Paul Kelly of The Australian points to a divergence between U.S. and Australian thinking on China: "Poised between giants" (The Australian, July 23, 2005).
...Australia accepts the reality and the legitimacy of China's rise towards great power status when the US cannot accept such a rise in the same unqualified way and remains undecided about how much space it should extend to China...
...As the second Bush administration seeks a new Asian strategy to limit, balance or contain China's influence, it finds that the Australian horse has bolted. Those pro-US toadies, Howard [Australia's Prime Minister - Ben] and Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, have taken Australia into the new East Asian Summit, a regional architecture that excludes the US and that is likely to foster a new dynamic of East Asian regionalism with China as its epicentre.
...Australia and the US have different perspectives on China and these reflect different interests.
Australia's perspective is symbolized by:
Howard's 2003 decision to offer equal status in our parliament to China's President Hu Jintao and Bush will be seen as a symbolic turning point in our history. The signal was the equal treatment. Australia has never extended such an honour to any British or Japanese PM.
So far, Australia has managed to balance its relationships with China and the U.S.:
Howard's most significant foreign policy achievement is obvious: it has been to deepen simultaneously our ties with the US and China.
How has Howard done this:
How was Howard able to achieve this feat without any traumas? The answer is because his loyalty to the US was never in doubt. As a conservative Australian leader enjoying the closest personal relationship with a US president, who invoked the ANZUS Treaty in defence of the US and who fought with US forces in Iraq, Howard had obtained political immunity in Washington for his Asian diplomacy. And he still does; that is the real meaning of this visit.
The war on terrorism has deepened Australia's strategic ties with the US while the rise of China, the other decisive global event of recent years, is a threat to this new intimacy.
However:
Any US effort to re-position the ANZUS alliance against China would be a serious blunder by Washington. Howard has ruled this out repeatedly. He did so again last week in Washington in front of Bush at their joint press conference. "I've encouraged them [China] to accept that our close defence alliance with the US is not in any way directed against China," Howard said. Note, there is no qualification whatsoever. This comment is not just a message to Beijing. It is also a message to the US.
Sooner or later...
Howard and Bush don't have the same views on China because Of course, it is naive to think that the US and China won't become rivals or that Australia won't have to make choices of some sort between them.
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