The Australian Government Faces a Sea of Woes
The normally placid waters of Australian political life had a rude awakening in the past week. The French president Emanuel Macron was interviewed by a group of Australian reporters. He was asked if he thought he had been lied to by Scott Morrison, the Australian Prime Minister, on the issue of the cancellation of the Australian order for French built...
Australian Foreign Policy Becomes Even More Closely Wedded to the United States
Australia has just confirmed that its allegiance to the United States exceeds its own interests, and even its relationship with other, previously friendly nations, such as France. The triggering point for this degradation of Australia’s position in the world was the decision, announced this past week by prime minister Scott Morrison, to ditch...
Can India Replace China for Australia?
At first glance, the question in the title seems a figment of the imagination, affected by this year’s abnormal heatwave. Indeed, the two great powers India and China, part of the narrow pool of significant players in the current “Great World Game,” occupy their spots at the gaming table. These spots, of course, are not entirely autonomous and overlap with each other to a certain...
Australian Self Interest Sacrificed in a Needless Economic War with China
This week the Australian government took its expected step and cancelled the Belt and Road Initiative agreement that the Australian State of Victoria had signed with the Chinese. The move was not unexpected and had been signalled by the government some time ago. The ostensible reason for the cancellation was that it was...
Australia's Self-Inflicted Economic Woes Continue
Australia had until recently been enjoying economic growth alongside the rise of China. This all changed when Canberra began following Washington's lead, antagonising China, and in what would snowball into a costly, self-inflicted economic crisis. Today, Australia not only faces mounting barriers to trade erected by China in response to Australia's systematic antagonism...
Australia’s Treatment of Refugees a National Disgrace
One of the great ironies is of modern Australian life is attitudes to migrants, specifically, those who come to the country or attempt to do so as refugees. The first white settlers arrived 250 years ago, consisting of English prisoners, and their guards. They found a country occupied by an aboriginal people who had been there for more than 100,000 years. The British settlers...
Australian-Indian Economic Cooperation a Counterweight to the Belt and Road Initiative
There has long been a struggle for economic and political dominance in the Indo-Pacific Region (IPR, in which the most powerful players and main competitors are China and the United States. Many regional states are concerned about China's rapid economic and political expansion, as well as its growing military power. This concern...
Australia’s China Relationship Facing New Challenges
Some years ago the late Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Kuan Yew predicted that Australia would become “the poor white trash of Asia.” His words at the time shocked the Australian body politic and were fiercely denied. After all, Australia at the time was enjoying its largest trading boost with its Asian neighbours and nobody in the country could envisage...
Do Penguins Really Need an Australian Concrete Airstrip?
The Australian government has announced plans to build the region’s largest infrastructure project, a new airport with a concrete airstrip in Antarctica near Davis Station (east of the continent, one of three Australian research stations in Antarctica. Davis Station has been in existence since 1957 and is served by 19 people, in addition to more than 100 people living and...
Australia-China Relations Set for a Long Period in the Wilderness
China is, and has been for many years, Australia’s most important trading partner. Up to the end of 2019, China took nearly 40% of all of Australia’s exports. It is not a trading relationship that any sane country would really jeopardise. Yet that is precisely what the Australian government has been doing, and under the present political...
The “Cartoon” Incident in Sino-Australian Relations
The reason for the latest scandal in Sino-Australian relations was when an official representative from the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs posted a cartoon on Twitter about, to put it mildly, the “serious costs” incurred by the “limited contingent” of Australian armed forces during their stay in Afghanistan. Throughout this period, which can be counted as starting in November...
Australia Faces New Challenges in its Relationship With China
The relationship between Australia and China has deteriorated markedly over recent months. Each side is blaming the other for the deterioration, and amid the flurry of frankly anti-China propaganda emerging from most of the major Australian news outlets it is difficult to establish what went wrong and who precisely is to blame. It is possible however...