Word: howard
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...When Prime Minister John Howard visits China this week, his meeting with President Hu Jintao and the announcement of Free Trade Agreement talks will take the headlines. In private, Howard's message to Beijing's elite will be that an open economy like Australia's welcomes more Chinese investment, particularly through direct stakes in resource projects. As well, Howard will be trying to persuade Beijing to open its markets to Australian financial services, agriculture and manufacturing companies. "China insists that it be characterized as a market economy," says an Australian official. "Well, it's not just a question about...
...Since 1996, Howard's practical diplomacy - focused on deals, dialog and trade - has been well received by Beijing. "The comfort level is rising," says Ambassador Fu. Howard speaks of a "partnership for prosperity" between the two countries. "When we think about the future of Australia in the world, we inevitably think of a world where China will play a much larger role," he said last month, in an address to Sydney's Lowy Institute for International Policy. "China's economic dynamism is something we feel palpably in this country." In the 1840s, thousands of Chinese indentured laborers and free settlers...
...working on a nuclear safeguards agreement. "We believe in the peaceful use of nuclear energy," says Foreign Minister Downer. Although environmentalists are not the political force they have been in the past, uranium mine expansions or a Chinese stake in the industry would bring protesters to the streets. The Howard government has changed the way Australia addresses Chinese human rights violations by pursuing what Downer describes as a "practical and constructive" bilateral dialog rather than by condemning China in a meaningless vote in Geneva. Critics say that approach is only slightly better than doing nothing. "Trade is a great news...
...Follow the ore. Perhaps a future Chinese president will have gained a Rio Tinto scholarship to study at the Australian National University or honed her engineering skills at a Pilbara mine. Beyond this week's landmark visit by Prime Minister Howard, Australia's quiet revolution will continue. The long view could be just as surprising for 1.3 billion Chinese...
...jury is still out on whether Washington will try to contain China - America's most likely future "peer competitor" - or give it space to emerge as a great power. Prime Minister Howard says correctly, but also hopefully, that competition between China and the U.S. need not necessarily lead to conflict. But it is easy enough to imagine circumstances in which it might: tension in the Taiwan Strait, mishandled territorial disputes between Japan and China, even access to Middle East oil supplies...