Australia’s Balancing Act in US-China Geostrategic Rivalry
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Abstract
From the US and China trade war, Australia as a dynamic actor has undergone many changes in the international system. In the past, Australia maintained a balancing power between China and US by being a trade partnership with China and getting closer military alliance with the US. Australia forged trilateral cooperation with Britain and US, which goes by the acronym AUKUS. It enables Australia to strengthen maritime security in the Pacific Ocean and to maintain nuclear-powered technology. The article argues that Australia's policy prioritizes forging a military alliance with the US rather than focusing on China’s economic relationship. The Constructivism approach, which is based on ideas, knowledge, and identities as socially constructed, is applied to the analysis of Australia as an actor in an international system. Australia is categorized as the middle power and its role in helping to resolve conflicts between superpower states and powerless states. Australia also acts as a hedging strategy to balance China’s rise to the US. The grand strategy approach is another conceptual framework of this study, which placed importance on geography as a main factor in making political decision and concentrated on non-military and military means. The Grand strategy persists in the influence of geographical prominence in building security capacity. The results of the study showed that Australia's security maritime consisted of the South China Sea, the Pacific Ocean, and the North of Australia. In short, Australia devotes to having a favored view of the US military alliance over Australia’s trade relations.
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