Australia and China: A Conversation with Paul Keating

La Trobe University’s Ideas and Society Program is extremely pleased to be able to invite you to an online discussion between former Prime Minister, Paul Keating, and James Curran, a Professor of History at the University of Sydney and author of Australia's China Odyssey, on a question fundamental to the future of Australia--our relations with China and, thus, the United States.

In the words of the Convenor of the Ideas and Society Program, Professor Robert Manne:

“Fully a quarter century since his Prime Ministership, Paul Keating remains the political voice a very large number of Australians believe most worth listening to.

"Mr Keating has long argued that Australia must seek security not from Asia but in Asia. By contrast, the Morrison government sought to resurrect Australia’s reliance on our two “great and powerful friends” with its creation of the AUKUS Treaty.

"The present leader of the Opposition, Peter Dutton, has even argued that it is “inconceivable” that we would not go to war in defence of Taiwan, thus effectively abandoning the longstanding United States and Australian policy of "strategic ambiguity" regarding China and Taiwan.

"The Albanese Government has, so far at least, altered the tone but not the substance of the China policy it inherited from its predecessor.

“In relation to China, Paul Keating has called for realism, calm and balance. Most recently, he criticised the decision of Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, to visit Taiwan, a visit to which China responded with a series of threatening military exercises aimed against Taipeh and which notably ratcheted up the tension between Washington and Beijing.

"For both supporters and opponents of the Keating argument regarding a question that will shape Australia's future, Paul Keating's conversation with James Curran ought not to be missed.”