jakobson's three-lesson framework is analytically useful and directly critical of current Australian policy. The first lesson (expertise sidelined by intelligence establishment) is a structural diagnosis consistent with Allan's own repeated concern about bumper-sticker commentary and the need for deep China knowledge. The second (public narrative) maps to the contrast Allan drew in Ep072 between having a China strategy (NZ) and not having one (Australia). The third (social rot) is the most original: sustained great-power pressure creates kowtowing, double-faced behaviour, and a culture of dishonesty — she has observed this in Australian business circles ("a fellow Board director has been asked to tone down his lecture because the event host suddenly heard that a new Consul General from the PRC has confirmed attendance"). Allan convenes this conversation; the content is consistent with his own positions and extends them.

"Xi wants to edit the book, not rewrite it" (Linda Jakobson)¶

"Xi wants to edit the book in parts quite substantially, but he is not planning to rewrite the book. China is not a status quo power, but it certainly is not a revolutionary one either."

— Linda Jakobson [00:22:43.880 --> 00:30:16.700]

Jakobson's formulation of a distinction that runs through the corpus's China discussions — and that Allan has approached with his own frameworks (three-prism analysis in Ep068; Rorty/realism in Ep070). "Edit not rewrite" is cleaner than most alternatives: it captures both the genuine revisionism (substantial edits) and the limits of it (not overturning the order). The book metaphor implies that the existing international order is the text — Beijing wants authorial influence, not a clean sheet. Jakobson adds: Xi wants the PRC to be the leading innovative, scientific, and technological power; wants standards-setting in emerging technologies; wants to dominate international institutions from within. None of this requires destroying the existing order.

The governing elite — astonishingly small (Linda Jakobson)¶

"The Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party has 203 full members and 164 alternate members. So that's 367 people who are basically the individuals who quote unquote run China. Now, above the Central Committee is the Politburo. It has 25 members. And then you have the Standing Committee of the Politburo, which only has 7 members, all of them men."

— Linda Jakobson [00:48:41.270 --> 00:56:01.270]

Jakobson's response to Darren's "couple of hundred families, a few thousand people" prompt — she confirms the scale is approximately right. The additional finding is that 13 of the 25 Politburo members have no government portfolio at all — they are pure party figures invisible to state-to-state diplomatic engagement. "This blew my mind," she says of discovering this at SIPRI. The implication for Australian policy is direct: the people who matter most in Chinese decision-making are the ones who never appear in bilateral diplomatic interactions. China literacy means knowing who those 13 are, not just the ministers.

Biographical Fragments¶

Allan sits on the China Matters board — first explicit disclosure¶

Evidence: Ep073 [00:00:40.700]. Directly stated — "full disclosure, I also sit on the Board of Directors." Confidence: High.

In introducing Linda Jakobson, Allan makes an explicit board membership disclosure. This is the first time in the corpus this role is directly named. China Matters was founded by Jakobson in 2015; she was CEO until 2019. Allan's board membership is consistent with his post-ONA AIIA role — he sits on the governing bodies of Australia's leading foreign policy institutions. The disclosure is made with appropriate transparency ("full disclosure") but the detail is new: he is not just an observer of or commentator on China matters; he is formally associated with the institution charged with advancing nuanced China policy in Australia.

Fear of Abandonment applied critically by a third-party expert¶

Evidence: Ep073 [00:05:52.700 → 00:17:18.700]. Linda Jakobson, directly addressed to Allan. Confidence: High (third-party, unprompted, specific).

Jakobson applies Fear of Abandonment not as academic citation but as a live explanatory tool: the fear "still haunts Australians and leads to unhealthy manifestations" in how Canberra officials deal with Washington. This is the most direct third-party confirmation in the corpus of the book's real-world currency among practitioners. Jakobson adds her own observational evidence: she has heard Australian officials privately invoking "constant pressure from the Americans" on various issues. The book's thesis is being confirmed by someone who has observed Australian political culture from the outside — a "foreign anthropologist," as Allan introduces her — across ten years.

Style and Method Evidence¶

Restrained interviewer: Allan's questions are short and frame-setting; he allows Jakobson's analysis to develop at length without interruption or challenge. Compare Ep068 (Kassam interview) where he was more assertive in directing the conversation.
Board membership as network evidence: Allan's China Matters board seat adds a new institutional connection to the portrait — alongside AIIA National Presidency and ANU Honorary Professorship, he is a founding-era associate of Australia's dedicated China policy institute.
"Wouldn't that be nice": The aside is a precise signal — he agrees with the goal, is sceptical of current conditions. One clause; no elaboration needed.
Silence after the "fear of abandonment" reference: Allan does not respond when Jakobson applies his book's concept to Australian-American kowtowing. The silence may be editorial (he chose not to interrupt) or the transcript may not capture a response. Either way, the moment is structurally significant: his framework is being used critically in front of him.

Open Questions¶

Part 2: The episode closes with a promise of Part 2 "very soon" — focusing on Australia-China relations. Does Part 2 (presumably Ep074) draw out more Allan analysis, given the topic is closer to his core corpus preoccupations?
China Matters board: When did Allan join the board? Does this institutional role appear again in the corpus?
Jakobson's critique of intelligence dominance: Her observation that "the intelligence and security establishment today drive the agenda when it comes to China, rather than function in a supportive role" is consistent with Allan's own ONA experience (where assessment served policy, not drove it). Does Allan ever directly address this structural problem himself?
"Fear of abandonment" and the US: Jakobson applies the book's thesis bilaterally — fear of abandonment by the US produces unhealthy behaviour toward Washington just as Chinese pressure produces kowtowing toward Beijing. Does Allan ever explicitly acknowledge or apply this bilateral version of his own concept?