China and Australia: ostensible strategic partners, pragmatic transactional clients

An empirical review of the China-Australia strategic partnership formulated in 2013 suggests that it has remained largely ‘nominal’, with bilateral relations characterized by an ambivalent pattern of deep economic interdependence alongside persistent political and security mistrust. The research objective of this article is to examine China’s partnership strategy toward Australia and its underlying motivations as well as the systemic and unit level constraints that have contributed to the formation of this ambivalent pattern. This article contributes to the scholarly debate on China-Australia relations by situating China’s partnership strategy within the broader context of China’s rise at the systemic (global) level and by examining the China-Australia partnership through the lens of unit-level and systemic dynamics. This article finds that certain systemic- and unit-level factors have facilitated economic interdependence between China and Australia, whereas others have estranged the two states, resulting in the current ambivalent pattern of bilateral relations. This article concludes that this ambivalent pattern is likely to persist in the foreseeable future given the growing clash of interest generated by the systemic and unit-level constraints.