Australia Must Limit Ties With China And Build Up With India
Suddenly Australia has realized that all these years, what looked like benefiting from economic cooperation with China, was actually akin to walking happily and laughingly into a huge dependency trap.
Till last year China was trying to sell the perception that Australians were enjoying a China-led “knowledge boom,” as China was overtaking the US as the country’s leading international partner in the publication of scientific research.
The Australian themselves were helping China to win such perception battles.One in six of Australia’s 85,351 scientific publications in 2019 involved at least one China-affiliated researcher, and the number of partnerships increased 13.1 percent year-on-year, according to a report, citing data from the University of Technology Sydney.
Totally enamoured by the Chinese, Australia over the years had neglected to build up their relationship with the Asian and world giant India. In fact just to please the Chinese, Australia had at a point of time even walked out from the newly formed grouping called Quad.
Massive economic cooperation between the countries seemingly fueled related scientific research, leading to further intensive economic activities such as medical treatment and pharmaceuticals, which again seemingly benefited Australian exports.
With relatively low population and an insufficient number of high-end scientific research personnel in universities, Australia has remained in tight grip of the Hans, researchers, with Chinese scientists accounting for a high proportion.
However, by the time of the Morrison government Australian strategy began changing as realization dawned and they saw the big trap. Canberra has already enhanced scrutiny on bilateral scientific research in order to rule out sabotage in sensitive areas.
It has, for example, banned Chinese telecoms enterprise Huawei from participating in its 5G network construction, echoing the US’ crackdown on Huawei due to national security reasons.
Other than that, Australia needs to to secure all its other fledgling sensitive areas in sectors such as space, aviation and missilery technology.
Scientific and technological cooperation between China and Australia mainly falls in commercial and civil areas. Though even Canberra certainly derives economic benefits from such cooperation, it is China which benefits immensely.
Also if Australia does not divert then it may find that just like the East India Company had taken over India, a similar fate would befall Australia in the hands of the Hans.
China has thus far remained Australia’s largest export market, accounting for about 30 percent of the total value of Australia’s exports.
As its trade relies heavily on the Chinese market, Australia is suddenly finding that sudden complete decoupling from China due to Wuhan virus is quite difficult.
Thus the Morrison government is seeking a semi-decoupling from China: retaining China as its major market for the time being while reducing China’s role as a supplier.
Canberra has in recent years been ramping up efforts to replace China-made products with goods from Vietnam, India,Cambodia, Sri Lanka and other countries.. And that has significantly decreased its investment from China.
In fact China has openly threatened Australia that if it blindly limits China-Australia scientific research cooperation, it will further hurt its own economic interests. The Cattle and beef industry has already been sanctioned by China.
Presently Australia has high economic, political and security dependence on the US and the Chinese feel that Australia may continue to keel to the US in its anti-China campaign. Recently the US has asked China to close its consulate in Houston, it is even possible that Australia could follow suit and request a decreased number of Chinese diplomatic personnel in Australia.
China-Australia relations have already entered a historically low phase. Therefore Canberra must at once take action build up its economic and security ties with India.
Only India SAARC and BIMSTEC have the capacity to replace China as largest export market for Australia. And in terms of scientific research, Australia is aware that Indian talent is in high demand, particularly in the science and engineering sectors including IT.
