ROWAN CALLICK |

China was front of mind as the ANZUS Treaty was framed, was signed and came into force. The Chinese Communist Party had won its war with the Kuomintang Government and declared the People’s Republic of China on 1 October 1949. And the bitter civil war on the Korean Peninsula, in which China was a core combatant, was being fought through the entire period, with the three ANZUS partners also fully engaged.

Today, China is again the core focus of ANZUS strategising, training and planning – but the extent of the challenge it’s perceived to pose has been transformed extraordinarily by its economic surge, from GDP of US$30.5  billion in 1952 to US$15.2  trillion in 2020. It’s now an immense economic, military, diplomatic and technological power. Such is China’s regional, and global, enmeshment, that former concepts such as ‘containment’ – even if still viewed as desirable by elements within ANZUS—are no longer relevant.


Please click here to read the full “ANZUS and China” article published at Asialink, written by Griffith Asia Institute Industry Fellow, Rowan Callick.