Australia's Costs for Its Harder Line on China - The New York Times

New broad-brush laws to counter Chinese government influence have put Australia’s growing ethnic Chinese population under a pall of suspicion, leaving many fearful of discussing the topic, even with relatives.

Seemingly benign foreign interactions — not just with China — have been snarled by red tape and ill-focused information collection aimed at combating underhand interference.

Proposed investments by Chinese companies into industries such as dairy farms have been halted by the Australian government, often with little explanation.

“‘Let’s learn from Australia’ has become axiomatic,” said Andrew Chubb, an Australian researcher at Lancaster University in Britain who has written a study of Australia’s response to Chinese government activities.

“If their intention was to change our public policy settings, they’ve just guaranteed that they will not,” James Paterson, an Australian senator from the governing center-right Liberal Party, said in an interview.

But some former Australian officials argue that the lost market share in China will hurt more over time, and that the government’s attachment to its reputation as a plucky pacesetter against bullying by Beijing has held back healthy debate over how a middle power like Australia should manage relations.

“The knock-on effect of all of these announcements will be to further entrench suspicion of China and suspicion of the so-called ‘enemy in our midst,’” said James Curran, a former government official and a history professor at the University of Sydney who is writing a study of Australian relations with China.

Turnbull said in an interview that Australia had come to see Mr.

Not as loudly spoken was growing worry that the United States’ weight in the region was weakening compared to China’s, said Richard Maude, a former diplomat who helped write an Australian foreign policy document in 2017 that laid out the shift in strategy.

Jieh-Yung Lo, director of the Center for Asian-Australian Leadership at the Australian National University, said in an interview that Australians of Chinese heritage, including those whose families have been in Australia for generations, felt “wedged into a corner.”.

“Unless we go out and condemn China, our place in Australia will be in doubt,” he said.

The laws require registration and self-reporting for anyone engaged in activities on behalf of any foreign government, not just China.

Such efforts have cast an intimidating shadow over Chinese Australians, discouraging them from joining public life, said Yun Jiang, a former policy adviser in the Australian government who now produces the China Neican newsletter.

“I think there’s been a lack of attention to the complexity of dealing with China,” said Linda Jakobson, the founder of China Matters, an organization that has hosted discussions and studies about policy toward Beijing, and that had its Australian government funding cut significantly over the past year