China Dependence

The latest issue of Australian Foreign Affairs explores Australia's status as the most China-dependent country in the developed world, and the potential risks this poses to its future prosperity and security. China Dependence examines how Australia should respond to the emerging economic and diplomatic challenges as its trade - for the first time - is heavily reliant on a country that is not a close ally or partner.

Millions of Americans are taking prescription drugs made in China and don't know it--and pharmaceutical companies are not eager to tell them. This is a disturbing, well-researched wake-up call for improving the current system of drug supply and manufacturing. Several decades ago, penicillin, vitamin C, and many other prescription and over-the-counter products were manufactured in the United States. But with the rise of globalization, antibiotics, antidepressants, birth control pills, blood pressure medicines, cancer drugs, among many others are made in China and sold in the United States. China's biggest impact on the US drug supply is making essential ingredients for thousands of medicines found in American homes and used in hospital intensive care units and operating rooms. The authors convincingly argue that there are at least two major problems with this scenario. First, it is inherently risky for the United States to become dependent on any one country as a source for vital medicines, especially given the uncertainties of geopolitics. For example, if an altercation in the South China Sea causes military personnel to be wounded, doctors may rely upon medicines with essential ingredients made by the adversary. Second, lapses in safety standards and quality control in Chinese manufacturing are a risk. Citing the concerns of FDA officials and insiders within the pharmaceutical industry, the authors document incidents of illness and death caused by contaminated medications that prompted reform. This probing book examines the implications of our reliance on China on the quality and availability of vital medicines.

“There is no Australian future – sunlit or shadowed – in which China will not be central.” ALLAN GYNGELL The seventh issue of Australian Foreign Affairs explores Australia’s status as the most China-dependent country in the developed world, and the potential risks this poses to its future prosperity and security. China Dependence examines how Australia should respond to the emerging economic and diplomatic challenges as its trade – for the first time – is heavily reliant on a country that is not a close ally or partner. Allan Gyngell calls on Australia to dial back its hysteria as it navigates ties with China. Margaret Simons explores whether Australia’s universities are banking unsustainably on Chinese students. Richard McGregor considers Australia’s trade dependence on China and the dangers of economic coercion. David Uren probes ASIO’s expanding role in monitoring foreign investment and asks if Australia’s fears are trumping opportunities. Ben Bohane reports from Bougainville in the lead-up to its historic referendum on independence. Melissa Conley Tyler proposes a new funding model to reinvigorate the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. David Kilcullen offers a US perspective on Australia’s defence vulnerabilities and capabilities. PLUS Correspondence on AFA6: Our Sphere of Influence from Jonathan Pryke, Wesley Morgan, Sandra Tarte and more.

With the rise of China, Japan and many East Asian countries are caught between maximizing profit from economic ties with her, and strengthening alliances with the United States to prevent China from overpowering them. Liberals and realists thus debate over the likelihood of either security tensions easing up or economic interdependence getting reduced eventually. On the other hand, Iida introduces a new theory that reinterprets the relationship between state security and economic interdependence among countries in the Asia-Pacific region. Based on case studies of recent episodes in East Asia, and especially on the experiences of Japan, this book highlights an interesting dynamic between security and economic interdependence: risk avoidance. By understanding how risk avoidance affects the behavior of these countries in terms of security and economics, it becomes evident how they eventually settle into what Iida calls "Cool Politics" and "Lukewarm Economics".

"The modern-day Chinese and U.S. economies have been locked in an uncomfortable embrace since the late 1970s. Although the relationship was built on a set of mutual benefits, in recent years it has taken on the trappings of an unstable co-dependence. This insightful book lays bare the pitfalls of the current China-U.S. economic relationship, highlighting disputes over trade policies and intellectual property rights, sharp contrasts in leadership styles, the role of the Internet, and the political economyof social stability. Stephen Roach, a firsthand witness to the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s and an economics expert who likely knows more about U.S.-China trade than any other Westerner, details how the two economies mirror one another. Co-dependency augments the tensions and suspicions between the two nations, but there is reason to hope for less antagonism and rivalry, the author maintains. In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, both economies face structural changes that present opportunities for mutual benefit. Roach describes a way out of the escalating tensions of co-dependence and insists that the Next China offers much for the Next America--and vice versa"--

The Chinese government has frequently been criticized for propping up anti-democratic governments. This book investigates the rise of China as an emerging authoritarian power. By comparing China’s bilateral relations to three Asian developing countries – Burma, Cambodia and Mongolia – it examines how China targets specific groups of actors in autocracies versus non-autocracies. It illustrates how the Chinese non-interference policy translates into support for incumbent leaders in autocratic countries and how the Chinese government has thereby profited from exploiting secretive decision making in autocracies to realize its own external interests such as achieving access to natural resources. In a statistical analysis of the patterns of Chinese external cooperation and their impact on the survival of autocratic leaders, the book finds some evidence that China is more likely to target autocracies with economic cooperation. However, only some forms of bilateral interaction are found to increase the prospect of survival for autocratic leaders. This important contribution to the understanding of both external factors of authoritarian endurance and China’s foreign relations, a field of study still lacking systematic investigation, will be of great interest to students and researchers in Development Studies, Asian Studies, International Relations, and International Political Economy.

The global implications of China's rise as a global actor In 2005, a senior official in the George W. Bush administration expressed the hope that China would emerge as a “responsible stakeholder” on the world stage. A dozen years later, the Trump administration dramatically shifted course, instead calling China a “strategic competitor” whose actions routinely threaten U.S. interests. Both assessments reflected an underlying truth: China is no longer just a “rising” power. It has emerged as a truly global actor, both economically and militarily. Every day its actions affect nearly every region and every major issue, from climate change to trade, from conflict in troubled lands to competition over rules that will govern the uses of emerging technologies. To better address the implications of China's new status, both for American policy and for the broader international order, Brookings scholars conducted research over the past two years, culminating in a project: Global China: Assessing China's Growing Role in the World. The project is intended to furnish policy makers and the public with hard facts and deep insights for understanding China's regional and global ambitions. The initiative draws not only on Brookings's deep bench of China and East Asia experts, but also on the tremendous breadth of the institution's security, strategy, regional studies, technological, and economic development experts. Areas of focus include the evolution of China's domestic institutions; great power relations; the emergence of critical technologies; Asian security; China's influence in key regions beyond Asia; and China's impact on global governance and norms. Global China: Assessing China's Growing Role in the World provides the most current, broad-scope, and fact-based assessment of the implications of China's rise for the United States and the rest of the world.