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Sailing China’s Red Seas
Can Pacific allies like Australia rely on the United States?
The rise of China poses deep strategic issues for smaller countries and middle powers who rely on China economically but do not share the values of its communist government. For a country like Australia, China is both a major trading partner and a strategic opponent that is fast morphing into a geopolitical foe akin to the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Balancing the China relationship is made even more difficult by the pressure exerted on the Australian government by the United States, which ardently wishes to see Asia-Pacific countries doing more to block China’s ambitions.
Part of the challenge of managing China comes down to a classic power struggle, one that has been documented throughout history, including by the first historian of the Western world, Thucydides, who documented the Peloponnesian War fought between Sparta and the parvenu power of Athens. The emergence of a new power — especially one with strikingly different cultural and political systems — will inevitably result in considerable tension and reactionary policies from the established power. Undoubtedly there is an element of this classic tale playing out with China and the West, however, for countries like Australia, falling back on such a relativistic view misses some important facts about how the…
