The Politics of Australian Responses to the Belt and Road Initiative

This article traces Australia’s evolving position on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) from 2016 to 2020, and its interrelated justifications for rejecting the BRI. The authors demonstrate that debate over the BRI disrupted a long-standing consensus about the centrality of free trade and investment to Australian foreign economic policy. They argue that the BRI signifies Australia’s shift from an enthusiastic support for global free trade in the past to a more qualified security-sensitive approach.