A secret briefing paper from 1980 forecast that China would break from the West soon after growing its economy and technological base.
Australian diplomats warned more than 40 years ago China may seek to break from the West after developing its economy and technological base, saying the Asian kingdom’s size and potential power meant it could “exploit and manipulate other countries to its own diplomatic advantage”.
Prime minister at the time Malcolm Fraser had continued his predecessor Gough Whitlam’s engagement with communist China but in Professor Curran’s words, brought an approach of real politik to it and saw China as a way to contain the Soviet Union., although with one notable difference, Mr Fraser mooted a four-power pact of Australia, Japan, the US and China as a check to the USSR.
“Traditional cultural patterns of thought make it difficult for China to accept reliance on the outside world and it may well be that the Chinese see Western assistance as a matter of expediency, a policy pursued only for as long as necessary to overcome the initial economic obstacles to its development.
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