This essay highlights Australia’s relationship with the two first great powers in the world, including the United States of America and the People's Republic of China. Although Australia’s relationship with other countries may discuss and argue in varicose ways and from different perspectives, this essay illustrates a comparison depiction of Australia’s relationship with these two countries and discusses the issue of the most important ally of Australia and posits that despite having a very strong economic link to China, the United States remains as the most important official ally with Australia.
There has been a long history of Australia’s political relationship with the United States. Despite the fact of being a member of the Commonwealth, the Australian government sought to build a close tie with the United States from the early 20th century. According to the lecture of Australia and the World (presented on 1st September 2016), the Australian Prime Minister Alfred Deakin asked America’s ‘Great White Fleet’ to visit Australia’s shore during its sailing around the Pacific Ocean in 1908 to show the strength, (slide. 11). Since then, Australia’s relationship with the United States has been developed in different stages. On the other hand, Australian relationship with China has been relatively remaining subsequent, not to mention that Asian countries in general and particularly the Communist bloc has been mostly considered to be threatening to Australia. As it has mentioned by Knight and Heazle (2011) “the threat from Asia, previously represented by Japanese militarism, was replaced in the late 1940s by a new threat: communism” (p. 227). In fact, as it has stated by Strahan (1996) the three factors such as “distance from Britain, […] its isolation on the edge of Asia, […] and the fear from more populous and culturally different neighbours” (p. 222) has always caused Australia to became an 'anxious nation' and consequently seek further alliance with the United States of America. Therefore, from a historical point of view, Asia in general, and communist bloc including China, in particular, have been considered to be more provocative for Australia, while the relationship with the United States has been benefitted, to large extent, from a common perception of protection.
Australia’s cultural association with the West, inherited from Great Britain, constitutes a significant proportion of Australia’s relationship with the United States, while the relationship with China lacks such an advantage. Although Australia was populated by Aboriginal's tens of thousands of years ago, and despite the fact that there were many others such as Dutches who explored Australia before, the foundation of the country of Australia as it is known today has been first set up by Great Britain in 1770s, when “Captain James Cook claimed Australia for Britain” (Knight & Heazle, 2011). As a conqueror empire, Great Britain’s occupation of new territory has always been accompanied by cultural domination. Therefore, as it is claimed by Knight & Heazle (2011) “Australia […] inherited from Britain a European country, its sense of cultural identity and its feeling of superiority towards Asia and Asians” (p. 223). On the other hand, Chinese presence in Australian history, since that time, had been limited to mere providing labour following the gold rush. The influx of Chinese, predominantly as cheap workers in Australia has been criticised publically and caused the government to establish the measurement in order to limit the immigrants from Asian countries including China, (Knight & Heazle, 2011, p. 224). Despite the fact that geopolitically and geographically, China’s location is much nearer to Australia than the United States, the cultural values and the hereditary traditions from Western society can be found as fundamental factor in shaping Australia’s relationship with the rest of the world and thus determining the most important ally of Australia at least for the foreseeable future.
Following World War II, communism emerged and expanded in a progressive manner and shaped a rivalry power to the Western world particularly to the United States of America. The confrontation of communism and capitalism led to the period of the Cold War in which the world had been divided predominantly into two blocs. “Communism takeover in China [in] 1949” (Australia and the World, lecture PP, September 22, 2016, slides. 7-8) and its expansion in Asia resulted in the Australian governments to endeavour for a pro-Western region in the South-East Asia which could act as an obstacle to the expansion of communism. Therefore, Australia’s foreign policy in seeking an alliance with the United States during the Cold War, stand to support regional diplomatic attempts such as SEATO and ASEAN. Furthermore, and since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the communism threat brought the Australian relationship with the United States to further alliance and led Australia, New Zealand, United States Security Treaty (ANZUS) to be signed in 1951(slide. 9). Since then, Australia’s military cooperation with the United States Army has been accomplished in various missions and combats in the regions close to China. Australia’s participation in the war in Vietnam affected the relationship between Australia and China for many years. Although the outcome of Australia’s relationship with the United States, particularly the Australian coalition in the Vietnam invasion, has been argued from different aspects and examined in various stages, the fact is that the ANZUS has leveraged the Australian relationship with the United States in a higher position than those with China, as Lee states “There is an overwhelming consensus among leaders and officials that Australia's ongoing commitment to the ANZUS alliance remains the cornerstone of our security strategy” (p. 144).
There has been a dramatic improvement in China’s economy within recent years. According to Lee (2012) “China officially surpassed Japan to become the largest economy in Asia and the second largest in the world after the United States” (p. 142). The reality of China’s rapid growth and its emergence as the world second largest economic has influenced Australia to reconsider its relations with China. The fiscal growth in Asia, particularly China’s gigantic economic power has been made a significant proportion of discussion in the foreign policy of Australia. According to Taylor, (2016) “over the past half-decade, Australia’s most prominent foreign policy debate has centred around the question of how this country should respond to China’s rise” (p. 77). Although China’s emergence as the second economic power has led many countries including the United Sates to be more cautious, some experts’ assertion on ‘China’s peaceful raise’ suggests other countries like Australia consider China’s growth as a positive point and undertake further economic relation with it. For instance, Australian academic John Lee (2012) states that there is no reason for being anxious about China’s economic growth as “a China that is becoming increasingly integrated into the global economic system poses little threat to existing stability and political order” (p. 146). The observation of peaceful raise of China along with Australia’s extensive demand for trade has been leading this country to undertake further trade and economic exchanges with China.
The total amount of trade between Australia and China is remarkably higher than those with the United Sates. According to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (2016) the total merchandise trade including the export and import with China reaches to AU$ 143,191 million during the year of 2015 (DFAT, China, Country and trade information fact sheet, 2016, p. 2), while the total value of trade with the United States is only AU$ 47,254 million within the same year, (DFAT, Australia-United States Relations fact sheet, 2016, p. 2). This evidence proves the fact of China’s superiority in trade and may expose a relatively weakness trend towards the Australia-America relationship, but the capacity of China to convert economic power to political sovereignty is being challenged by scholars. Lee (2012) complains that “yet, Asia's largest economic power has been unable to compel any fundamental change in the strategic behaviour of even, one significant Asian state” (p. 154-155).
Giving the fact that there are intrinsic problems between the United States and China which have caused a long lasting tension; Australia, from one hand, is officially allied with America, and on the other, it retains a very strong economic relationship with China as well. So one way or another, the Australian cultural values inherited from the British empire, its historical landscape, and the strategic policy of the Australian governments throughout the 20th century shows that despite having very good ties with China, until today America has been the most important ally of Australia.
Reference List:
Department of Foreign Affairs, Australia-United States Relations fact sheet. (2016). Retrieved September 25, 2016, from http://dfat.gov.au/trade/resources/Documents/usa.pdf
Department of Foreign Affairs, China, Country and trade information fact sheet. (2016). Retrieved September 25, 2016, from http://dfat.gov.au/trade/resources/Documents/chin.pdf
Knight, N., & Heazle, M. (2011). Australia in Asia, 'Asia' in Australia. In Understanding Australia's neighbours: An introduction to East and Southeast Asia (2nd ed., pp. 220-238). Port Melbourne, Australia: Cambridge University Press.
Lee, J. (2012). Divergence in Australia's economic and security interests? In J. Reilly & J. D. Yuan (Eds.), Australia and China at 40 (pp. 142-161). Sydney, Australia: NewSouth.
Taylor, B. (2016). Unbreakable alliance? ANZUS in the Asian century. Asian Politics & Policy, 8(1), 75-85.