How to handle China?

The rise of China continues to cause anxieties across Australia, the US and the Asia-Pacific region.

Just think of China’s persistent cyber-espionage, its assertive nationalism, its escalating defence build-up, its growing intimidation of Hong Kong and Taiwan, its aggressive build-up of military outposts beyond its border in the South China Sea, and so on.

Many people think Canberra can still finesse the China-US dilemma and sit on the sidelines and enjoy the best of both worlds: unconstrained trade with China under the US security umbrella. But can we keep riding two horses simultaneously – at a time when our most important trade partner has become more assertive and our most important security ally more erratic? Has the time come to choose the US over China in a more unqualified manner? Or should any support for Washington be more conditional and qualified?