Australia has always believed that it doesn’t have to choose between its economic relationship with China and its defense alliance with the United States. But 2018 is already shaping up to be the year of the hard choice.
It would be convenient for Australia if it was able to maintain its balancing act, but a confluence of global factors has stripped away the fiction that it can separate the economic benefits it gets from China and its post-World War II position as one of America’s closest strategic allies.
There is a lot at stake, including potentially Australia’s ongoing prosperity.
China is clearly not happy with Australia’s adherence to the US alliance and if it follows through on veiled threats to boycott Australian exports and limit investment, Canberra’s loyalty to Washington could come at the expense of significant economic pain.
China’s hawkish Global Times newspaper, widely viewed as a mouthpiece for the ruling Communist Party, spared no niceties in an op-ed last week that warned Australia against “interference” in the South China Sea (SCS) territorial disputes.
Australia was “kissing up” to the US and risked “poisoning” its relations with China, which could “adopt strong countermeasures which will seriously impact Australian economic development.” Australia hasn’t taken a position on SCS spats, but has said it favors “freedom of navigation” in the area, echoing the US’ position.
China is Australia’s biggest trading partner, taking around a third of Australia’s exports. The two countries signed a free trade agreement (FTA) which came into effect at the end of 2015 and two-way trade now exceeds US$110 billion a year.
Chinese students comprise 38% of foreign students in Australia and prop up the university sector with their fees, bringing in US$18 billion per year.
The number of Chinese tourists is also booming. In 2005, 4.9% of foreign visitors to Australia were Chinese, a number which had risen to 13% by 2016. Chinese investors are key players in commercial and residential property markets, and are major investors in sectors such as agriculture and mining.
So when Australia congratulates itself on avoiding a recession for the last 30 years, it owes a major vote of thanks to China.
Despite this, Australia’s position on China is often schizophrenic. While the business and financial community continue to see China as Australia’s future, the defense and intelligence establishment in Canberra take a different view.
They see China as manipulating its global networks, including via the Chinese diaspora in Australia, in support of its global ambitions which are at odds with Australia’s traditional alliance with the US.
From these agencies comes innuendo about Chinese “interference” in Australia, a country which has for years hosted one of the most significant US surveillance facilities at Pine Gap in the Northern Territory.
A recent ban imposed on foreign donations to Australian political parties was squarely aimed at China, and friendships with Chinese donors cost a rising star of the opposition Labor Party, Sam Dasyari, his job in December.
Driven by fear of espionage and cyber-intelligence, successive Australian governments have blocked Chinese telecommunication giant Huawei from participating in the rollout of the country’s National Broadband Network.
In December, Canberra was also poised to kill a deal for Huawei Marine Networks to lay a 4,000-kilometer submarine cable from Sydney to the Solomon Islands.
Even Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who as Communications Minister was expected to overturn the Huawei ban, referred to China as a “frenemy” in comments at a public dinner last year.
Such paranoia about Chinese telecommunication companies does not extend to New Zealand, where Huawei has been a big player in new national infrastructure or in the United Kingdom, where the company is a big player in rolling out 4G wireless networks and fixed rural phone connections.
Meanwhile, Australia has spent more than US$10 billion on weapons and military equipment from the US in the last four years, according to a recent Australian National Audit Office analysis.
With Australia set to spend around US$150 billion on defense in the next decade, with big outlays earmarked to build a next generation navy and air force, that figure can be expected to rise as it further integrates into the US military supply chain with projects like the J-35 Strike Fighter.
American foreign policy, however, is fast changing under US President Donald Trump. As the US appears to shrink from the region, including through its withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact, it is creating a vacuum which poses a major dilemma for Australia.
Does Australia fill that vacuum as a local enforcer of the US alliance and forge stronger alliances with other countries such as Japan and South Korea to counterbalance Chinese influence? Or does it accept China’s increased power in the world and recalibrate 70 years of foreign policy accordingly?
The fragmentation of late 20th century geopolitics is reconfiguring the world, and as a mid-ranking nation Australia is yet to find its new place.
Perhaps the only upside to this dilemma is that the US appears to be moving away from any direct confrontation with China in the Pacific as Trump looks to forge alliances against North Korea.
If US-China tensions are heightened, including by allegations that China is not acting genuine in its stated intention to isolate North Korea, it would quickly bring the polarity of Australian policy into sharp focus.
The inconsistencies and contradictions, including in strategic areas, are already apparent. While Huawei is banned from major national infrastructure contracts, its handsets have been approved for use by top defense officials and diplomats, and several thousand have been distributed.
When a Chinese company, Landbridge Group, secured a 99-year lease on the strategic Port of Darwin in 2015, top US defense officials said they were “stunned” by the decision. Critics at the time contended it gave China a “front row seat” to spy on joint US-Australian naval operations.
Australian universities have received government grants to work on collaborative research with Chinese companies on technologies which could have military applications. The University of Adelaide, for example, is working with the Beijing Institute of Aeronautical Materials, a company which is a part of the Aviation Industry Corporation of China.
All of this shows that Australia’s new hardline on China is and will inevitably be compromised by burgeoning economic relations. While the economic threats from China may simply be posturing at a tense juncture, they have called out and exposed the unresolved contradiction at the heart of Australia’s 21st century identity.
DRAGONS INSTEAD Of stars bring Chinese Tourists to the door of Hotels and Restaurants
http://www.feellikehome.cn
“Feel Like Home” is the world’s first website aiming exclusively Chinese travelers, helping hospitality professionals (hotels, restaurants etc) throughout the world, to make the necessary changes to their businesses to adapt to Chinese customers, making their experience in a foreign country as pleasant as possible.
For that reason, ““Feel Like Home”” implements the “Five Dragon” Rating System, based on the scale of five Dragon, certifying their degree of adaptation to the needs of Chinese travelers.
The rating starts with one Dragon, where the hospitality company (hotels, restaurants etc) website is translated into Chinese and hosted on the FLH website at the same time taking the FLH Accredited stamp and last up to five Dragons, where the company should have an employee who is fluent in the Chinese language.
Professionals of tourism, depending on the size and nature of their business, pay a small fee to enroll as members and an annual subscription fee to get their website translate into Chinese and get posted on the FLH platform (www.feellikehome.cn), obtaining their first and the Dragon, and paving the way for the company to a market of 120 million Chinese travelers per year.
More than 150 hospitality companies all over the world have applied and are in the process of evaluation and certification to receive the seal of Feel Like Home and join the network of FLH Accredited.
http://www.feellikehome.cn
China is not the Communist Party of China.
As the pary’s founder said ‘Power comes from the barrel of a gun’, indeed the Communist party dictatorship is still forcing the Chinese people, with guns, with interrogation, with detention, with surveillance, and with strict censorship.
Originally, Chinese working people came to Australia, and many other places, to seek work and send some money home.
Now, the Chinese Communist party, sees in Australia, cheap, close raw materials, and Australia sells these for a modest profit in a mutally benefitting relationship.
Australia has played a role in Asia, keeping peace and keeping cordial relations with all who do not want war and territorial takeovers.
Now the Chinese Communist party, is behaving aggressively, with offensive military build ups in the South Sea Islands, and with the supply of its puppet state NK, with UN banned materials.
What is the choice for Australia? Continue as the Asian good guy, or side with a spying, aggressive, dictatorship neighbour who tries to intimidate all of Asia?
You tell me.
Just as China is a case study of a paranoid imperial state, intoxicated with its recent successes, newly bellicose and crying out to have its corporate ego deflated. Just like Qin China in the 19th century that despised all foreign devils as inferiors and had to subsequently suffer its "century of humuliation" to come to the realisation that its traditional sense of self-importance was grossly misplaced.
In the end the Australians will move closer to the Middle Kingdom——-BUT it will sound like the gnashing of wild dogs. If the Australians are wise this will not happen BUT sadly the Politicial leadership is weak following in the footsteps of mother England!!
The truth is that Australian media are dominated by USA with American politicians regularly posting misleadging propaganda articles. It can be observed repeatedly that Australian politicians make decisions that favour in USA at the expense of Australia and are traitors. The amount of money thrown away purchasing F35 planes, submarines, etc.can be put to better use providing services to Australians instead.
Hmmmmmmm lets see now. Australia is occupied by the US Military not the Chinese Military. And what does Australia get from the US? A huge bill for weapons it does not need. it also makes itself a target if hostilities break out between Russia, China and the USA. What does it get from China? A major trading partner. A country that invests in Australia. Foreign sttudents.( Chinese students that are the financila life blood of Australia`s universities.) And on and on.
For Australians the choice should be a no brainer. The US is draining the Australian treasury, China is buttering it`s bread."don`t bite the hand that feeds you" is an old axiom that needs repeating in Australia.
Sadly Australia has an inferiority complex.
We sent our young men to their deaths in WWI and WWII, to appease our British masters. Even when Britain refused to allow Australian troops to return to Australia, to defend Australia, we still meekly followed orders.
After WWII Britain basically gifted Australia to the USA, and since then have been loyal servants to our American masters.
In my lifetime only 2 Australian politicians have dared to criticize the USA, both had their political careers destroyed.
If Australia ever does become the master of its own destiny, it won’t come about because of leadership from the 2 major political parties, that are effectively controlled by the USA.
Poor fellow my country.
When the West does it they call it free trade, freedom of expression, etc, when China does it they call it interference and agressive behavior, the hypocrisy stinks.
Hard choice between greed and fear.. Nothing that hypocrisy can’t sooth over.
Thomas Daniel Kuhn What gives you the absurdly stupid impression that this country is "occupied" by the US military? It might astonish you to learn that this country’s alliance with the US is entirely VOLUNTARY. The Americans are not draining our treasury since we buy the weaponary that best suits the needs of our military from whoever can supply what we need at best price – like the contract our government recently entered into with a French corporation (not an American one) for our next generation of submarines; and they replace the current generation of Swedish designed Collins class subs.
Yes, I agree that China has proven to be an overseas trading partner for Australia several times better than the USA. If we were the sort of country willing to sell our allegance to the highest bidder then by now we should be a staunch ally of the PRC instead of the United States. The fact that we are not is because China never thinks in terms of respect for equal soverignty but has a long tradition of subdiving the World into the Middle Kingdom and the foreign barbarians: we like all others who are not Chinese are of course numbered among the latter. I cannot see a power like that ever giving my country a better deal than the United States does already..
Dealing with a country’s leadership that is not democratically elected by the populace, which represses freedoms and increasingly pressures other countries to forego its values for the sake of the holy dollar must be treated with great caution, especially when you have an understanding of communist doctrine which in short has no respect for us, our freedoms or values, in fact they totally reject what we represent or think. That’s totally dangerous and anyone who thinks otherwise is a fool.
Allan Jeffreys I can only suggest that you have no u der standing of history and the potential consequences of not participating in WW1 & 2. For example, if the Brits had lost they would have had to forego their empire, which obviously included us. Luckily our boys played a number of critical roles to prevent that happening under the leadership of Monash and Chauvel (Maybe look it up!!) Re WW2 if the Italians or Germans had taken control of the Suez Canal we’d be in mega strife and once again the boys of the 6-9th divisions played major roles in preventing that occurring. Back in PNG, once again it was our guys with US support that’s staved off the initial major onslaught of the Japanese while the US built up its forces. Sadly people either are tvOS taught history or pretend to know it. Communist countries such as mainland China gave Nov true respect for our values and are contemptuous of our freedoms. In finishing I do agree that Oz needs to toughen up for if we don’t our freedoms will be incrementally taken away from us for the sake of the holy dollar. I’d prefer to be poor and free in comparison to being compromised and subjected by a communist state.
James Greaves Whoa boy you will dance to our tune or else,we own you like Canada even England to a certain extent, lock stock and barrel and don’t be getting uppity and forgetting your place for your government was bought and paid for long ago and that’s not due to change…
Yes off course but in india, due to discernment india cow drinkers
Also khalistan will want sikh rules you know little baby!!!
So you wanna try and play the race card… You Chinese should take an honest look at your own racism and bigotry before you go around trying to cook up racial conspiracies about whites. The PRC is the world’s biggest practitioner of state-sponsored racism with its genocidal policies against Tibet and the Uyghurs in East Turkistan. China won’t stop until Tibetan and Uyghur people are minorities in their own lands and their culture destroyed. And now Chinese media regularly spews racism and bigotry against the Indians… And people like you want to act like you really care about racism???
Reminds me of an old photo of a sign i saw one time that reads "no chinese and dogs allowed". Also reminds me of the Chinese Exclusion Act enacted by USA in the early 1900s…so…are we back to being racist and anti Chinese?
You’re right. Whites always want to dictate the kind of friends we must make. Any time they see china trying to forge partnership they become suspicious. So shouldn’t china make friends?
Australia, and others face difficult times ahead and since I am a US observer I will not presume to tell you what to do.
The USA is facing the consequences naturally stemming from at least 40 years of totally absurd economic and political choices, and for many years to come will be more and more erratically governed. China seems to play a long game, and may be around long after the USA have disintegrated.