Inside Keating’s Private Push To Steer Albanese On China And Trump

SYDNEY — Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese listens not only to his advisers, or Foreign Minister Penny Wong, when it comes to Australian foreign policy. Increasingly, he makes a call to former Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating.

This is one of the intriguing revelations in my new book, "Grand Ambition: Paul Keating’s Global Vision for Australia."

It shows that after Labor’s 2025 landslide reelection, a more confident Albanese wanted to hear more of what the former prime minister had to say.

That’s not only because Keating’s critique of the government in its first term had stung — he described AUKUS support as the worst Labor government foreign policy decision in a century — but because Albanese had upcoming meetings with China’s President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump.

How to handle these two great powers? Albanese wanted another view beyond what the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet was sending to his office. The need became more acute as the second Trump administration, which was applying the blow torch to its European allies to increase defense spending, put pressure on Australia to do the same with respect to China.

Keating bristled, telling Albanese privately that he was now “sitting between two sharks," those being "the China threat brigade on the one hand and the Americans on the other.”

Before Albanese headed to China for a six-day visit in July 2025, Keating met for several hours with him at Kirribilli House, the prime minister’s Sydney residence.

The former leader took a briefing note with him to hand over to Albanese, replete with talking points that Albanese could use with Xi, highlighting the key points in yellow.

In Keating's telling, Albanese asked, “Paul this is terrific, but what should I do with it?"

Keating said: “Anthony, I’ll tell you what you do with it, you fold it up a few times and pop it into your left breast pocket, so that you have access to it when you might need it.”

POLITICO offered Albanese the opportunity to describe his version of the exchange. “We don’t discuss private conversations,” said a spokesperson for the prime minister.

The essence of Keating’s briefing was that Albanese had to break free from the mantra of “stabilization,” which, in its assumption of perpetual Australian frailty in the face of Beijing, Keating believed to be a straitjacket on improving the relationship.

Keating’s key points were that Australia and China had no historical conflicts, which brought with it a responsibility to work together and find common problems; that moving from "stabilization" to "engagement" means greater foreign investment by China into Australia; that Canberra should back China’s membership of the upgraded Trans-Pacific Partnership; that the two countries establish a joint commission on energy and climate cooperation; and that Albanese tell the Chinese Australia will not “automatically dovetail in with the U.S. in the event of a war over Taiwan.”

Keating told Albanese he did not think the Australian people will support involvement in any conflict. The point, Keating said as he left the meeting that day, was that Australia was at a pivotal moment.

“Thirty years ago,” he told Albanese, “the Americans could have their aircraft carriers off the Chinese coast and we could deal with both the U.S. and China. [former Prime Minister John] Howard could. I could. But we have reached a fork in the road.”

Albanese reported to Keating on his return from China that Xi had offered significant goodwill, leading Keating to reply by text that China’s “gravitational pull is only going to get stronger.”

Keating said he was trying to edge a cautious Albanese closer to a new arrangement with China, irrespective of what Washington might think about it.

Keating reinforced this message ahead of the prime minister’s meeting with Trump in Washington in Oct. 2025.

Albanese’s struggles to gain an audience with the president had become a media fixation in Australia, dogging the prime minister in press conferences.

Lost in that commotion was the advantage in escaping Trump’s attention while adjusting Australian policies to the new world Trump was introducing.

Keating got Albanese’s attention en route to the long-awaited encounter, during a stop by Albanese’s party in the Western Pacific.

Keating’s message was blunter this time. “If Australia was not hosting U.S. military assets,” he wrote in a text to the prime minister, “including nuclear-armed ones, Australia would not have an enemy in the world, including China. By our free will, by hosting U.S. bases, we have become the southern flank of the US in the Pacific, marrying off with the Philippines, Japan and South Korea.”

The text message finished with a brutal assessment about how America handled the period from 2020 to 2024 when China was economically coercing Australia: “When China in dispute with [former Prime Minister Malcolm] Turnbull and [former Prime Minister Scott] Morrison banned the purchase of Australian soybeans, America took China’s side by selling American beef in displacement of Australia’s. Not a bit of trade support for Australia. The reverse. America actually sold us out.”

James Curran is Professor of Modern History at Sydney University and the author of "Grand Ambition: Paul Keating’s Global Vision for Australia," forthcoming from Simon & Schuster, Sept. 1.