The original version of this article contained information that was inaccurate and has been changed. See the bottom of the article for more information.
Australian officials at a UCLA-hosted forum Friday said they think their country and the United States need to engage in more free-trade agreements and encourage economic stability as they face growing economic and diplomatic competition from China and India.
The forum featured academics and officials discussing how Australia and the U.S. can maintain their power in the Asia-Pacific region. About 100 people, including students, attended the event, which had four panel discussions.
“The most to win or lose is in the Asia-Pacific (region),” said Malcolm Turnbull, Australian minister for communications, who served as a keynote speaker at the forum. “That is the new center of the global economy and America has as much skin in this.”
Discussion topics ranged from tracking growth in Asia to evaluating the Australia-U.S. alliance.
“The pressure being exerted … by the economic rise of less-developed economies (is) unlikely to abate,” Turnbull said.
In a discussion on strategic rivalry in East and Southeast Asia, Tom Plate, a professor of Asian and Pacific Studies at Loyola Marymount University, argued that the rise of China has greatly changed geopolitical diplomacy in the region. Plate said he thinks China is slowly becoming a second superpower.
“Now, there is a second sun coming slowly into the universe,” Plate said, referring to China.
David Kang, a professor of international relations and business at USC, said China has become a top power in the Asia-Pacific region, citing the country’s gross domestic product and economic growth.
“There is no more ‘China’s rise,'” Kang said. “China has traded spots with Japan.”
According to the International Monetary Fund, China had the second-highest GDP in the world for 2012, more than $2 trillion greater than Japan’s.
Jeffrey Bleich, who served as a U.S. ambassador to Australia from 2009 to 2013, said at the conference that contrary to popular belief, he thinks Australia does not have to choose between stronger diplomatic ties with U.S. or China. Because China is Australia’s biggest trade partner and the U.S. is an ally of Australia, some economists argue that Australia needs to choose which country it wants to be closer to.
“It’s false equivalency,” Bleich said. “The horse is dead and you’re beating him by the gravesite.”
Bleich said he thinks the rise of China and India will not lead to the U.S. weakening its grasp in the region, but will bring more economic and security cooperation.
The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, UCLA International Institute, Luskin School of Public Affairs, Anderson School of Management, Burkle Center for International Relations and the International and Comparative Law Program at the UCLA School of Law organized and hosted the conference.
At a similar conference last year, officials and academics discussed water conservation and management.
Clarification: G’DAY USA, the Australian government’s diplomacy program, did not organize the event. The conference was part of G’DAY USA.
