China’s bullying behaviour, its threatened resort to a form of economic blackmail and its attempts to drive a wedge between Canberra and Washington mark a vexed new frontier for Australian diplomacy.
Rudd said Australia must once again become the international champion of the South Pacific nations: ‘The so-called 'Pacific step-up’ is hollow.‘
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Launching journalist Peter Hartcher’s Quarterly Essay, Red Flag: Waking up to China’s challenge, Rudd said “we have become too China-dependent. We need to diversify further”.
The Wang Liqiang case may prove to be the most significant national security story since the infamous Petrov affair.
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This may turn out to be a major threat to Australian security, but it is important that the political class – including the media – not overreact to the “China threat”.
Andrew Hastie (right) with Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Morrison appointed him chair of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security.
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Coalition members of parliament Andrew Hastie and James Paterson will have to “repent and redress their mistakes” before they are welcome in China.
There are legitimate questions about Liu’s past connections to associations with direct or indirect links with the Chinese Communist Party.
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Liu’s disastrous interview on Sky News forced the government into a full scale defence of her, saying that Labor, in pursuing her, was being “xenophobic” and “grubby”.
Australia-China relations, crucial as they might be for Australia’s economic wellbeing, may get rougher.
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Michelle Grattan discusses the increasing strain on the Australia-China relationship following the arrest of Dr. Yang Hengjun, and the government’s draft religious discrimination legislation.
There has been mounting concern over Chinese influence in Australia’s universities.
Paul Miller
The Morrison government is setting up a University Foreign Interference Taskforce, as it grapples with encroachments by China into Australia’s higher education sector.
Australia is vulnerable to any downturn in global markets due to a Chinese economic slump. But being dumped as a supplier by China is a different matter.
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China cutting coal imports from Australia by 25% would equate to every Australian having $24 less to spend a year.
Australia should neither blindly accept US fears about Huawei nor be naive about the technology company’s enmeshment in China’s strategic ambitions.
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The standoff over Australian coal imports through Dalian sends a powerful political message: that Beijing can turn imports off and on at will.
A US-China grand bargain makes sense on the mutually beneficial assumption it would lay the foundations for a bilateral world order.
Mark Schiefelbein/PA
The unexplained detention of author and diplomat Yang Hengjun has raised more questions about the motives of a Chinese government under stress from within and without.
The Australia-China relationship involves walls and whispers, as well as all the rhetoric about trust and respect.
Trade, Tourism and Investment Minister Steven Ciobo attended the recent AFL match in Shanghai, but the bigger picture is about reassuring China that Australia welcomes its investment.
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Interviews with Chinese executives confirm the political debate about China is creating feelings of being unwelcome and apprehensive about investing in Australia.
In happier times: Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the 2017 APEC summit in Vietnam.
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