The United States and China are contesting for great power supremacy. Australia has for many years, depended on the United States for security; and on China for our economic prosperity, with China accounting for a third of all our exports. How should Australia best navigate this challenge? In recent years there are some who suggest that China is our greatest military threat. Our current Defence Strategy amplifies this, most obviously through the acquisition of AUKUS nuclear powered submarines and long range missiles.

This webinar features two speakers, and is introduced by Annette Brownlie, Vice-President of the United Nations Association of Australia Qld (UNAAQ) and national Chair of the Independent and Peaceful Australia Network (IPAN)

Speakers at today’s webinar will be:

Dr Jocelyn Chey, inaugural Executive Director of the Australia-China Council, former senior diplomat at the Australian Embassy in Beijing, and now Adjunct Professor at the Institute for Chinese Arts and Culture at the University of Western Sydney will discuss how China’s foreign policy is determined by its history, culture and by its historical experience.

“The critical issue is: who can you trust?”

Dr Vince Scappatura teaches in the School of International Studies at Macquarie University, and is author of The US Lobby and Australian Defence Policy, Monash University Publishing, 2019. He is currently working with Professor Richard Tanter on the ‘Nuclear-Capable B-52H Stratofortress Bombers Project’ which can be located on the website of the Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability. He will address whether China is a threat to Australia, what shared US/Australia objectives are with regard to China and what they should be if we are to have hope of a constructive relationship.