Writer
Geoff Raby
Geoff Raby AO was Australia’s ambassador to China (2007–11); ambassador to APEC (2003–5); and ambassador to the World Trade Organisation (1998–2001). He is former chair of VisAsia at the Art Gallery of NSW and former chair of Western Sydney University’s Australia–China Institute of Arts and Culture. Raby was awarded the Order of Australia in 2019 for services to Australia–China relations and to international trade. He is an independent company director and author of China’s Grand Strategy and Australia’s Future in the New World Order, MUP, 2020.
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GEOFF RABY. Trump will create early tests for a new Labor Government (AFR 13.2.2019)
In a few months, Labor is likely to take charge of Australia’s foreign policy and security. It will be doing so with a global order vastly different that which existed last time it held power. It is important then to consider how prepared is Labor for the task. Continue reading »
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GEOFF RABY. How a desert book festival outshone the chill over Davos.
Last week two major events on the calendar of global gatherings kicked off the New Year. They could not have been further apart. Some 20,000 attendees, mainly middle aged and older, made their way up the snow blanketed steep valleys of far eastern Switzerland to the World Economic Forum’s annual gathering of the global business Continue reading »
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GEOFF RABY. China needs a grown-up foreign policy for a changed era.
At the key 19th Party Congress in October 2017, Xi Jinping set out his signature policy – Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for the New Era – which, unusually early on in his term, was inscribed into the Party’s Constitution as Xi Jinping “Thought”. Socialism with Chinese Characters was Deng’s contribution to the Party’s corpus. Xi Continue reading »
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GEOFF RABY. Xi Jinping’s Year of Living Dangerously.
2018 may well go down as a defining year for President Xi Jinping’s leadership – one that marks the beginning of the end for the “President for Life”. President Xi began the year in full command of the country, seemingly ascendant on the world stage with his signature Belt and Road Initiative and, in the Continue reading »
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Australia has normalised relations with a China-led future (Australian Financial Review, 21.11.18)
The Australia-China relationship is almost back to normal. The speed at which it has recovered has surprised. It has taken two statesman-like speeches by the former Prime Minister and his successor, and the appointment of a new Foreign Minister as previously suggested in this column. The anticipated imminent visit by PM Morrison to Beijing will Continue reading »
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Time to ground Australia’s China fear in facts (AFR 29.10.18)
As December draws near, thoughts turn to annual anniversaries and remembrances. This December marks the 51st anniversary of one of the more bizarre events in Australia’s political history. On December 17, 1967, then prime minister Harold Holt disappeared while swimming at Portsea beach. He was alone at the time and the surf was rough. He Continue reading »
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GEOFF RABY. East Asia Just Became a More Dangerous Place
Hugh White in his controversial 2010 book, China Choice, warned Australian policy makers that with the rise of China, the time would come when the US would have to make a choice as to whether to withdraw gradually from East Asia and allow China strategic space for its continued expansion or to take a stand Continue reading »
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GEOFF RABY. Prometheus bound: How China’s power is constrained
The more Australia positions itself as if there is only a binary choice between US or Chinese hegemonic influence in the region, the more likely conflict becomes. Continue reading »
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GEOFF RABY. Australia needs a foreign policy not a speech (Australian Financial Review, 21.08.18)
The Prime Minister’s intervention last week to take charge of China policy and begin to set out a clearer framework for managing the relationship was much too late and probably too little, but it was a welcome start nonetheless. Continue reading »
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GEOFF RABY. An Australian-ASEAN Hedging Strategy on China
Australia’s diplomacy in recent years can at best be described as underwhelming, if not at times inimical to Australia’s national interests. In March, however, the presence of ASEAN Heads of Government in Australia, meeting at Prime Minister Turnbull’s initiative, was an event of major significance. It is to be hoped that it will mark a Continue reading »
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GEOFF RABY. How Kim Jong-un can bring his economy in from the cold.
In the early spring of 1990, Pyongyang was more prosperous than many foreign analysts, who had never been there, had thought. The CIA, for decades, had believed the country was on its knees, on the verge of economic collapse, although the Agency had not had any first-hand contact there. Continue reading »
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GEOFF RABY. China relations can only be unfrozen with Julie Bishop’s sacking
Once again Australian foreign policy seems to be missing in action. As events unfold at remarkable speed in our area of most strategic interest – north-east Asia – Australia finds itself unable to engage with the key participant at the centre of those events: namely China. Continue reading »
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GEOFF RABY. Where have all the grown-ups gone on China policy?- A REPOST from June 23 2017
Malcolm Turnbull’s glib talk of ‘‘frenemies’’ does nothing to help the urgent debate over how we handle the rising power of China. Continue reading »