Why Australia’s Getting Tough on China Again

S. allies, Canberra is betting its entire strategic house on Pax Americana. , a professor of modern history at the University of Sydney and a foreign affairs columnist at the Australian Financial Review. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese listens to speeches at the opening of the Vuvale Skills hub in Suva, Fiji, on July 6. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese listens to speeches at the opening of the Vuvale Skills hub in Suva, Fiji, on July 6. Leon Lord/AFP via August 17, 2026, AM Since coming to office in 2022, the Australian Labor Party government of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has championed the virtues of a “stabilized” relationship with President Xi Jinping’s China. The fruits of this approach—which dropped a mantra of “pushing back” against Beijing and instead deployed the careful rhetoric of “constructive” engagement—have been obvious. Under the previous, conservative government of Scott Morrison, China’s unreasonable economic coercion of Australia had resulted in punitive sanctions on Australian exports to China of wine, barley, lobster, and coal, among other products. In December 2024, this came to an end when China lifted its final Australian embargo, on lobsters. Yet through this period of high diplomatic tension, the two countries’ economic complementarity continued, especially in the resources sector. Australia’s iron ore trade with China has largely underwritten its national prosperity for the past three decades, and neither Beijing nor Canberra’s hawks dared use it as leverage. Since coming to office in 2022, the Australian Labor Party government of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has championed the virtues of a “stabilized” relationship with President Xi Jinping’s China. The fruits of this approach—which dropped a mantra of “pushing back” against Beijing and instead deployed the careful rhetoric of “constructive” engagement—have been obvious. Under the previous, conservative government of Scott Morrison, China’s unreasonable economic coercion of Australia had resulted in punitive sanctions on Australian exports to China of wine, barley, lobster, and coal, among other products. In December 2024, this came to an end when China lifted its final Australian embargo, on lobsters. Yet through this period of high diplomatic tension, the two countries’ economic complementarity continued, especially in the resources sector. Australia’s iron ore trade with China has largely underwritten its national prosperity for the past three decades, and neither Beijing nor Canberra’s hawks dared use it as leverage. Indeed, despite the many targeted sanctions on Australia’s goods over that period, Canberra’s overall exports to China nearly doubled, from $116 billion in 2017 to $218 billion in 2023.