https://www.scmp.com/rss/325257/feed Bob Carr is director of the Australia-China Relations Institute at the University of Technology Sydney. He is a former long-serving premier of New South Wales and former Australian minister for foreign affairs. en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com “Let’s keep our fingers crossed”. That was the response of US President Donald Trump’s ambassador, Arthur B. Culvahouse Jnr, to a question vital for Australia: what happens if the US and China strike a trade deal that boosts Chinese purchases of American goods by cutting back on imports from Australia? Vital because China soaks up one-third of Australian exports. The Australian budget released last week was replete with tax cuts; the nation has gone more than 25 years without a recession.... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/3005496/why-australia-could-be-big-loser-us-china-trade-deal?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/3005496/why-australia-could-be-big-loser-us-china-trade-deal?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 10 Apr 2019 19:00:13 +0000 Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was always going to do it. It was a matter of language and timing. This week he reset the Australia-China relationship, ditching 12 months in which Australia had become the most rhetorically adversarial towards China of all of the United States’ allies and partners. It coincided with a “China panic” in the Australian media, which vastly exaggerated the modest – even meagre – evidence of China elevating its soft power Down Under. Anti-China zealots had... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/world/article/2159062/australia-draws-line-under-anti-china-hysteria-will-it?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/world/article/2159062/australia-draws-line-under-anti-china-hysteria-will-it?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 10 Aug 2018 18:00:51 +0000 This week, Singapore ruled out signing up for “the Quad”, a consultative mechanism encompassing the United States, Japan, India and Australia. The Quad, with a history going back to 2007, was revived on the sidelines of the East Asia Summit last November. But, on Monday, Singapore’s foreign minister, Vivian Balakrishnan, said too many questions remain about the substance of the Quad for Singapore to consider joining.  This is the latest confirmation that the Quad is not fleshing itself out as a... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2146484/shrinking-quad-how-alliance-going-nowhere-japan-and-india?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2146484/shrinking-quad-how-alliance-going-nowhere-japan-and-india?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 17 May 2018 08:45:15 +0000 Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is in Washington, able to tell Americans that in 12 months he has positioned Australia as the most anti-Chinese of all America’s allies. In fact, he can boast that, under his leadership, Australia has jettisoned a consensus on China policy that stretched from diplomatic recognition in 1972 to the decision to join the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank in 2015. A hard ideological edge now shapes policy. It was signalled last year when Foreign Minister... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2133792/australias-anti-china-stance-misguided-attempt-cosy-trump?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2133792/australias-anti-china-stance-misguided-attempt-cosy-trump?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 19 Feb 2018 09:17:25 +0000 This year, Australia declared rhetorical war on China. The words being used by Australian leaders are the harshest any time since diplomatic relations commenced in 1972, with the exception of comments at the time of the Tiananmen crackdown. The tone is harsher than that of any other US ally, including Japan. Ironically, the pronounced shift occurs in the six months in which Australian exports to China reached a record high, exceeding levels in the 2003-2012 resources boom and at a time when,... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2112335/why-australia-talking-tough-about-major-trade-partner-china?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2112335/why-australia-talking-tough-about-major-trade-partner-china?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 22 Sep 2017 04:16:25 +0000