Publications Archive
Power and Values in a Changing Asia: Debating Australia’s Strategic Future September 07, 2011 / Andrew Shearer
Australia is at the forefront of the debate over how Western democracies should balance and manage their alliances with the United States, on the one hand, and their growing economic ties with China, on the other. This essay focuses on the challenges facing the Australia-U.S. alliance flowing from the rise of China and analyzes them through the prism of Australian national interests, values, and public attitudes. It is worth examining the Australian example in some detail to understand the diplomatic, economic, and security dynamics that increasingly will challenge other Western democracies as they work to define their interests vis-à-vis the world’s current superpower and its ever-rising challenger.



