Former trade minister Andrew Robb has lamented more Australians care about an AFL match in Shanghai than the major Chinese infrastructure summit in Beijing, meaning the country could be missing out on opportunities.
Mr Robb is in Beijing for the Chinese government's One Belt One Road forum, which detailed plans for a building bonanza across Asia, Eurasia, Africa, the Middle East and Europe.
His successor Steve Ciobo also attended the summit but is more cautious about China's infrastructure scheme, which aims to boost trade, economic growth and cut transit time for goods.
Mr Ciobo on Sunday said the government's plans to develop northern Australia and One Belt One Road initiative complement each other, but emphasised they were clearly "separate" ventures.
There are $US1.3 trillion ($A1.8 trillion) worth of projects already initiated under One Belt One Road, yet the scheme is little known in Australia.
Mr Robb warned after 26 years of uninterrupted economic growth Australia was in danger of becoming "complacent".
"Since we got the free trade agreement with China in place people thought 'job's done'," he told reporters in Beijing.
"We've got to use it and the government has got to pay attention to the opportunities."
He lamented more people in Australia knew about the AFL game in Shanghai over the weekend than what was happening in Beijing at the forum.
"I find in Australia 99 per cent of people have no clue what you're talking about if you say Belt and Road, and then I spend my time in the region and that's all they talk about, even New Zealand," Mr Robb told reporters in Beijing.
The Kiwis signed up to be a part of the scheme during Chinese Premier Li Keqiang's official visit in March, but Australia held out during his visit.
Mr Robb doesn't understand why.
"It was a fairly inoffensive document," he said, adding it was just an in principle agreement to work together as part of the program.
He's frustrated by the "endless debates in Australia about who the good guys are and the bad guys are".
"Anything to do with China in particular we seem to in the first instance to follow America's instincts and then we start to think for ourselves... We might change our minds," he said.
Since retiring from politics at the last election, Mr Robb has become an economic consultant advising on investment in Asia including for the Chinese company Landbridge Group, which controversially took on a 99-year lease of Darwin's port.
* Lisa Martin travelled to the One Belt, One Road Forum as a guest of the Chinese embassy in Canberra.
Share
