China is our region’s great power. We need to make the best of that

share_windows This article appeared in The Strategist on February 27 2026.

A nightmare that has haunted generations of strategic thinkers and policymakers in Australia has come true: we live in a region increasingly dominated by an Asian great power.

China has rapidly become East Asia’s principal trade partner and strategic actor. If Australians want to be secure in the Indo-Pacific, we have no choice other than to recognise, if not embrace, this reality and the unforgiving logic of geography.

Even though China is famously Australia’s major trading partner, the rise of the People’s Republic is overwhelmingly seen as more of a strategic threat than an economic opportunity. True, Australia’s enviable living standards are potentially hostage to China’s increasingly assertive policy calculus, but its use of geoeconomic leverage is hardly unique.

This is understandably disorienting for political and strategic elites, especially at a time when the familiar architecture of the international order is being undermined by the United States, the country that has long been seen as its principal architect and foundation. With Donald Trump in the White House, presumed certainties are being upended as even military alliances are seen as potential sources of leverage.

It’s perhaps unsurprising, then, that supporters of the alliance and US primacy want critics to explain what a more productive relationship with China might look like and how it would fit with Australian values.

The hardest part of answering this question may be agreeing on what the greatest threat to Australia’s security actually is. I doubt anyone thinks a Chinese land invasion of Australia is likely. Even the much-discussed threat to our sea-lanes of communication seems a bit unlikely: why would the world’s largest trading nation want to disrupt the very system upon which its economic wellbeing depends?

In such an environment, Australia’s possession of a handful of nuclear-powered submarines can make no difference to China’s strategic calculus: if China is not deterred by the United States, it’s not going to take much notice of anything we do. More to the point, even though history suggests it’s virtually guaranteed Australia would actively support the US in any possible conflict with China, it’s far from certain that the US would return the favour.

Indeed, the US may even decide that maintaining a forward presence in our part of the Indo-Pacific is more trouble and expense than it’s worth. It’s not impossible that Trump may want to come to some mutually beneficial arrangement with Chinese President Xi Jinping, for whom the dealmaker-in-chief has expressed admiration.

A world of competing spheres of influence would be a very difficult one for Australia to navigate, especially if its primary allegiance were to a non-resident power. Under these circumstances, why not try to make the best of a bad job and construct a more productive relationship with China?

An encouraging point about China is that it at least uses constructive language when talking about the sorts of issues we might hope to see addressed at this especially perilous historical moment.

‘A community of common destiny’ and an ‘ecological civilisation’ do sound a bit unlikely, unless you think, as I do, that climate change is the single biggest challenge to the driest continent in the world. The unambiguous scientific reality is that climate change is rapidly getting much worse and will continue to do so unless there are immediate, coordinated transnational efforts to do something about it.

It’s true that China is the biggest emitter of carbon dioxide in the world, but it’s also the biggest manufacturer and installer of solar power. Not only are China’s own emissions plateauing, but the cost of energy is coming down in places that desperately need it as a direct consequence of its efforts. This compares favourably with US climate policy.

I’m not confident that even this will be enough to save us from much more serious environmental problems, but I am sure that if we don’t cooperate with countries that are at least trying to solve them, then fretting about Australian values will be the least of our worries. Significantly, even current and former military leaders recognise that climate change is becoming a major security problem.

I’ve suggested elsewhere that Australia and China could set the world a good example by collaborating to give up using or mining coal. Perhaps we could offer to cancel the new submarines if China stops building aircraft carriers, too. Arms control and increased spending on environmental remediation should be an unambiguously good idea at this point in history. Making them part of serious, open-ended national conversations about security would be welcome indeed.