What can Australia do as US-PRC rivalry intensifies?

Much scholarly and policy attention is focused on the two great powers, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the United States, and the impact of their behaviours on international relations. As a third party, Australia has huge stakes in maintaining good relations with both and promoting a stable and prosperous region more broadly.

How can Canberra exercise its agency to best advance its interests as great power competition heats up?

Zhiqun Zhu, Professor of Political Science and International Relations at Bucknell University, US, and currently a US Fulbright Scholar at Griffith University, Australia, has spent the last few months in Australia seeking to understand the country’s challenges and forming a perspective on the next steps that Canberra might take. In a webinar hosted by the Australia-China Relations Institute at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS:ACRI), Professor Zhu will outline his assessments. 

Professor James Laurenceson, UTS:ACRI Director, will then moderate a discussion with Professor Zhu and Dr Lai-Hai Chan, Senior Lecturer in the Social and Political Sciences Program, School of Communication at UTS, on Australia’s current circumstances and future policy direction. The discussion will be followed by audience Q&A. 

About the speakers 

Professor Zhiqun Zhu 

Zhiqun Zhu is Professor of Political Science and International Relations at Bucknell University, US. He is currently a US Fulbright Scholar at Griffith University, Australia. He is the author and editor of more than a dozen books, including A Critical Decade: China’s Foreign Policy 2008–2018 (World Scientific, 2019). He is a member of the National Committee on United States–China Relations and is frequently quoted by international media on Chinese and East Asian affairs.

Dr Lai-Ha Chan

Lai-Ha Chan is a Senior Lecturer in the Social and Political Sciences Program, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, and a Research Associate at the Australia-China Relations institute, University of Technology Sydney, Australia. She was a Fung Global Fellow in the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies, Princeton University, New Jersey, United States in 2016-2017. Her research interests cover broadly global health governance, development aid and international politics of the Indo-Pacific. Her current research centres on the impact of China’s economic statecraft and infrastructure investment on the Indo-Pacific regional order; and on Australia’s policy in the Indo-Pacific. She can be reached at lai-ha.chan@uts.edu.au.