Notably, it has been a beneficiary of China’s economic boom. The close bilateral relationship between China and Australia poses both an opportunity and a challenge for Australia. It is an opportunity because Australia’s economic prosperity is increasingly getting tied to China. In contrast, it is a challenge because Australia needs to balance its close relationship with China while maintaining its security alliance with the United States. This paper shows how China’s rise poses a security risk to Australia, mainly due to its complex relations with the United States, mostly security matters.

The rise of China and its impact on Australia

&nbsp.&nbsp.&nbsp.&nbsp.&nbsp.&nbsp.&nbsp.&nbsp.&nbsp.&nbsp.&nbsp. There has been an ongoing discussion about Australia’s security risk by China’s rise and its Asian-Pacific domination. The heated strategic competition between the US and China in Asia has also heightened. As such, Australian strategists are worried about massive -scale regional conflict in the foreseeable future and are also concerned about how Australia should prepare herself for a possible outbreak of war and the conditions under which the country should join the conflict (Bates, 2005). Mainly, there is a potential conflict between these powers. therefore, the need to prepare for any eventuality. It is feared that the interstate war that started in 1991 is likely to come again (Baylis & Steve, 2008). Australia has a long history of fear of external aggression by other powerful Asian giants. &nbsp.&nbsp.China’s rise, which is continuing unabated, especially regarding its booming economic growth that is demeaning America’s influence in East Asia, poses a significant challenge to Australian identity (Edwards, 2005). The speedy rise of China, coupled with the relative decline of US control in the Asia-pacific, poses a challenge to Australians at all societal levels, thereby making them bear a painful experience of revising and even rethinking some of the self-beliefs and assumptions are taken for granted – that their country will remain peaceful in the foreseeable future and will continue enjoying the fruits of a strategic alliance with the US. &nbsp. Australia today appreciates itself and it place in the world, having turned upside down following the ongoing debate by its far-sighted and most prominent policymakers who are otherwise overturning political taboos by revealing much about the future of Asia, and that of Australia, in particular, following the sudden rise of China.