As the strategic rivalry between the United States and China rapidly deepens, growing distrust and fears of China are once again shaping Australian media coverage and public discourse, with potent implications for Australia's China policy.
At this crucial historical moment, Engaging China offers a full-throated defence of engagement. This volume brings together a diverse set of Australia's seasoned diplomats, experienced journalists and renowned scholars to assess the current state of AustraliaChina relations and offer pragmatic advice for how Australia can restore a healthy and stable relationship with China.
Over the past five decades, Australia's engagement of China has facilitated a deepening economic relationship alongside expanded cultural, educational and people-to-people exchanges, fostering greater understanding between the two countries and populations.
The contributors to this volume share a common vision: Australia and Australians should continue to engage with China and Chinese people for mutual benefit. The chapters take stock of past achievements, identify recent challenges and offer practical suggestions for how the Australian government and Australian firms, institutions and individuals can proactively, productively and securely engage with China.
Australia's rich and diverse relations with China extend far beyond the political and economic interactions that tend to dominate news headlines. In explaining how and why an engagement strategy continues to serve Australian interests, Engaging China offers a timely alternative to the prevailing public and policy discourses on Australia's most challenging bilateral relationship.
Chapter 1: Engaging China: How Australia can lead the way again by Jamie
Reilly and Jingdong Yuan
Part I. Foreign and security relations
Chapter 2: What a difference a decade can make by Geoff Raby
Chapter 3: AustraliaChina security and defence relations at 50: Hardening
positions on both sides by Bates Gill
Chapter 4: (Un)reliable Partner? Australian Security, the American Alliance
and China in Uncertain Times by Brendon O'Connor, Lloyd Cox and Danny Cooper
Part II. Economy
Chapter 5: AustraliaChina Trade: Opportunity, risk, mitigation, ballast
progress? by James Laurenceson and Weihuan Zhou
Chapter 6: Lessons from the rise and fall of Chinese investment in Australia
by Wei Li and Hans Hendrischke
Chapter 7: AustraliaChina ties: Why business is a cornerstone by Glenda
Korporaal
Part III. Media, education, and culture
Chapter 8: Cold War journalism, the China threat agenda, and the framing of
AustraliaChina relations by Wanning Sun
Chapter 9: ChinaAustralia higher education relations: Promise unfulfilled?
by Anthony Welch
Chapter 10: Cultural diplomacy on the ground: Bridging the AustraliaChina
divide by Ien Ang
Chapter 11: China and the opening of the Australian mind by Stephen
FitzGerald
Contributors
Index
Jamie Reilly is an Associate Professor in the Department of Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney. He has been a Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the University of Oxford, and served as the East Asia Representative of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) in China from 20012008. Jingdong Yuan is Associate Professor at the Centre for International Security Studies, University of Sydney, and an Associate Senior Fellow at Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Dr Yuans research focuses on IndoPacific security, Chinese foreign policy, SinoIndian relations, China-EU relations, and nuclear arms control and nonproliferation. He has held a number of prestigious visiting appointments in Asia, Europe, and North America.