Book review : Australia–China Relations Post 1949: Sixty Years of Trade and Politics

The 40th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Australia and the People’s Republic of China has been marked by a series of publications, conferences and dinners. The chief value of anniversaries is to reflect on how we reached this point and find lessons for the way forward. This book by Yi Wang is therefore timely, as it outlines Australia’s relationship with China, beginning in 1949, and focuses on change and continuity in Australian foreign policy. It is a very convenient reference work, listing all the crucial trigger points of the bilateral relationship, and a useful historic extension of other accounts that begin only in 1971 or 1972. Unfortunately its release date, late last year, coincided with many other excellent studies, including David Uren, The Kingdom and the Quarry: China, Australia, Fear and Greed, Billy Griffiths, The China Breakthrough: Whitlam in the Middle Kingdom, 1971, James Reilly and Jingdong Yuan (eds), Australia and China at 40 and, most recently, the bilingual publication, Australia and China: A Joint Report on the Bilateral Relationship by the Australian Centre on China in the World and the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations.