Looking Forward: Australia's Relations with the People's Republic of China in the Twentieth Century

Abstract

The primary intent of the present dissertation is to analyse Australia’s relations with the People’s Republic of China from 1949 until the first decade of the 2000s. However, before examining the Sino-Australian relationship, it is analysed the history of Australia’s foreign policy, significantly developed at the beginning of the 1900s. Firstly closely subdued by Great Britain and later largely conditioned by United States, Australia’s foreign policy attained some degree of independence when it was expanded to the countries of the South-East Asian Region. In 1949, Australia faced one of the central events of the region, the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, the country with which Canberra has developed one of its most important bilateral relationship. As a matter of fact, the growing importance of China led Canberra to strengthen its connections with Peking, although diplomatic relations between the two countries were not established until 1972. As a result of the Chinese internal troubles, its international challenges and its regional predominant influence, the People’s Republic of China has represented the most complex foreign policy dilemma to Australia. During the 1950s and the 1960s, the Sino-Australian relationship was also influenced by Canberra’s dependence to Washington and its hostility towards the Chinese Communists. On the contrary, in the following decades, both countries have enjoyed a relationship of mutual understanding and cooperation, albeit some problems and crisis affected the friendship. The dissertation examined the reasons of such problems, explaining how the historical and political relations, guided mostly by economic reasons, have developed creating also important social and cultural connections. These connections increased to a point in which the strong and dynamic interactions between the two nations led to the growth of a significant community of Chinese Australians. The last part of the dissertations represents the cultural counterpart of the political and diplomatic Sino-Australian relationship. They are described the experiences lived by the Chinese and the Australians citizenship in first person. The Chinese, in particular, narrate their lives in Australia and the problems they encountered: from the menace of Yellow Peril which affected the first Chinese gold-seekers, to the menace of the Red Peril which blamed the Chinese Communist, to the last generation of Chinese Australians who were born and grown in Australia, knowing little or nothing of their Chinese historical roots.