Observation
In recent years, the Australian government has sought to deter and balance China’s growing military might in partnership with allies, for example through the Australia–United Kingdom–United States (AUKUS) partnership on nuclear-powered submarines. At the same time, it has continued to engage with China as its top trading partner and a major global power.
How does the Australian public judge this balance? We asked respondents to say whether Australia should be doing more, less, or about the same on a range of key issues in the relationship.
A clear majority of Australians say Australia should be doing more to pressure China to improve human rights (61%), as well as working more with allies to deter China’s use of military force (60%). About half think Australia should be doing more with China to address climate change (49%).
Views on economic engagement with China are far more mixed. On trade, the largest proportion (43%) say Australia should be doing about the same as it is now, while the remainder are roughly split between those who say we should be trading more (30%) or less (26%) with China. On foreign investment, about half of Australians (49%) say we should be attracting less investment from China, while the other half say we should be attracting about the same (28%) or more (22%).