Bloomfield, Alan

Abstract
This article examines Australian grand strategy in the context of China’s rise during the period of Labor governments between 2007 and 2013. Australia’s grand-strategic posture is treated as the dependent variable, plotted along a balancing-to-bandwagoning continuum. Australia remained within the hedging zone throughout, although there were discernible shifts in posture during the period. While momentum was building towards a more overt balancing posture during the Kevin Rudd era, the various balancing and bandwagoning ‘signals’ were more contradictory after Julia Gillard unseated Rudd 2010; in short, she stabilised Australia’s grand-strategic posture, meaning it remains best characterized as ‘dominance denial’.
Read the article online here.