Ideas@TheCentre
Mature Chinese foreign policy makes Cold War mentality obsolete
Prime Minister Julia Gillard scored some impressive foreign policy wins in her trip to China earlier this month, including an annual leaders’ meeting and stronger bilateral defence links.
Although these are welcome developments in Sino-Australian relations, their real importance arguably lies in what they tell us about Chinese foreign policy.
Clearly, China does not subscribe to a zero-sum Cold War view of international relations and implicitly accepts our longstanding friendship with the United States.
As an emerging world power with a traumatic history of foreign occupation and longstanding territorial disputes with many of its neighbours, China is sensitive to perceived attempts to undermine its international standing or block its rise.
Not surprisingly, the first Obama administration’s decisions to rotate 2,500 US marines through Darwin and deploy 60% of the US naval fleet to the Pacific Ocean caused discomfort in Beijing. Australia’s role in this US ‘pivot’ to Asia even led a Chinese senior colonel to warn Australia against becoming an ‘attack dog’ for the United States.
However, Gillard’s latest China visit shows that disquiet about the tightness of the US-Australian bond will not dampen Beijing’s eagerness to deepen its diplomatic and defence engagement with Canberra.
Just as the recent maturing of Sino-Australian relations will not cause consternation in Washington, the Chinese are wise enough to see that Australia can expand its military cooperation with the United States without it being a threat to China.
Moreover, as the Chinese know well, they cannot afford to give Australia the diplomatic cold shoulder just because of jitters about US marines in Darwin.
Australia’s mines, universities and farms will build China’s ballooning cities, educate its aspiration al middle-classes, and feed its people. And as the fifth-largest military spender in Asia — the thirteenth in the world — and a principal ally of the world’s sole superpower, Australia is a key player in Asia’s fluid geol-strategic landscape.
Being the junior partner, Canberra needs Beijing more than Beijing needs Canberra. However, our rocks, crops and classrooms, together with our position of relative influence in the changing balance of power in Asia, mean that considered Chinese foreign policy will always seek to improve ties with Australia.
Gillard has long stressed that it is well within Australia’s power to woo both China and the United States. Her flurry of diplomatic successes in Beijing proves her right.
Benjamin Herscovitch is a Policy Analyst at The Centre for Independent Studies.
