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Sino-Australia relations have experienced a rapid deterioration in the past half-decade. From genial ties centred around trade and exchange, the relationship has descended into mutual hostility, prompting the editor of China’s Global Times to notoriously liken Australia to a blob of gum on the bottom of a shoe. To explain the deteriorating relationship, scholars have proposed numerous ideas, pointing to factors as wide-ranging as ‘Chinese influence’, poor diplomacy efforts, and ontological (in)security touched off by neoliberal governmentality. The current paper examines these ideas in a literature review, then synthesises such ideas to provide its own explanation of why things ‘went wrong’. It also addresses corollary questions such as why Australia adopted a uniquely assertive China policy, and why this occurred specifically around 2017. We argue that the breakdown in relations can be attributed to the rise of nationalist, sovereignty-oriented movements in the West, and the spillover effect this had on Australian leadership; the profound uncertainty attending the election of Trump and his isolationist tendencies; and the shift to a more rigid, authoritarian approach to foreign affairs under Xi. This perspective adds to the literature by identifying failings on both sides while underscoring significant yet underappreciated global trends, such as nationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Australian economy has benefited from several decades of extraordinary Chinese expansion. Slowing growth has diminished these gains and geopolitics between China and western democracies has seen restricted commerce between China and Australia. We use a global economic model to assess the consequences were these tensions to restrict all associated commerce, yielding an Australian real GDP contraction of 6 per cent. A 'bamboo curtain', restricting all commerce between western democracies and all other regions, would see massive global losses, with Australia's economic welfare impaired most, while some short‐run relief could stem from small‐country monetary 'free riding'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the historical connections between Australia and Asia, using the personal story of a Hungarian refugee who traveled through Asia on his way to Australia in 1957 as a lens. The article highlights the significance of a photo album given to the refugee in Saigon, Vietnam, which documented an anti-Communist festival. The authors argue that Australia's focus on nationalism has often overshadowed its historical ties to Asia, and they call for a more inclusive and nuanced approach to history. The article also introduces a special issue of History Australia that explores the interconnections between Australia, China, and Japan. It discusses how the processes of deimperialization and decolonization in both Australia and Asia have shaped Australian histories and knowledge production of Asia, and emphasizes the importance of understanding the emotional aspects of historical geographies and fostering productive dialogue among scholars. [Extracted from the article]

Inbound tourism from China contributes to around 15% of Australian tourist arrivals. However, the political and trade relations between the two countries began to deteriorate since 2018. Considering this environment, using annual data from 1991 to 2019, this study enables the identification of alternative tourism markets for Australia. The results suggest that maintaining price competitiveness and consumer satisfaction should be high priorities of the Australian tourism policy to attract more tourists. The findings of this study provide insights to formulate new strategies to attract tourists from the other top markets in the event of a decline in Chinese tourist arrivals to Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For almost two decades, Canberra hedged its economic and security bets between China – its most significant economic partner – and the United States – its core security ally – rather successfully, with Australian policymakers announcing that the country would not have to choose between the two great powers and that there are ways to maintain a tight alliance with the US while enhancing friendship and cooperation with China. However, Australia-China relations started to deteriorate in the mid-2010s, with Canberra effectively giving up on hedging by signing in 2021 the AUKUS (Australia-UK-US) security pact and undertaking other steps that have been widely received as unequivocally joining the US's effort to contain China. This article explores Australia's foreign policy transformation by conceptualising it as a transition from hedging to balancing against China. It develops a theoretical argument about why an essential middle power might decide to give up on hedging and start balancing. It argues that the end of hedging in Australia's China policy is a result of disappearing structural uncertainty and systemic permissiveness on which hedging, as a pattern of smaller power behaviour, is premised. As such, the article contributes to the knowledge about hedging by highlighting the limitations of smaller power hedging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amidst concerns that Australia may end up in a military confrontation with China, this article evaluates New Zealand's formal and informal alliance obligations in such an event. In keeping with Wellington's current declaratory policy, New Zealand's obligations would be most pressing if the attack occurred on or near Australia, although these would be less clear if China favoured coercion over violence. New Zealand is also likely to have strong alliance obligations if Australian forces were attacked in the South Pacific, the leading area for Australia-New Zealand security cooperation. If Australian forces were attacked in East Asia, New Zealand may have some obligations under the trilateral ANZUS Treaty despite the suspension of Washington's commitments to Wellington under the same agreement. While New Zealand's military capacity to assist Australia in maritime East Asia is limited, this is where a serious clash involving Australian and Chinese forces seems most likely. Enlarging the geographical focus of the trans-Tasman alliance may be logical in this new setting, but it could also be hazardous. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summit photos and gift bags have become key imagery for host countries, and with Australia hosting the Quad Leaders Meeting in 2023, what the Albanese government does with the Quad leaders will signify how he seeks his government to be perceived. After a turbulent first half of the year where foreign policy took an unusually large focus of the 2022 election campaign, in July to December the Albanese government was able to settle into government and carve out their foreign policy agenda. While the Liberal party had its own foreign policy agenda, which included the "Pacific Step Up", enhancing relations with the Quad, and going hard on China, since the election of the new Albanese Government we have seen Australia become a "global citizen" once more. This foreign policy review will seek to unpack the beginnings of the Albanese and Wong approach to overseas affairs, looking at their typically-Labor regional focus, and how the new government is seeking to separate its foreign policy brand from previous governments. [Extracted from the article]

The high concentration of China's barley import sources determines that China's barley import trade is vulnerable to the impact of tariff policy adjustment. In particular, in 2020, China implemented anti-dumping and anti-subsidy policies against Australia, the largest source of barley imports. Therefore, whether China's barley import trade will face import risks due to the adjustment of tariff policy has become a question worth discussing. Based on the above background, this study uses the partial equilibrium model to explore the impact of China's adjustment of tariff policy on imported barley from Australia on China's barley industry under the changing trade relations between China and Australia. Through analyzing the feasibility of developing domestic barley industry and expanding barley import sources, further explore strategies to deal with barley import trade risks. The results show that: Under the three import tariff adjustment simulations, the total import volume of China's barley shows a downward trend, and the import price increases to varying degrees. However, the relatively small increase in domestic production suggests that the domestic barley market is less able to cope with the risk of a sharp drop in imports. At the same time, affected by the adjustment of tariff policy, some Chinese consumer demand is difficult to satisfy. China can deal with trade risks by implementing an import diversification strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crops expressing insecticidal crystal proteins of Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), often provide an opportunity for lower resistance selection toward synthetic pesticides due to reduced spraying frequency and the subsequent significant increase of natural enemies for the control of secondary pests. We would therefore expect declines in insecticide resistance levels. We analyzed patterns of resistance to insecticides used against cotton bollworm (CBW, Helicoverpa armigera) and cotton aphid (Aphis gossypii) in Australia and China in relation to landscape composition and pesticide applications. In both countries, insecticide resistance in H. armigera declined rapidly in the first 7-8 years of commercial Bt cotton farming, but the trend then reversed with resistance levels either higher or the same as before Bt cotton was commercialized. The susceptibility of A. gossypii to insecticides differs between China and Australia. In China, the relatively high resistance levels in aphids did not decline after introducing Bt cotton and in fact increased. In contrast, there was no clear trend of declining resistance levels in A. gossypii after the adoption of Bt cotton in established cotton growing areas in Australia. We conclude that the resistance in H. armigera was influenced by sprays in crops other than cotton in diverse cropping landscapes; in A. gossypii, resistance was driven by the insecticide use patterns within traditional cotton growing regions. Our study implies that the principals of rational landscape level resistance management for both target and secondary pests should be adopted when commercializing Bt cotton, to better account for the compatibility of Bt crops with IPM outside and within cotton industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australia–China relations began to sour in 2016, and the China threat narrative began to dominate since then. Unlike previous studies which either use a qualitative approach or cross‐sectional dataset for empirical analysis, this study creatively creates high‐frequency weekly and monthly time series datasets using the Google Trends search results during January 2016–February 2021. Based on a series of time series modellings, this study examines the roles of various actors, including China's own policies, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and Clive Hamilton, various factors, including Chinese purchase of Australian housing, Chinese investment in Australia, Chinese students in Australia and China's rise and various media outlets, including the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Australian Financial Review, Sydney Morning Herald, Daily Telegraph and Herald Sun, in contributing to Australia's China threat narrative. This study makes significant contributions to academia in methods by bringing a new quantitative approach to international relations studies and to policy‐makers as well by quantifying the roles of various actors, factors and media outlets in Australia's China policy debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores contemporary Chinese memory of World War II by revisiting the wartime relations between the Republic of China and the Commonwealth of Australia. Topics covered include an outline of the history, local memory and official remembrance of China's onetime Allied cooperation, the process of restoring wartime heritage that began in China in the 1980s, and the factors that can help explain the absence of the Allies in contemporary official Chinese war memory.

Aim: This study aims at understanding mammographic density profile in China by comparing the density between women in China and Australia. Methods: Data of 3250 women aged 45–69 were obtained from the Cancer Screening Program in Urban China and data of 1384 Australian counterparts at same age range were gathered from the Lifepool project. Demographic and reproductive details and mammograms for each cohort were collected. Mammographic density was assessed using AutoDensity, and two metrics, percentage density (PD) and dense area (DA), were applied. T‐tests were used to compare the means of mammographic density between two populations of all, premenopausal, and postmenopausal women. Two‐way ANOVA was conducted to examine interactions of population (Chinese/Australian) and each variable of interest upon mammographic density. Results: Chinese women had 9.61%, 8.20%, and 9.28% higher PD than their Australian counterparts in all, premenopausal, and postmenopausal women, respectively (all p < 0.001). The mean differences in DA between two population were 1.81 cm2 (p < 0.001), 0.55 cm2 (p = 0.472), and 1.76 cm2 (p = 0.003) for all, premenopausal, and postmenopausal women, respectively. There were significant interactions between population and age (F[4, 4624] = 4.12, p = 0.003), BMI (F[2, 4628] = 3.92, p = 0.020), age at first birth (F[1, 4250] = 11.69, p < 0.001), breastfeeding history (F[1, 4479] = 17.79, p < 0.001), and breastfeeding duration (F[1, 3526] = 66.90, p < 0.001) upon PD. Interaction was only found for breastfeeding history (F[1, 4479] = 4.79, p = 0.029) and breastfeeding duration (F[1, 3526] = 17.72, p < 0.001) for DA. Conclusions: Both PD and DA were found to be higher in Chinese women compared to Australian women. The density difference by menopause status was shown and breastfeeding history affected breast density differently in both populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims briefly to explain and evaluate Australian studies in China over the past 60 years. It will take up how Australian studies began and grew in influence, and a couple of the organisations that helped it do so. It discusses, in particular, four Australian Studies Centres (ASCs) with which I have had some involvement. Through the lens of these centres, the article probes the nature of Australian studies in China, arguing there is a close connection between international and domestic politics and Australian studies in China. Australian studies grew and flourished in a context, and because of, good political relations between Australia and China. This article also considers some implications behind establishing such an extensive network of ASCs and speculates on their future in a context of the current poor relations between the two countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While there is a proliferation of studies on China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), there is a gap in the literature in terms of an exploration of the costs and benefits from the perspective of the energy sector, in both the areas of sectoral development and energy transition. This paper uses Australia as a case study. The paper is the first to quantify the impact of the BRI in the energy sector, and the analysis informs the current debates on the BRI in Australia. We find that energy cooperation under the BRI enhances the performance of energy companies, but the Chinese energy investment in Australia faces mounting challenges. We suggest some areas for cooperation and such cooperation could be extended to third countries. Amid the increasing trade and political tensions, the two countries need continued, level-headed discussions and debates about the potential cooperation areas at all levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent 'trade war' between Australia and China has understandably sparked fear amongst Australian policymakers, voters and businesses. China's alleged economic coercion towards Australia has the strange property that Chinese leaders are not making any clear explicit demands of Australia. Moreover, this behaviour follows a pattern in recent Chinese dealings with other Asia-Pacific states. Why would a state initiate economic coercion without making clear demands? In this paper, I offer an explanation, building on the logic of audience costs in wars of attrition. I suggest that China's strategy of economic coercion without explicit demands serves a key strategic purpose. Omitting specific demands makes the outcome of any given dispute less clear and hence makes it easier for either side to claim victory. This negates a key advantage which democratic states have in bargaining with autocratic adversaries—the fact that their audience costs for backing down are usually higher, which makes them less likely to initiate but more likely to win international disputes. Implicit economic coercion should therefore be a strategy which is primarily targeted at China's democratic trading partners. I examine the record of Chinese uses of economic coercion in the past and find that this pattern finds much support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper quantifies the effects of shocks in bilateral political relations on Australia's merchandise goods exports to China between 2001 and 2020. Using a vector autoregression framework, our estimates suggest that short-term fluctuations in political relations have no long-run effects on Australia's aggregate export growth to China over this period, nor in any of three sub-periods analysed. A disaggregated analysis of 19 HS2 sectors reveals heterogenous short-run effects across sectors and time periods, with numerous sectors indicating the seemingly perverse finding that an increase in political cooperation/conflict is associated with a decrease/increase in export growth, with a lag of one to four months. We propose two hypotheses that are consistent with these findings, 'doubling down' and 'dropping the ball', contributing new understanding to the political relations-trade nexus in the context of a bilateral relationship that will likely be characterised by both cooperation and conflict in the decades ahead. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Until the election of a new Labor Government in Australia in May 2023, the relations between China and Australia had deteriorated markedly, deeply affecting the prospects of educational links between the two countries. While the relations appear to have now improved somewhat, many of the tensions persist. This paper provides an historical overview of the relations between China and Australia, as a way of showing how despite hostile political attitudes the possibilities of friendly relations at people-to-people level have always persisted. This suggests that even within the context of enduring geopolitical tensions, the broader potential of international education should not be overlooked. However, to realize this potential, it is important to consider how internationalization's moral and political goals of intercultural communication and understanding might be more effectively promoted, beyond its market orientation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has reaffirmed international education as an important dimension of its Belt and Road initiatives, while countries in the West have sought to develop policies that seek to limit China's international influence. At the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Xi Jinping emphasised how education, science and technology, and human resources are the main strategic elements for building a modern socialist country. In their paper, LI Jian & XUE Eryong provide an analysis of internationalization policy of higher education in China, naming its historical stages, challenges, and strategies. [Extracted from the article]

"Happy Together: Bridging the Australia–China Divide" by David Walker and Li Yao, with Karen Walker, explores the complex relationship between Australia and China. The book intertwines the personal stories of the authors with the histories of both countries, highlighting the shared experiences and connections that have developed over time. It delves into the cultural and geopolitical processes that have shaped the narratives of their family histories, offering fresh and insightful perspectives. The authors emphasize the importance of listening and understanding in bridging cultural divides and offer an uplifting outlook for the future of Sino-Australia relations. [Extracted from the article]

This essay probes the role of civil society in Australia-China relations during Xi Jinping's term in office. Varying explanations have been advanced to explain difficulties in bilateral relations, some pointing to the role of Australia's security establishment in orchestrating a 'China Panic' in civil society and prompting the Australian government to act. I argue that this confuses cause and effect. Civil society was a decade ahead of government agencies in exposing PRC surveillance and interference among local diaspora communities, and it acted not from the angle of geopolitics and international rivalries but out of concern for freedom, rights, and equal treatment for all Australian citizens. A decade on, it succeeded in alerting authorities to the PRC's sharp-power operations in Australia and strengthened the government's resolve to deal with them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on an assessment task within a Bachelor of Social Work program. The unit aims to help students develop an understanding of the ways social workers use research in different practice contexts: assessing community needs, formulating policies, developing new services, evaluating programs, enhancing social work practice and developing theory. Students are introduced to quantitative and qualitative approaches and methods in social work research, in the context of specific practice fields including mental health, domestic violence, community development and policy advocacy. The unit required students to develop and implement a smallscale research project. This paper includes a discussion of what worked well, what could be change in the future and a reflection on how research skills may be useful for future practice as social workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Clearly Australia must place an emphasis on our relations with the region, which the Albanese Government is doing. The Albanese Government campaigned on an Australia that is a more engaged and responsive partner to our Pacific neighbours, that revitalises our historically deep engagement with South East Asia, and that treats climate change like the security challenge it is. And in the face of arguments about the relationship between the Alliance and Australia's sovereignty, or the Alliance and our place in the region, the answer is the same. And to be sure, the Albanese Government is completely committed to making Australia the most active participant in the Alliance that we can be. [Extracted from the article]

The El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), as one of the main factors driving extreme climate events, exerts a major influence on interannual climate variability around the world. However, ENSO effects on vegetation, especially regarding the extent, intensity, direction, are not well understood. Here, we characterize and compare the variability in vegetation response to ENSO across China and Australia and explore their underlying mechanisms. Results show that the spatial extent of ENSO-sensitive vegetation differed between China and Australia and across land cover types. For both China and Australia, the intensity and direction of vegetation anomalies were closely related to the type of ENSO events. In particular, vegetation anomalies to the Central-Pacific (CP) type ENSO events were stronger than that to the Eastern-Pacific (EP) type events of the same intensity and generally responded in an opposite way, resulting from different controls of CP-type and EP-type ENSO on precipitation and temperature. Our findings highlight the diverse response of vegetation triggered by different types of ENSO in China and Australia, which can improve our understanding of ENSO impacts on ecosystems in the northern and southern hemispheres. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper aims to explore the impact of differences in educational traditions on conventions of teaching and learning, and on the measurement of learning outcomes. These are critical issues within the context of business schools that are steeped in one dominant tradition but have a large population of international students previously educated in other traditions. The paper argues that international students face the challenge of satisfactorily demonstrating learning according to foreign conventions that are different from what they would have been accustomed to within the framework of their home educational tradition. Design/methodology/approach: This study draws on a bilingual literature review to capture differences in educational traditions between Australia and China. It then uses logistic regression to analyze the performance of 800 domestic and international Chinese students across a range of different assessment formats at a large Australian business school. Findings: The study finds statistically significant differences in the performance of these two student groups on different assessment types. It concludes that the conventions on approaches to the assessment of learning shaped by a specific educational tradition can hamper the effective demonstration of learning among students from other educational traditions. Originality/value: The paper focuses on issues related to the assessment of learning in multicultural higher education contexts, which has received less attention in the literature compared to issues on teaching approaches in multicultural contexts. The paper also highlights important implications on the validity of the measurement of learning outcomes and on the subsequent impact on graduate recruitment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For several reasons, not all related, the scholarly engagement of Australian studies within Australia and its disciplinary instrumentalities - biennial conferences, a journal, and so on - remains predominantly Eurocentric. Notwithstanding - or perhaps even partly inspired by - the sometimes challenging political vicissitudes characterising the relationship between China and Australia, interest in Australian studies in China continues to grow. Tian concludes that, fundamentally, citizenship for Chinese-Australians, even those born and raised in Australia, remains contingent, and that the enduring fantasy of a "white Australia ... haunts generations of Chinese-Australians". [Extracted from the article]

Exchanges of products and services in bilateral industries may be accompanied by environmental and economic inequalities which lead to imbalanced situations in relation to environmental protection and economic development. In a close trade relationship between two countries such as Australia and China, their industries inevitably affect each other. This study maps the embodied CO2 emissions and value added in bilateral trade under the input--output model and measures the unequal exchanges in such trade using an originally established industrial environ-economic balance index. The bilateral trade between Australia and China is taken as an example to validate the outcomes of the research method. The results indicate that in 2014, Australia transferred 580.90 billion tons of CO2 and 105.85 billion USD of value added to China, while approximately 375.65 billion tons of CO2 and 25.15 billion USD of value added flowed from China to Australia. China's manufacturing, construction, and services and other industries, and China's and Australia's real estate activities industries had net inflows of embodied CO2 emissions and value added, indicating these industries paid economic costs in return for reducing environmental pressure. In inter-industrial trade between Australia and China, 49 pairs of bilateral industrial trades were relatively fairly balanced, while the remaining 15 pairs of inter-industrial trades were imbalanced. The established environ-economic balance analysis method and quantitative findings are valuable for better understanding the environment impacts of the economic development of national economies and developing national policies in corresponding to the rising environmental issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australia has not been alone in declining the opportunity to take part in China's Belt & Road Initiative (BRI). Instead, this article contends, Australia launched its own infrastructure initiative in the Pacific that has attempted to reduce the attractiveness of the BRI to the region. The article focuses on Australia's intervention in the Coral Sea Cable System, an action which vastly reduced the role of Chinese firms such as Huawei in building telecommunications infrastructure in the Pacific. Informed by a postcolonial perspective, we explain Australia's stance on the BRI in terms of its intimate but at-times problematic relations with Asia and the Pacific. This was reflected in Australia's unwillingness to acknowledge the legitimacy of the BRI as a foreign policy initiative, in its invocation of the 'rules-based order' to justify its intervention in the cable project, and in the design of its regional infrastructure program, which bore some uncanny resemblances to what Australian policymakers have depicted as the worst aspects of the BRI itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's Global Times has become more popular in the Australian media than ever, and its editor, Hu Xijin, has also gained worldwide attention. The Global Times presents a nationalistic narrative about China and the world. This study, the first of its kind in the academic literature, examines the relationships between the Global Times narrative and the China threat narrative in Australia and worldwide. By applying time series econometric models to weekly datasets from May 2020 to April 2021, this study finds that the Global Times narrative is significantly associated with the level of the China threat narrative in Australia, and the same is true for the corresponding global relationship. This study makes original and significant contributions to the academic literature and has useful implications for policymakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]