Read the full essay here.
In recent years, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has embraced the idea that China’s national culture and value system need to be spread more widely abroad if the country is to secure its foreign-policy objectives. The CCP pursues this strategy through routine public diplomacy as well as a range of unorthodox influence operations. Australia has been an early target of these activities. It has also been at the forefront among liberal democracies in generating community, media, and government responses to foreign-influence operations. This article explores some of these operations and responses over the period 2013–2017. It finds that many CCP and Chinese-government initiatives fall outside the spectrum of acceptable public diplomacy, and that Australian institutions nonetheless frequently invite and initiate such activities. In light of these findings, it questions whether new legislation can be effective without complementary changes in the behavior of Australian managers.