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China–US relations: A difficult balancing act for Australia?

Australia has close alliance links with the US but also growing links with China. While the US and China have many interests in common they also have many differences that periodically lead to significant tensions and such tensions could remerge in the future and pose challenges for Australia's diplomacy. The major potential risk in the future seems likely to be over Taiwan. This article notes that despite the improvement in the US-China relationship since 9/11, there are still strong anti-China interests in the US and anti-US interests in China that could pose difficulties for that relationship. It concludes that, with the exception of Taiwan, any such difficulties are unlikely to be of great significance for Australia. Provided the recent more effective US management of the Taiwan issue is maintained, balancing Australia's relationships with the two countries should not be especially problematic. 1This is a refereed version of an address delivered to the Symposium ‘Security and Co-operation in Asia Pacific: Chinese and Australian Perspectives’, held at La Trobe University, Melbourne and jointly sponsored by East China Normal University, Shanghai, (5–6 July 2004).