Coming to Terms with China - Managing Complications in the Sino-Australian Economic Relationship

The ascent of China has irrevocably changed Australia’s external strategic environment. While China became Australia’s top trading partner during the mid-2000s, tensions in the bilateral economic relationship have posed a series of complications for Australian policymakers. In this article, we explore four areas where these complications have become salient: economic asymmetries, Chinese state capitalism, the so-called resource curse, and tensions with geopolitical imperatives. We argue these demonstrate that China’s rise is not only a security challenge for Australia but also an economic one, which demands new strategies that are sensitive to the challenges and vulnerabilities of the Sino-Australian economic relationship.