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%).

China: Australian policy settings