With the United States vigorously promoting its rebalance strategy in the Asia Pacific, relations among the countries in the region have been fluctuating quickly. The China-Australia relationship is no exception. In the past several years, the Chinese research circle has focused on Australia’s role in the U.S. military alliance in the region. This is not a good sign in Chinese-Australian relations, although the overall bilateral relationship remains stable and China still has high expectations for Australia’s role in regional affairs.

To be frank, Australian studies is a hot subject among Chinese researchers. The Chinese people have gained their impression of Australia basically from trade and tourism. Blue sky, beautiful beaches, the lovely koala, rich resources and a good system of education and social security are what the ordinary Chinese people know about Australia. Therefore, the Chinese people usually have a good impression of Australia, although the two countries do have some conflicts in their trade relations.

The first shock to the friendly image of Australia came when it was announced in 2011 that the U.S. would be deploying 250 marines in Australia, rising to 2500 by 2017 – which was widely interpreted as one of the measures to check China’s increasing influence in the region. This development of the Australia-U.S. relationship reminded China that Australia is a close military ally of the U.S. The Chinese research circle then began to pay more attention to Australia’s military and security role in the region. And generally, it must be said that China takes a negative point of view of U.S. military alliance-building in the Asia Pacific.

China’s negative judgment regarding the U.S. alliances in the Asia Pacific has both theoretical and practical foundations. Theoretically, Chinese researchers believe that an alliance is an exclusive military arrangement directed against some specific country or countries. The existence of the U.S. alliance in the region firstly places stress on the military utilisation in regional affairs, and secondly splits the region into countries that are with the U.S. and those against the U.S. In practice, in thinking about the Asia Pacific, China has also noticed the failed engagement between NATO and Russia in Europe.

China does not believe that the U.S. military alliance system can be successfully transformed to be a collective security mechanism in the region. The only merit of the U.S. alliance system in the Asia Pacific that China can identify is that it might place a restraint on the nuclearisation of Japan.

With such a negative perspective on the U.S. alliance in this region, China now carefully watches Australia’s military cooperation with the U.S.; and is even more worried about the current military approach between Australia and Japan. Even with such concerns, however, China to some degree still has high expectations that Australia might be able to play a positive role in the region. The basic assumption among Chinese researchers is that Australia does not really want to choose between the U.S. and China. Australia wants to keep good relations with both China and the U.S.

More importantly, China believes that Australia has a tradition of endorsing regional cooperation in the Asia Pacific. Australia has a high reputation for having offered regional cooperation proposals in the Asia Pacific. For example, the influential proposal of Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) was initiated by former Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke. Also, it is Australia that actively advanced the concept of ‘cooperative security’ in the United Nations. Thus, China hopes that Australia will continue to contribute more to Asia Pacific cooperation. The Asia Pacific – with a large population, energetic economic development and a colourful civilisation – needs and deserves a better cooperative framework in the security field.

Source of documents：asialinkecho.org