Hoping for the best, preparing for the worst: Australian conceptions of the China challenge from Hawke to Howard

Responding and adapting to China’s economic, strategic and political weight is a defining challenge for Australian national security and public policy, but how this came about remains contested. This paper provides a critical examination of the way in which the Hawke (1983–1991), Keating (1991–1996) and Howard (1996–2007) governments both conceived of the strategic challenges posed by a rising, authoritarian China, and framed their responses to it. It presents two arguments here. First, that the approach of these governments was consistent with neoclassical realist explanations of how secondary states often hedge in response to rising great powers through pursuit of ‘risk contingency’ strategies that simultaneously seek engagement and risk management vis-à-vis a potentially threatening or powerful state. Second, that this was a prudent approach under the structural conditions then prevailing in Australia’s strategic environment.