Analysis On Australia’s Balancing And Cooperation Policies Towards China In The Post-Cold War Era

Since the end of the cold war, the world is developing towards multi-polarization. The political pattern of the Asia-pacific region was deeply influenced by the profound changes of the world. China and Australia, which act as two major regional powers in the Asia-pacific region, due to the increased economic and military strength, their influence on this region apparently enhanced. Because the relations between these two countries in economic field are close, the development of the Sino-Australian bilateral trade deeply influences the political relations between them. Australia’s China policy is always based on the factors about America and economy. Since the establishment of diplomatic ties, bilateral relations show an overall rising developing trend, especially in 21st century,the two countries in economy, trade, science and education, military and other fields have achieved remarkable results.In this article, by analyzing Australia’s behavior under the guide of checks and balances policy towards China in order to find the reasons behind them. The further strengthen of cooperation among US-Australia-Japan military alliance, the popularity of the "China threat theory" in Rudd period, Australia follows the United States on the issue of South China Sea confronting with China, all reveals that Australia intends to follow the United States to balance China. Adjacent geography makes Australia feel insecure, the existing distrust and opposition towards China in Western ideological culture, China’s investment in Australia has been taken as resource control by anti-China forces in Australia, The case of Rio Tinto, Kadeer’s visit to Australia, the Dalai Lama’s visit to Australia, have made relations between China and Australia dropped to historic lowest status. By analyzing Sino-Australian economic cooperation since the end of the Cold War and dramatically changes in bilateral trade volume between the two countries, we can conclude Sino-Australian economic interdependence. Bilateral trade volume rises from $ 2.4 billion to the current $ 150 billion, the cooperation on iron ore and natural gas largely strengthen the mutual interdependence. At the same time, the cooperation between the two countries in non-traditional security fields such as anti-terrorism, science, education, tourism and so on also has been enhanced.Finally, this article mentions what measures China should take in response to Australia’s China Policy. China should try to shape the legitimacy of China’s development, properly handle bilateral relations towards America and Japan, further strengthen the interdependence in economy and trade, enhance bilateral political, trade and economic trust and gradually weaken Australia’s concerns about the rise of China, eventually contribute to the stable development of bilateral relations.