Meet the most important voice in Australian foreign policy

Penny Wong, Australia’s foreign minister, prefers to talk about her job, not herself. Asked what it was like to be in Washington on January 20th, listening to Donald Trump’s inaugural polemic against “woke” politics, the first gay person and first Asian-Australian to hold the office answers by drawing on a different identity. “I’m a parliamentarian,” she says, “so the peaceful transfer of power in the world’s superpower was quite a moving event.”

Ms Wong’s answer reveals a political savvy and quick wit that have made her the most popular minister in Australia’s Labor government, re-elected in a thumping of the opposition in May’s general election, and the most consequential Australian foreign minister in a generation. Anthony Albanese, the prime minister, has little interest in questions of geopolitics, leaving them to Ms Wong and Richard Marles, the defence minister. But Ms Wong’s popularity and reputation for mastering her brief means that hers is the most important voice on the big strategic questions.

When Labor returned to office in 2022, Ms Wong inherited a mess. The previous government, a conservative coalition, had turned sharply against China, which in turn had stopped buying Australian commodities or taking its ministers’ phone calls. More worryingly, China had signed a security agreement with the Solomon Islands on Australia’s northern approaches and was looking to rack up more deals with other island states wary of the previous government’s refusal to take climate change seriously. The announcement in 2021 of the AUKUS submarine-building pact surprised South-East Asia, which reacted with suspicion.

So the dramatic improvement in relations with the rest of the region has been Ms Wong’s big achievement. But what is impressive is that it has been accomplished mainly through her personal diplomacy, without any underlying change in policy. A gruelling travel schedule in her first year on the job took Ms Wong to 18 Pacific Island states and every country in South-East Asia but Myanmar. China has slowly lifted all trade restrictions imposed under the previous government, but Australia has continued to work closely with America to constrain China’s regional ambitions. AUKUS remains on the books.

A big part of this has been the rapport with her counterparts in Asia. Ms Wong was born in Malaysia to an ethnic Chinese father and an Australian mother, and lived on the island of Borneo until eight years old. She has begun to talk about this heritage more now, she says, because she wants Asia to see the multicultural society that Australia has become. She was only the second Asian-Australian elected to parliament in 2001. But, she points out, there are now more than a dozen serving. Nor has her sexual identity been a hindrance. One minister from a conservative Muslim country regularly asks after her wife.

Ms Wong’s diplomatic skills will be put to the test in her second term. Australia faces a more difficult international situation than during Labor’s first three years in office. China continues to bully its neighbours. But now the Pentagon is demanding that Australia sharply increase defence spending, and asking it to commit in advance to fighting alongside America were it to fight China over Taiwan. Many Australians regard this as an affront to their sovereignty. AUKUS hangs in the balance.

Critics say that Ms Wong has not done enough to preserve the alliance with America. She has met Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, twice, but otherwise the government seems to be keeping the Trump administration at arms’ length. In a speech on July 10th in Kuala Lumpur, she highlighted Australia’s differences with America on trade. Asked whether she fears such talk might lead to a backlash, Ms Wong shrugs. “I think we have to be who we are.” ■