Malcolm Turnbull’s behaviour towards Beijing over the past nine months has been foolish, amateurish and potentially dangerous. Yet the spectacle of his grovelling mea culpa to Beijing in his speech on the China relationship at the University of NSW this week may well make matters worse. If the stakes weren’t so high, it would almost be comical. But what Turnbull’s China fiasco reveals most of all is how flawed his judgement can be on major matters of state which deeply affect the national interest.

So what actually happened? After then Labor senator Sam Dastyari fouled up badly towards the end of last year over conflicts of interest on his statements on the South China Sea, Turnbull came up with what he thought to be a seriously cunning plan. Languishing in the polls against Labor ever since the 2016 elections, Turnbull thought he could use the Dastyari affair to skewer Labor as a bunch of pro-pinko, “soft on China” Beijing appeasers.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull with Chinese consul-general Gu Xiaojie and ambassador Jingye Cheng at UNSW on Tuesday. Credit:AAP

That’s when Turnbull launched his “anti-foreign interference” campaign which he targeted explicitly at Labor, the Australian Chinese community and the Chinese state - implying all three were somehow umbilically linked. He saw this as a great opportunity to achieve political mastery over Opposition Leader Bill Shorten, as well as shore up what was at that time his own shaky internal position within the Liberal Party. It was an opportunity to look seriously tough against what he hoped would be a vacillating Shorten. It failed spectacularly on multiple fronts.

Then to “cut through” the media clutter, Turnbull delivered his infamous national call to arms against the Chinese state by proclaiming, in his own appalling Chinese, that “the Australian people have now stood up”. I was in Beijing at the time speaking at an Australia China Chamber of Commerce dinner. The Chinese officials to whom I spoke during that visit had no idea what Turnbull was on about.