Beware Chinese interference in Australia, new US report says. By Cameron Stewart.

Australia must accept a more difficult relationship with China if it is to hold Beijing to account for its political interference in the country, a major US report has warned.

The report, released in Washington today, also warns that the success of Australian efforts to counter Chinese interference is ‘far from assured’ and will require an unprecedented’ degree of ‘policy fortitude.’

The report, published by the Hoover Institution and the Asia Society’s Centre of US China Relations, reveals that many leading US China experts who previously championed engagement with Beijing have now adopted a more sceptical and hawkish approach towards China.

This change reflects a growing awareness in the US of Chinese efforts to undermine democratic values in the US and other western nations like Australia. …

‘Australia became the first country in the world to lay the foundations for a sustained and coherent counter-interference strategy,’ the report said, referring to the former Turnbull Government’s foreign interference legislation released last year.” …

“There is no precedent for a mid-sized, open, multicultural nation standing its ground against a rising authoritarian superpower that accounts for a large proportion of its migrants and one in every three of its export dollars,” the report says.

hat-tip Stephen Neil