Economic Power and Vulnerability in Sino-Australian Relations

Abstract

We sift through the evidence of China’s apparent economic coercion of Australia in 2020 in order to glean insights into China’s use of geoeconomics and the broader lessons that it reveals about the relationship between power and economic interdependence. After an overview of how coercive vulnerability could arise in Sino-Australian trade, we turn to each of the main affected industries—barley, beef, tourism and education, and wine —and outline four things: the mechanism of disruption, the evidence for considering it coercive, its apparent impact, and the logic of targeting the industry. We conclude with a discussion of the lessons arising from Australia’s experience before making recommendations for government and industry.

Keywords: geoeconomics; economic coercion; Australia; China