Different Pasts: The Panda and the Kangaroo

Abstract

This chapter asks whether there is a possibility of a way forward in which Australia and China could have a shared future, even if the histories between the two countries were profoundly different. The authors acknowledge their ostensive differences and one commonality—insecurity and present a set of questions surrounding the question whether a shared future is possible. These questions are relevant at a time when Australia-China relations have never been so close yet never been so bad since the establishment of their diplomatic relationship in the 1972.