2018 may well go down as a defining year for President Xi Jinping’s leadership – one that marks the beginning of the end for the “President for Life”. President Xi began the year in full command of the country, seemingly ascendant on the world stage with his signature Belt and Road Initiative and, in the face of President Trump’s unilateralism, incredulously a newly found champion of the multilateral trading system and defender of the WTO and other features of the fast-receding liberal multilateral order. But by year’s end, Xi is under pressure. (more…)
Geoff Raby
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Australia has normalised relations with a China-led future (Australian Financial Review, 21.11.18)
The Australia-China relationship is almost back to normal. The speed at which it has recovered has surprised. It has taken two statesman-like speeches by the former Prime Minister and his successor, and the appointment of a new Foreign Minister as previously suggested in this column. The anticipated imminent visit by PM Morrison to Beijing will complete the process. (more…)
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Time to ground Australia’s China fear in facts (AFR 29.10.18)
As December draws near, thoughts turn to annual anniversaries and remembrances. This December marks the 51st anniversary of one of the more bizarre events in Australia’s political history. On December 17, 1967, then prime minister Harold Holt disappeared while swimming at Portsea beach. He was alone at the time and the surf was rough. He was a good swimmer and was familiar with conditions in the area. His body has never been found. (more…)
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GEOFF RABY. East Asia Just Became a More Dangerous Place
Hugh White in his controversial 2010 book, China Choice, warned Australian policy makers that with the rise of China, the time would come when the US would have to make a choice as to whether to withdraw gradually from East Asia and allow China strategic space for its continued expansion or to take a stand and seek to limit China’s rise. (more…)
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GEOFF RABY. Prometheus bound: How China’s power is constrained
The more Australia positions itself as if there is only a binary choice between US or Chinese hegemonic influence in the region, the more likely conflict becomes. (more…)
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GEOFF RABY. Australia needs a foreign policy not a speech (Australian Financial Review, 21.08.18)
The Prime Minister’s intervention last week to take charge of China policy and begin to set out a clearer framework for managing the relationship was much too late and probably too little, but it was a welcome start nonetheless. (more…)
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GEOFF RABY. An Australian-ASEAN Hedging Strategy on China
Australia’s diplomacy in recent years can at best be described as underwhelming, if not at times inimical to Australia’s national interests. In March, however, the presence of ASEAN Heads of Government in Australia, meeting at Prime Minister Turnbull’s initiative, was an event of major significance. It is to be hoped that it will mark a return by Australia to its previous, activist, middle-power role in the Asia-Pacific Region. (more…)
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GEOFF RABY. Lessons from China’s 40 years of reform – a very personal reflection
I am delighted to have been asked to open this conference [the China Economists’ Conference] which is occurring on the 40th Anniversary of the launching of China’s reforms and open-door policies, policies that have changed China and the world. (more…)
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GEOFF RABY. How Kim Jong-un can bring his economy in from the cold.
In the early spring of 1990, Pyongyang was more prosperous than many foreign analysts, who had never been there, had thought. The CIA, for decades, had believed the country was on its knees, on the verge of economic collapse, although the Agency had not had any first-hand contact there.
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GEOFF RABY. China relations can only be unfrozen with Julie Bishop’s sacking
Once again Australian foreign policy seems to be missing in action. As events unfold at remarkable speed in our area of most strategic interest – north-east Asia – Australia finds itself unable to engage with the key participant at the centre of those events: namely China. (more…)
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GEOFF RABY. The current mess in Australia/China relations
The Australia/China relationship is at its lowest point since the bloody crackdown in Tian’anmen Square on 4 June 1989 which provoked western sanctions against China. Arguably, it is even worse now. Back then the Chinese Government was bending over backwards to entice ministerial-level visits from Australia. Today the Chinese Government is telling our Ministers not to bother applying. (more…)
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GEOFF RABY. Where have all the grown-ups gone on China policy?- A REPOST from June 23 2017
Malcolm Turnbull’s glib talk of ‘‘frenemies’’ does nothing to help the urgent debate over how we handle the rising power of China. (more…)