An Analytical Study On The Decline Of China-Australia Relations 2017-2019

China-Australia relationship has been suffering a conspicuous decline over the past two years.Compared with the previous engagement between the two nations,this round of "head-on confrontation" seems to be rare in historical precedent,especially since the normalization of the bilateral relationship in 1972.Strongly influenced by the prevalence of"China Threat" in Australia,the gap of political trust between China and Australia is forced to be wider,and even the two-way economic relationship does not escape the negative impacts of the relationship declineIn mid 2017,news from Australian mainstream media started to spread the message about "China Threat",which was then quickly followed by aggressive suspicion on China's intention from Australia's political,commercial and academic communities The recent decline in China-Australia bilateral relationship is featured by an unprecedented scale and duration,with unexpected consequences.Driven by the groundless suspicion over China,Australia has been showing its overreaction in dealing with the bilateral relationship.It keeps making adjustments in policies,military,strategic layouts and other significant national strategies.Though these series of adjustments have not been officially labeled with a mark against China,Australia's implication is just self-evident as China has been positioned as a potential rival or threat,a rising power holding the malicious intention to seek influence in AustraliaUp to now,this round of cooling in the bilateral relationship is still ongoing and no apparently positive signals have ever showed up so far.Generally speaking,the changes in the bilateral relationship definitely should be a combined result of multilateral factors First,it might be a sort of recalibration between China and Australia when faced with the changing world pattern and regional power rebalance.China's rise brings about its increasing influence in politics,economy,foreign policies and regional order.However,as to Australia,China's development is more like a kind of threat,with an end to influence or even interfere in Australia's national politics and economy.Moreover,the US involvement also complicates the political dilemma between China and Australia To deal with China's rapid rise,Australia,together with other three countries the US,Japan and India,puts forward a new regional concept "Indo-Pacific".With the US leading position in Indo-Pacific strategy,Australia-US alliance has been consolidated and meanwhile China-US competition in the new regional order also has become a variable to influence the bilateral relationship between China and Australia.In addition,as to some more internal reasons,the instability of Australia's domestic politics might as well be taken into consideration.Because of the frequent change of ruling government and lack of long-term foreign policy,Australian government overlooks the importance of China-Australia relationship—The bilateral relationship is even reduced to a scapegoat for Australia to transfer the domestic political chaosDue to the complicated factors involved in China-Australia relationship,consequences brought by this round of relationship decline are accordingly shadowed with a sense of uncertainty—including potential negative impacts towards regional balance,politic adjustments,two-way trading,investment volume.To be more specific,the future development in Indo-Pacific region might involve more big power contests And competition between China and Australia in South Pacific escalates and needs prompt solutions.Also,influenced by the relationship decline,bilateral economic environment deteriorates,with large-scaled shrinking in investment volume.Both China and Australia should make adjustments to seek improvement for the current dilemmaThere is one point beyond doubt:China and Australia do play a pivotal and irreplaceable role in their respective development;though the two nations are now confronted with dilemma in two-sided engagement,it is still an optimal choice for them to jointly promote the bilateral relationship in search of a win-win situation.