Book Review: China’s Grand Strategy and Australia’s Future in the New Global Order
I picked up Geoff Raby’s recent book, “China’s Grand Strategy: Australia’s Future in the New Global Order” with some anticipation. Australia’s national debate regarding China is in desperate need of informed, nuanced opinion. Being a lifelong diplomat and former ambassador to the People’s Republic of China, I held great hope that Raby’s timely publication would deliver the rational intervention Australia needs. Unfortunately, Raby overpromises and under-delivers.
Raby’s central thesis is that China’s ambitions for regional and eventually global hegemony will go unfulfilled. This is due to several reasons.
First, China is a constrained superpower — “prometheus bound” to borrow Raby’s formulation. China faces real and insurmountable barriers that prevent it from rising violently to the apex of the international system in the same way that the United States did in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This is undoubtedly true, and it is disappointing that this point is not made more frequently by China analysts.
Geography is destiny, as the old adage goes. No where is this more true than China, a country with fourteen neighbours across a 22,383 kilometre border. Historically, threats to China’s territorial integrity have originated on the Eurasian landmass. For this reason Raby argues that China will continue to be preoccupied with its Central Asian frontier through programs such as the Belt and Road Initiative. Unlike the United States, which is bordered by two oceans and two peaceful neighbours, China lives in an underdeveloped and volatile part of the world. It cannot afford to go careening around the globe establishing colonies the same way the United States did.
History has also left an indelible mark on China today. Hong Kong and Taiwan are the two most obvious examples. China’s leaders are conditioned by the knowledge that the situation in Hong Kong and Taiwan could make or break the Communist regime. Beijing is alert to the risk of permanently alienating the Taiwanese and Hong Kong populations. Recent mass demonstrations in Hong Kong and the decisive election victory for the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party in Taiwan have been embarrassing failures for China’s foreign policy.
China is also constrained by a lack of soft power. Soft power, defined as the ability to make other states want what you want, is China’s biggest weakness. Recent aggressive manoeuvres by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have backfired and negative perceptions of both China and President Xi have shot up globally. More pertinent however is the observation that China lacks allies and friends. China may be following Machiavelli’s advice that it is better to be feared than to be loved, but fear is a shallow basis for cooperation. Compare this to the United States, whose favourability actually increased in South Korea during the Trump administration. Meanwhile, China failed to achieve its strategic objective in South Korea of preventing the deployment of anti-ballistic missile systems.
Raby’s analysis is sound. China faces many constraints that will invariably restrain its global ambitions. Unfortunately however, the time and evidence he devotes to this argument is rather short-lived. Overall the book feels needlessly rushed and occasionally superficial in terms of detail. No where is the more true in Part Three, in which Raby makes recommendations for Australian strategic policy.
Australia’s foreign policy should be based on realistic assumptions, not exaggerated ideological fear, writes Raby. So far, so good. His policy recommendations however, are rather scattershot. For instance, Australia should disentangle itself from a US-led containment strategy directed against China. I agree. But at the same time Raby recommends Australia “continue to work on its alliance relationship with the United States”. One suspects the reason Australia finds itself gearing up for confrontation with China is too much attention being paid to the US alliance, at the expense of other relationships.
Nevertheless, Raby continues: Australian foreign policy should be based on realism, willing to work with regimes who offend our values. Australia should also “aim to support and elevate liberal values”. It is unclear how this tight-rope walk between realism and liberal idealism is to be balanced.
Similarly, Australia should drastically increase its defence spending, anywhere in the range between 3–4 percent of GDP. At the same time, Australia should develop closer multilateral relations with its South East Asian neighbours. This is contradictory at worst and a diplomatic nightmare at best, as Raby himself observes Indonesia’s annoyance at Australia’s decision to host US marines on Australian soil. How are we to convince the region that our increased defence spending — well outside the global average — is not directed at them? This recommendation seems to fly in the face of Paul Keating’s advice, which Raby embraces, that Australia should seek security in Asia, not from Asia.
The best recommendation is the establishment of formalised Asia-Pacific security architecture, something the region currently lacks. Here, Australian diplomacy is well experienced. We spearheaded the formation of APEC, the Pacific Islands Forum, the Cairns group, and numerous other issue-oriented coalitions. Once again, Raby’s lack of detail disappoints.
Overall, I would only recommend this book to total beginners on the Australia-China relationship and Asian geopolitics. Otherwise one is better off reading something more substantial.
