A Preliminary Analysis Of Australia's Pursuit Of Balance Between China And The United States 1972-2005

China was once viewed by Australia as a destabilizing factor in the region to beguarded against and even contained for its potential threat, based largely on falseperceptions of the nature of China and on a feeling of insecurity. It would be naturalfor the medium-sized Australia to live uncomfortably next to a giant, and thereforekeen to find a friendly bigger power for protection, which has been a distinctivefeature of this country. Australia's geographical vulnerability and military diffidencepartly explain why it has a habit of seeking protection from big powers, first the GreatBritain and then the United States after World War Two. Dependence on other powerswould naturally result in parrot-like approach to international relations. After WorldWar Two, Australia followed the Unite Sates by exercising anti-China policy, andsigned the ANZUS Treaty to become the "South Anchor" of the US Asia-Pacificstrategy. This close alliance relationship was more or less weakened when Labor wasin office from the 1970s to the mid 1990s. The Coalition Government readjusted itsrelations with the US after 1996 and continued to strengthen this alliance relationshipwith the big powerful friend. On the whole, Australia's China policy has been more orless subjected to US attitudes towards China throughout its history. However, as theeconomic and political clout of China grow increasingly strong in the regional and theinternational affairs, the Howard Government has began to experiment a differentapproach to the dealing with China. This paper is aimed to find out what kind ofpolicy change is forged under Howard after reviewing the development of Australia'srelations with both China and the US, and to explore the reasons behind themodification of policy towards China as well as the US.This paper is divided into five chapters. The first chapter is a brief overview of Australia's China policy in history and an introduction of the purposes and significance of this study. Also efforts are made to try to explain "national interest", as it serves as the root for almost every change in Australia's attitude toward China. Chapter 2 traces the origin of the Australia-US alliance, and discusses its effects on Sino-Australian relations from a historical perspective, centering on the pre-1972 period when China and Australia were basically antagonistic towards each other due to fear of a communist China. Chapter 3 deals with the normalization of diplomatic relations between China and Australia, as well as the reasons behind it. It is due to the nature of the Labor Party and the relatively relaxed Sino-US relations that Australia...