China Central? Australia's Asia Strategy

Abstract

From Australia's perspective, and in spite of the global economic crisis, an increasingly strong China will remain the dominant theme in Asia's evolving distribution of power. Australia has benefited from the prosperity which is the foundation of China's rise. But it continues to value the reassurance that a strong United States can bring to Asia. This favourable status quo seems superior to the alternatives: a cooperative Asian community which may be more aspirational than practicable; an Asian concert which requires an unlikely sharing of leadership between the great powers; or a coalition of Asian democracies which could be especially divisive. But as this comfortable status quo is strained, Australia may need to consider geopolitical options which until now have appeared fanciful and risky.

Notes

¹Bull, “The Whitlam Government's Perception”, 40.

²K. Rudd. “The First National Security Statement to the Australian Parliament”, 4 December 2008. http://www.pm.gov.au/media/speech/2008/speech_0659.cfm

³Bull, “The Whitlam Government's Perception”, 40–41.

⁴White, “The Limits to Optimism”, 478.

⁵ Ibid.

⁶See Goldstein, Rising to the Challenge.

⁷See Zhang, Building ‘a harmonious world’?, 4.

⁸Quoted in Macmillan, Nixon and Mao, 343.

⁹Kang, China Rising.

¹⁰Raja Mohan, Crossing the Rubicon.

¹¹A. Thomas, “The Peaceful Rise of China: What Does it Mean for Australia and the Region?”, Speech to the Asia-Link Centre, 27 July 2004.

¹²McDowall, Howard's Long March.

¹³“Swan OKs China's Rio Tinto stake”, The Australian, 25 August 2008. For the argument that Australia's resource sales to China is in fact a source of leverage for Canberra, see Wesley, “Australia-China”, 77.

¹⁴Ayson and Taylor, “Carrying China's Torch”, 9.

¹⁵K. Rudd “Address to the RSL National Congress”, Townsville, Australia, 9 September 2008.

¹⁶ Ibid.

¹⁷On this dual tendency, see Sheridan, “No pandering to China”.

¹⁸Quoted in McDowall, Howard's Long March, 46.

¹⁹On Australia's need to “change America's mind” on China, see White, “The Limits to Optimism”, 478.

²⁰Australian Department of Defence, Australia's National Security, 19.

²¹Taylor, “Multilateral Misperceptions?”.

²²Mochizuki, “Dealing with a Rising China”, 230–1.

²³ASEAN consists of the ten countries of Southeast Asia: Brunei, Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, all of whom are participants in each one of these other initiatives. The ARF includes the ASEAN ten and the same number of dialogue partners, Australia, Canada, China, the European Union, India, Japan, New Zealand, Russia, South Korea and the United States, as well as Papua New Guinea (which is an ASEAN observer), East Timor (expected soon to be a full ASEAN member), Bangladesh, Mongolia, North Korea, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The East Asian Summit includes the ten ASEAN countries and Australia, China, Japan, India, New Zealand and South Korea. ASEAN+3 comprises the ten ASEAN countries plus the three largest North Asian countries, China, Japan and South Korea.

²⁴P. Bowring, “Neglecting East Asia”, International Herald Tribune, 3 August 2007.

²⁵S. Smith, “Australia, ASEAN and the Asia-Pacific”, Speech to the Lowy Institute for International Policy, Sydney, Australia, 18 July 2008.

²⁶See Bull, “Introduction: Towards a New International Order”, xvii.

²⁷K. Rudd, “The Three Pillars: Our alliance with the US, Our membership of the UN, and Comprehensive engagement with Asia”: A Foreign Policy Statement by the Australian Labor Party, October 2004, 66.

²⁸For a very readable recent study which challenges the extent, or at least the longevity, of even that European concert, see Zamoyski, Rites of Peace.

²⁹See White, “The limits to optimism”, 475.

³⁰For perhaps the best treatment of Australia's options in a changing Asian strategic balance, albeit from the early 1970s, see Bull, “Options for Australia”.

³¹ Quoted in Strahan, Australia's China, 161.