Australia is unlikely to balance good relationships with both China and the US, if competition between the superpowers for Asian primacy intensifies, an ANU strategic and defence expert warns.
Commenting on Prime Minister Julia Gillard's new strategic partnership with China, Professor Huge White from the ANU College of Asia and the Pacific rebuffed suggestions the deal was a coup for Australia.
Rather, it was a chance for China to upstage the United States, after President Barack Obama used a visit to Australia in 2011 to announce 2,500 US marines would be stationed in Darwin.
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“The agreement Gillard reached in Beijing wasn't really about an opportunity (for China) to talk to Julia Gillard,” White said.
“They can talk to Julia Gillard whenever they like.
“It was about a symbol of Australia being pulled back from the US, towards Beijing.”
Ms Gillard maintains Australia does not have to choose between China and the US.
Such thinking was “naïve optimism,” because it didn't take into account what the United States' relationship with China might look like in the future, White argued.
If the relationship proved to be cooperative, peaceful, and stable, there was no reason why Australia could not pursue a relationship with China.
“But if the US-China relationship becomes more competitive, if it becomes… strategic rivalry, then Australia is going to find it increasingly difficult to develop the kind of relationship we've now been building with China, and maintain the kind of alliance we have with the US,” said White.
The most likely scenario was that Australia would have to choose between the two countries, White argued.
“The problem for Australian diplomacy at the moment is that we are pretending that's not happening.
“But in reality…what we are seeing is a very steady, a very significant, and a very worrying increase in strategic rivalry as the foundation for the US-China relationship.
“How does that play into the Canberra-Beijing-Washington situation?
“It means that if we keep going to Beijing and saying nice things, and then going to Washington and saying nice things, we are just going to end up being bounced backwards and forwards and pleasing neither of them.
“We will damage both relationships.”
Ms Gillard locked in a strategic partnership with China, a top diplomatic priority for the past 13 months, with China's new premier Li Keqiang, at the conclusion of a five-day visit to China.
It guarantees Australia's Prime Minister, Foreign Minister, Treasurer and Trade Minister will meet annually with their Chinese counterparts – an achievement matched by only a handful of countries.
