Australia's dismal China diplomacy

‘With AUKUS’, Ganter argues, ‘we hitched the national wagon to two declining powers: the United States, an immensely powerful but practically failing democracy, and the United Kingdom, which lost its empire long ago and really has no business in the Pacific’. Gantner argues that AUKUS locks Australia into an adversarial relationship with China and antagonises countries in Southeast Asia, such as Indonesia, which has a legitimate concern that Australia’s acquisition of nuclear-propelled submarines will undermine the regime of nuclear non-proliferation.

The author’s explanation for Australia’s embrace of these decisions includes both jockeying for leadership of the Liberal Party and the coalition’s perception of the utility of the China issue as a weapon in domestic politics. The latter is being played out at the time of writing this review.  

In Gantner’s view, Australia’s policymakers should accept that China’s long-term ambitions are simply and reasonably to be the undisputed leading power in East Asia and to be ‘respected as a superpower equal to the United States in its broad influence in world affairs’. In making this argument,

Gantner is supported by others such as former diplomat Geoff Raby, whose China’s Grand Strategy and Australia’s Future in the New Global Order was published in 2020. This vigorously and passionately written book will, however, face strong resistance from those who attribute all the blame for a deteriorating bilateral relationship to China. It cannot fail to achieve one of the aims of Monash’s National Interest series: to foster discussion and debate on Australia’s key challenges.