The Limits to Optimism: Australia and the Rise of China

Abstract

The Australian government optimistically expects that China's rise can be easily managed. They predict US-China relations will be cooperative, and reject concerns that Australia may face hard choices between them. This optimism seems to be based on the view that as China grows it will become increasingly integrated into a US-led global system. That overestimates America's power, and underestimates China's ambitions. The best we can hope for instead is that China and the US will cooperate in a concert of power, but the US will be very reluctant to make the necessary concessions to China for that to happen. So there is a real risk of even worse outcomes: Chinese primacy, sustained US-China hostility, or war. Australia therefore needs to try to persuade America to work with China in building a new 'Concert of Asia'.