China seeks client states not ideological conquests
The support at the G7 was comforting. But rather than follow in the US slipstream, Australia needs its own distinctive strategy to push back against Beijing’s ambition to rebuild the Middle Kingdom.
Australia came away from the G7 meeting in Cornwall comforted by the support of others. But joint statements tend elegantly to fudge differences and do not absolve us from reaching our own conclusions and crafting our own strategies.
Australia’s China policy cannot simply sit in the slipstream of US or G7 policy. We have our own distinctive interests to protect and advance. That demands clear-eyed thinking about what China is and is not.
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Peter Varghese is the chancellor of the University of Queensland and a former secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
