You know it, we know it. The Asia-Pacific region continues to become more important and influential within the international system, as the US dominance of the past 50-ish years is declining. Not long after being elected, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese quickly got to work resetting some of Australia’s most important international relationships, with a particular focus on our APAC neighbours. The news around diplomatic visits, trade deals, and formal statements can be confusing to navigate if you don’t already have a solid understanding of Australia’s existing relationships with the likes of China, Indonesia and India. What do they think of us? What’s the history? Is Australia as influential in the APAC region as we think (or hope)?
Here’s your go-to primer on Australia’s relationships with: China, Indonesia, India, Japan and the Pacific Islands (click the link to jump to the section). Any time these countries pop up in Australian news and you’re not sure wtf is going on, let this be your guide on the context!
China
Snapshot of the recent history between Australia and China: At the start of former Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s time in government, relations between the countries were good. But it didn’t take long for things to unravel. China’s assertive foreign policy and the rapid modernisation of its military has always unsettled politicians in Australia and many other countries. In 2017, Australia banned foreign political donations, in response to reports of attempts to influence the political process in Canberra coming from China.
In 2018, Australia became the first country to ban Chinese tech giant Huawei from the 5G network. It also reportedly went on to block 10 Chinese investment deals across infrastructure, agriculture and animal husbandry. The relationship hit a particularly low point in 2020, when Morrison called for an inquiry into the origins of COVID-19. In fact, Morrison’s handling of the pandemic was often been criticised for being steeped in xenophobia.
China responded by essentially starting a trade war. In 2020 China imposed major tariffs to block imports from Australia. With China accounting for about 35% of Australia’s total trade, it’s a big blow (on the other side of the equation, exports to Australia is less than 4% of China’s trade).
From a diplomatic point of view, the relationship has been tense for a while. China does not like Australian criticism of its aggression in Hong Kong, Xinjiang, Taiwan and the South China Sea. To make a point about the perceived hypocrisy of such criticism, in 2020 the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs tweeted a doctored image of an Australian soldier holding a bloodied knife to the throat of an Afghan child. The tweet was in response to the release of the Brereton report, which found Australian special forces had committed at least 39 unlawful killings in Afghanistan. Scott Morrison demanded an apology from China; they refused.
What’s the Australia-China relationship like right now? China has said that the election of a new government in Australia government is “a good opportunity” to ease tensions and they genuinely want to improve the relationship.
Elena Collinson, co-author of The Australia-China Relationship: What Australians Think, said there are positive signs, but we shouldn’t expect magic overnight. “The new Labor government has been unequivocal about the fact that any meaningful steps towards improving the Australia-China relations will first necessitate an end to Beijing’s campaign of trade punishment.” FWIW, that’s the same stance that Morrison’s Coalition government held. But Collison says they seem to be taking a more tactful approach: “There has been a clear modulation of tone on Australia-China relations, and a greater emphasis on diplomatic tact and outreach in foreign relations more generally.”
“While there remains the potential for further discord not too far down the track, including on the status of the port of Darwin, there are also opportunities for cooperation in areas such as climate change and health.”
India
Snapshot of the recent history between Australia and India: Australia and India have been partnering in many areas. Teesta Prakash, Australia-Indo relations expert at the Lowy Institute points out two important collaborative groups: “In international relations, we’re seeing the rise of the mini-lateral. You have the Quad partnership which is Australia, India, Japan, and the US working together not only just to deliver public goods to the region, but also a frontier against China, in a very subtle manner. You also have Australia, Japan, India, as a trilateral that’s working specifically on issues such as supply chain resilience.”
However, over the past two years the relationship between Indians in Australia and federal government has soured. The Morrison government lost support from the diaspora when it imposed travel bans with the threat of jail time for people caught in India during the 2021 Delta outbreak. Prakash says that relationship will require “a lot of course correction.”
What’s the Australia-Indo relationship like right now? When speaking at the Lowy Institute for one of his campaign speeches, Albanese said India and Indonesia are the two tentpole countries in Southeast Asia that he’s moving to strengthen ties with.
Prakash explains it’s helps to view the relationship in two tiers. “You have high level politics, which is all about the free trade agreements and the defense agreements, which is going brilliantly for the two countries right now. It’s the low level politics, such as migration, workers rights and tourism visas. These are the ones that need work on. I think the new Labor government recognises the importance of low level politics, which is to increase people-to-people contact… The Indian diaspora is the largest growing in Australia right now.”
Indonesia
Snapshot of the recent history between Australia and Indonesia: Relations between the two countries have been uneven, partly because of Australia’s relationship with China. Indonesia has made it clear that they don’t want to choose between Australia, the US and China. The US-Australia relationship also tends to hinder Southeast Asian relations. According to Prakash: “Last year when AUKUS was announced, it caused a lot of weariness in Southeast Asia because this meant that they’re going to have a nuclear submarines in their backyard. Australia gets stuck in this dilemma whether to choose the geography [Indonesia] or whether to choose their history [US].”
But there is a positivity and cooperation within the Australia-Indonesia relationship too. Natalie Sambhi is a PhD Scholar at ANU’s Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, and highlights two key areas. The first is defense: “The issues that the Australian military cares about are also issues that Indonesia cares about. Working together would actually maximize our ability to be able to solve those problems.” The second is the people-to-people contact between the two countries. Australia is the most popular study-abroad destination for Indonesian students, and Indonesia is the second most popular travel destination for Australian tourists.
What’s the Australia-Indonesia relationship like right now? Prakash said the most important thing to understand about the region is that the countries work as a block through the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) group. “ASEAN works with consensus. You need to have all parties in consensus not just a couple.”
“The quad [Australia, U.S, India, Japan] very much excludes Southeast Asia and that’s been a challenge previously. It’s clear that Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong are aware of that and are working towards bringing them back into the region,” Prakash says. “But Southeast Asia is not going to choose between China and the US. So it’s a very fine balance that Australia will need to maintain.”
Those efforts to reach out to Indonesia are already clear. In his first month of being Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese visited Indonesia to strengthen the our ties with all southeast Asian nations. Albanese wanted to make a statement and boost all aspects of the relationship with Indonesia, saying: “It is significant that I brought with me the foreign minister, the trade minister, the industry minister here as part of the delegation, but also we have serious business leaders from Australia here because they want to deepen the economic ties between Australia and Indonesia.” Given China’s assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific region, we can expect to see this relationship prioritised by the new government.
Japan
Snapshot of the recent history between Australia and Japan: Australia’s relationship with Japan has historically been very strong. In 2020, Scott Morrison was the first foreign leader to visit Japan’s new Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga at home. Japan is the world’s third largest economy; it is Australia’s second largest source of foreign investment and third largest trading partner. For Japan, Australia is its largest supplier of energy and strategic raw materials, and now it’s second major military and security partner (after the U.S.). Their relationship is reinforced by Australia’s involvement in The Quad alongside India, Japan and the United States. So the ties between the two countries are important, strong and run deep.
What’s the relationship between Australia and Japan like right now?
Immediately after the election (literally two days later) Albanese went to Japan for the scheduled Quad meeting – his first international trip as PM. The overall tone of the meeting, and also his meetings with Japanese officials while in the country, were about continuing this strong and stable relationship, rather than change.
Pacific Islands
Snapshot of the recent history between Australia and the Pacific Islands: Australia’s influence in the Pacific has declined as the result of a misguided and confused foreign policy, and a disgusting joke by now Opposition Leader Peter Dutton. And it all centres around climate change. In 2018, Australia along with all other Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) members, signed the Boe Declaration, which states that “climate change remains the single greatest threat to the livelihoods, security and wellbeing of the peoples of the Pacific.” But as we all know now, Australia has failed to uphold the Boe Declaration, taking a passive stance on climate change. Australia nearly caused the collapse of the 2019 Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) meeting over a fiery disagreement on coal, global warming limits, and greenhouse gas emissions. With low-lying Marshall Islands, Tuvalu, and Kiribati most at risk of inundation as a result of rising sea levels from climate change, it is no wonder they are not on great terms with a country that doesn’t seem to care.
What’s the relationship between Australia and the Pacific Islands like right now? Australia needs to uphold its Boe Declaration commitments – not only to combat the climate crisis, but because we need a genuine partnership with Pacific Island nations now that China is strategically encroaching upon the region. Australia needs to strengthen its influence to prevent the security threats this is creating. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has pledged to “step up” discussions with leaders of Pacific Island nations and provide further economic support, and newly-elected Foreign Minister Penny Wong was sent to Fiji and other surrounding island nations in hopes of countering China’s talks. During the election campaign, Labor also promised to introduce programs, policies and funding specifically for the Pacific Islands to help them in the two key areas of security and climate change. It’s a clear a renewed effort to repair the relationship is being made – only time will tell if this will be successful.
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