What is the significance of trade in australias relations with china

By Ian Hill. By Michael Fullilove. By Sam Roggeveen. Of all fields of scholarly pursuit, politics is comparatively ill-suited to the processes of the scientific method. Political systems and policies cannot exactly be isolated in a laboratory. By Elliott Zaagman. Originally published in The Guardian. By Natasha Kassam , Mark Harrison.

By Roland Rajah. Australia is failing to recognise an urgent need: recruiting more Chinese-Australians into public service Originally published in The Conversation. By Yun Jiang. Chinese-Australians in the Australian Public Service Underutilised in the Australian Public Service, Chinese-Australians are central to our China literacy and future engagement with the rising global superpower. Economic diplomacy: Global tax, education exports and Team Australia Tax and spend US President Joe Biden may be grabbing the global headlines by boosting world growth with his big spending and international security with his telephone diplomacy.

By Greg Earl. By Bates Gill. By Jennifer Hsu. By Richard McGregor. Australia's relationship with China can survive — but it won't be the same again There can be no return to the relations of the past. The question for is how to find a new settling point. By Natasha Kassam. There needs to be less conflict and more statecraft. Originally published in the Australian Financial Review. China China-Australia Relations.

China cannot have it both ways on trade Beijing's tactic of using trade as a political stick against Australia will not impress the rest of the world. By Lydia Khalil. Australia's Security and the Rules-Based Order: Tracking a Decade of Policy Evolution In this feature, we identify ten recurring propositions about the rules-based order and show it's evolution through national debate and government policy. Explore how the rules-based order has developed over time and in meaning with experts offering inside commentary along the way.

Scott Morrison must balance our role between great powers Originally published in The Australian. By Alan Dupont. The Chinese market for more complex goods and services will expand in two ways. First, rising wages and consumer demand will increase demand for more sophisticated manufactured goods where Australia has some niches of excellence, for example, in medical devices and for services such as tourism where China is already an important market.

Second, as China moves production to more sophisticated goods and services, it will require high quality human resources, well-developed infrastructure, a well-developed financial sector and a good regulatory system. Australia has the expertise to help to develop these. Already, China is the biggest market for Australian education services. Australia's financial sector is well regarded internationally for its efficiency and effectiveness, and its banks are among the most sound and stable in the world.

This expertise in government and services can be exported. Indeed, Australian banks are already operating in China and Australian experts have advised in a range of areas, for example, in urban development and health financing. The development of manufacturing in Asia has been a major reason for Australia's failure to compete in many areas of manufacturing.

As China moves up the value chain, more industries will be subjected to this competition. This may be ameliorated by a shift in the focus of the Chinese economy away from exporting to domestic consumption.

Australia has niches where it can compete with the best in the world. It will be important to retain what lead it has in education and in the sophistication of the workforce. Australia relies heavily on foreign investment. On the other hand, there is evidence that Chinese businesses are keen to invest in Australia, particularly in infrastructure projects. Australian businesses have benefited from low interest rates worldwide which have been driven by the large amount of Chinese savings available for lending, both directly to Australia, but also internationally.

Following the meeting with the Chinese President, some observers suggested that the problems affecting Sino-Australian relations had been overcome. Certainly, the meeting between the two leaders, together with other contacts at ministerial and official level during the final months of , helped reduce misunderstandings which had developed in Beijing about the direction of Australian policy.

The whole affair, however, underscored the inherently touchy nature of the relationship with China. Despite the apparent passing of tensions, Australia's relations with China will continue to have potential for friction for many years into the future. This paper outlines the recent problems in Sino-Australian relations and the light they shed on the challenges which confront Australian policymakers.

It provides a background against which to understand the development of Australia-China relations and discusses the nature of sensitivities in the relationship in the context of China's relations with the United States and the country's recent economic growth and political problems.

Australia's relations with China and Chinese at a non-government level have been controversial for most of Australia's European history. Anti-Chinese feeling, occasionally erupting into violence, was a feature of Australian goldfields from the s and a desire to prevent Chinese immigration was one of the first motivations for the White Australia policy instituted after Federation in At an official level, Australia-China relations were, from their foundation during WWII until recently, dominated by the concerns of wider strategic relationships.

In , China under the Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek became one of the first countries with which Australia established independent diplomatic relations.

This relationship was established in the context of China's struggle against Japan rather than because of any significant commercial or political links between the two countries. It was not until , however, that Prime Minister Harold Holt sent an ambassador to Taiwan to seal Australia's recognition of the Chiang Kai-shek regime as the sole legitimate government of China. By that time the question of the recognition of China had become a major political controversy in Australia and became linked to the issue of the Vietnam War and perceptions of China as a threat to Australia's security and sponsor of communist subversion throughout Southeast Asia.

Despite hostile political relations, Australia nevertheless continued to trade with mainland China, especially with major sales of wheat. The situation changed dramatically at the beginning of the s with the change of government in Australia and changes in US policies on China.

One of the first acts of the newly-elected Labor Government in was to recognise the PRC as the sole government of China. This laid the foundations for rapid growth of diplomatic, cultural and economic links between Australia and China under both the Whitlam and Fraser Governments.

These developments were facilitated by China's efforts to strengthen its ties with the West as a whole, firstly to find allies against the Soviet Union and, following policy changes in , to boost China's economic growth by opening up to the world economy. From the early s Australia's dealings with China began to move away from a preoccupation with global strategic issues and to concentrate on regional issues and bilateral economic links. In political terms, the 'special relationship' which Prime Minister Hawke considered had developed between Australia and China came to an abrupt end, however, with the violent suppression of the pro-democracy movement in Beijing in June Concerns about human rights abuses in China ensured that diplomatic relations between Australia and China were frosty for over a year, including a ban on ministerial visits until early Nevertheless, the importance of the commercial links which had grown up between Australia and China in the preceding decade meant that there was little possibility of relations returning to the kind of enmity and suspicion which had characterised the pre period.

Trade and investment between the two countries were unaffected, and the Australian Government emphasised that Australia 'remain[ed] committed to a long-term cooperative relationship with China'. The focus of the Keating Government on deepening links with the countries of Asia meant that particular attention was given to the relationship with China.

At the same time the government was sensitive to continuing domestic and international concerns about China's human rights record and emphasised that relations were maintained with a 'realistic, business-like approach' rather than with the ideas of a 'special relationship' which had marked the pre period. Prime Minister Keating conducted a successful visit to China in June , with an emphasis on trade and investment.

Following the election of the Howard Government in March , Australia-China relations encountered serious problems as the Chinese Government began to react to what it saw as change in the direction of Australian policy on China.

China had expressed concerned about Australia's increasing contacts with Taiwan during , but the problems reached a new level in The Chinese perception was fuelled by a number of actions by the Australian Government which Beijing interpreted as together forming a shift away from a previously supportive stance on China towards a position more closely tied with US interests and less friendly to China. The issues over which the misunderstandings developed were an indication of the sensitive nature of the Australia-China relationship and the degree to which the relationship is directly linked to the health of China's relations with the United States.

In March Taiwan held its first fully democratic presidential election. The Chinese Government, in an effort to reassert its continuing claim to sovereignty over Taiwan and to influence Taiwanese electors not to vote for pro-independence candidates, began a demonstrative series of missile tests in the Taiwan Straits.

In response, the US Government moved two aircraft carrier groups into the area to monitor the tests and to affirm its interest in the security of Taiwan.

One of the first foreign policy actions by the new Coalition Government after its election in March was to call in the Chinese Ambassador to express its concern about the mounting tensions between China and Taiwan. The new Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Alexander Downer, also welcomed the US decision to move warships into the Straits as a sign of US commitment to the security of the East Asian region, as 'demonstrating [US] interest in participating in regional security issues in a very practical way'.

Mr Downer's statement represented the strongest support of US actions by any government in the region. Chinese Government representatives did not make any particular public response to the position of the government, but subsequent events suggest that they took note of Australia's quick support for the US and began to look for further signs that policy in Canberra was changing with the new government, in particular that Australia was moving away from its 'one China' policy.

China began to register great sensitivity to Australian dealings with the government in Taipei. In July, the Mayors of Beijing and Shenzhen declined to attend an Asian cities' conference held in Brisbane in protest against the attendance of the Mayor of Taipei, Mr Chen Shui-bian, a leading figure in the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party. Mr Downer had issued a statement saying that the federal government had no objection to a visit by Mr Chen.

Funded as part of Australia's overseas aid program, the scheme had been controversial for some time and the government decided to abolish it as part of efforts to reduce budget expenditure.

The Chinese Ambassador said the move would:. The fact that the Chinese Government particularly objected to what it considered to be the peremptory nature of Australia's action was reiterated by a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation official, Mr Wang Che, who told an Australian radio journalist that:.

Thus the Chinese Government was concerned about loss of Australian economic assistance and considered that the manner in which the decision was carried out was a breach of international convention.

But it has also been suggested that the Chinese were particularly concerned that the cancellation of DIFF funding was part of a wider campaign by Western countries to restrict the flow of development assistance to China. Australia's cancellation of projects in China financed through soft loans may have strengthened fears in Beijing that Australian foreign policy was taking on a new pro-US and anti-China character.

Part of the foreign policy agenda of the new Coalition Government was to re-emphasise Australia's security relationship with the US. At the AUSMIN talks the two countries signed a new security declaration and agreed to expand the range of joint exercises, including regular participation by US personnel on Australian soil. Chinese reaction to the development came quickly and stridently, in the form of a commentary in the official People's Daily.

Making it clear that Beijing saw the developments in US-Australia relations as part of a policy shift by Australia, the People's Daily commented:. The author of the People's Daily commentary did reassure the Australian press that the main target of his criticism was the US, but said he feared Australia was 'being used by the United States' for Washington's strategic objectives. Using the metaphors beloved of Chinese commentary, the article compared Australia to a bat which gave its allegiance to the mammals when they triumphed, but showed its wings and declared itself a bird when the birds were victorious.

The final element in the friction in Australia's relations with China came with the visit of the Dalai Lama to Australia in September As soon as it was announced that the Buddhist leader and symbol of the Tibetan independence struggle would be visiting Australia, the Chinese Government began protesting against any suggestion that the Dalai Lama would meet the Prime Minister or any senior Australian Government figure.

When the Prime Minister said he would indeed meet the Dalai Lama, the People's Daily launched a particularly strident attack on the Australian government:. The paper warned that the decision would 'inevitably affect political, economic and trade relations' between Australia and China. The statement repeated the warning that the decision would 'unavoidably produce a negative impact on relations between China and Australia'.

The strength of the Chinese reaction to the Prime Minister's meeting with the Dalai Lama was an indication of the sensitivity of the Tibet issue for Beijing.

Nevertheless, senior members of previous Australian governments and parliament had held meetings with the Dalai Lama without the vituperation which marked their reaction to Mr Howard's meeting.

The Chinese have always opposed such meetings but their response on this occasion was at a new level. It is quite unusual for Australian foreign policy to be subject to a repeated critique in the Chinese press. The change in the character of Chinese statements about Australia needs to be understood as the product of a general perception in Beijing that Australian policy was being redefined under a Coalition Government.

A number of individual actions without a united objective in mind were interpreted by the Chinese authorities as a co-ordinated policy response. The Australian Government did not appear to appreciate the extent to which Beijing would read a single coherent meaning into the actions.

The view from Beijing was that Australia under a Coalition Government was becoming less sympathetic to the Chinese position on highly sensitive issues such as Taiwan and Tibet and was moving to re-emphasise traditional especially US relationships at the expense of Asian connections.

Of particular disquiet from Beijing's point of view, Australia's renewed stress on the importance of the US alliance was seen as a return to a less independent foreign policy which would conform more closely to US interests. This was regarded with particular concern at a time when China-US relations were being affected by a number of disagreements. Following the efforts of senior Australian Government officials and the meeting between the Australian Prime Minister and Chinese President in Manila in November , the government of China brought an end to the hostile public critique of Australian policy.

A Chinese presidential spokesman was reported as describing the Howard-Ziang meeting as 'very friendly':. In January , the Chinese deputy Foreign Minister, Chen Jian, told an Australian journalist that 'understanding had been enhanced' and there were 'good prospects for the further development of Sino-Australian relations'. His comments indicate that the Chinese Government has a generally positive attitude towards the prospects for Sino-Australian relations. At the same time, Mr Chen's remarks also showed that Beijing remains extremely sensitive about a number of issues which it believes impinge on Chinese sovereignty and on China's right to take its place amongst the major powers in the world.

He said the difficulties in were due to the Australian government taking 'some actions which ended up hurting the national feelings of the Chinese people'. He concluded that:.