3 May 2024

China studies in crisis: Time for change

At a time when China is becoming increasingly more important to the Australian economy as well as to our stability and security in the Asia-Pacific, the overall decline in Australia’s China knowledge capability runs counter to our national sovereign interests.

4 April 2023

An education strategy to combat Australias China threat

In recent years a contemporary China Threat narrative has emerged in Australia and elsewhere related to defence capabilities. An equally important China Threat though, is ignorance. Our knowledge of China and our Chinese communities has declined dramatically over the last thirteen years. How can we combat this threat?

21 October 2022

Australias fear of China: renewed trust a matter of dialogue and respect

Fear of China is currently dominant in Australias public discourse, as reflected in recent opinion polls, surveys, and mainstream media. Fear of China is of course not new in Australia. It was a driver of Federation at the end of the 19th Century and the first act of the new Federal Parliament was long recognised as The White Australia Policy.

21 July 2022

Australia and the New China Threat: Globalised political opportunism

The development of a China Threat in Australian political discourse is nothing new. The apparent threat of being swamped by Chinese migrant workers played a major role in bringing the colonies together at the time of Federation, resulting in the Commonwealths White Australia Policy as the first act of the new parliament.

17 November 2021

Is Xi Jinping's support as strong as his predecessors?

Chinese President Xi Jinping is central to the Communist Party, and also part of a historical trajectory that includes Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping.

19 May 2021

Australian engagement with the PRC: universities need more, not less

The current global political environment in the Anglophone world is becoming increasingly suspicious of involvement of any kind with the Peoples Republic of China (PRC). For students and staff in Australian universities the likely resultant disengagement is not simply wrong in principle, it is dangerously misleading.

5 April 2021

The illiberal moment: ASPIs 'The Influence Environment'

Last years report from ASPI (the Australian Strategy Policy Institute) on Chinese-language media in Australia is a doubly unfortunate manifestation of the profoundly illiberal moment that has now become a worldwide phenomenon and which now clearly infects Australias relations with China.